Let’s face it, we go to a school where the majority of the time we only manage a decent mark thanks to the bell curve. Have you ever done the sinfully necessary task of hoping all your peers failed that last term test so that, as a whole, you’ll ride the curve up to an actual passing mark? Sure that’s unethical, sure it’s immoral, sure that’s the reason U of T students get labeled as ‘competitive’. But you know what? I’m here to contest that.

(Scroll down a few paragraphs to skip Marina’s crazy blabbering!)

I'm sure we've all seen this before...

Ok, so we are a bit competitive – it’s become a survival strategy, really. We’ve all heard the horror stories where intense, evil students hide library books far into the abyss of Robarts, into a secret sanctuary only they know of. But really, that’s not to say we’re terrible people as a whole… right? I mean, we do help each other… right?

… I think had a point to all this but now I just feel slightly unnerved and depressed so I’ll just muddle on ahead.

Main Point: Even though we go to a competitive school, that shouldn’t ban us from the age old deed of Peer Tutoring.

Was that a bit random? Sorry, I tried to do a dramatic entrance but I got carried away in the mix of emotional torment that is realizing how difficult our school is.

Remember in high school when some people got their volunteer hours by tutoring their peers? Easy hours, but also a very fulfilling task. You actually learn more by teaching material to someone else! Also you’re helping out a peer whom shares your burden of school work, and might forever be thankful for even the smallest effort to help.

Coming into first year, I realized how much tutoring had helped in my high school. There’s this magical feeling when you’re explaining a concept to someone else, the feeling that you actually know what you’re talking about. Which is why I joined the University of Toronto Peer Tutoring Club (aka. UTPT)

Oh wait, you do know about UTPT, right? No? Well I just gave you 3 links to it. You can apply to be a tutor or tutee with them and get a hell of a lot of benefits.

For Tutees

• Free tutoring! None of that evil green stuff involved!
• A whole lot of tutors to pick from
• A whole lot of courses to pick from (not just the science/math ones either!)
• All disciplines welcome, all years welcome
• A great chance to get one-on-one help from an upper year
• And even group help sessions that are run eerily similar to tutorials…

I have taken the adventurous step. I now have mail.utoronto.ca.

If you use Hotmail or the Window’s mail system then this shouldn’t be a whole new world for you. In fact it’s exactly like the Window’s Live emailing system… because that’s what it is. But for those who would like to get some information here’s a screenshot:

Let’s go through this!

1. This is your list of mail! Yay!
2. Here you find the different folders you can organize your mail into. You can create folders to organize yourself!
3. Reply, reply all, or forward. Other actions are there too.
4. You get your own calendar! And contact list! And tasks to keep yourself organized!
5. This is the interesting part: online messaging. If another friend is online at the same time then they should appear online. It seems I don’t have many friends since no one is ever online on this thing.

Now, I know it’s a little odd to be discussing other universities on a U of T blog, but the recent controversy at the University of Western Ontario has evoked some concerns and questions for me about the U of T image. For those of you who have yet to hear of the changes happening to our notorious rivals, here is an update. This week, University of Western Ontario students were informed by their president, Amit Chakma, that UWO is no more.  Instead, the university has officially changed its name to ‘Western University’. Additionally, the university has released their new ‘visual identity’, changing their symbol from the well-known purple building to a newly designed (darker purple) crest.  The school representatives claim that the name change and the new visual identity was decided upon based on student, faculty, and alumni interviews about the Western image.  It’s assumed that the changes are meant to revive the Western image and create a more marketable institution internationally.

The change has been controversial among the student body at the former UWO. Questions about the necessity of the change, the effectiveness, and financial waste have been points of concern for Western students.  It’s estimated that the new transformation has cost over  $200,000 – money better spent elsewhere, perhaps?

WHO: United Nations Development Program at UofT

WHAT: Their first general meeting

WHEN: Thursday, January 26, 2012 from 3-5pm

WHERE: Hart House South Dining Hall

For more information go to: http://www.facebook.com/events/212639118825261/

Two things happened to me a few days ago that were ostensibly unimportant; but retrospectively striking.

The first thing that happened, was that a professor in a seminar I’m in this year asked the class, following our lively discussion of the week’s course material, what practical value we felt the course held, out of curiosity. At first, she was met with blank stares – this is, after all, a group of students taking a seminar, largely, I surmised, because this seminar so happened to be on an awesome topic. One student articulated this, noting that she was in the class out of academic interest – and what’s wrong with that, really? Undergrad would seem the time to learn about that which interests you, and not hesitate in that pursuit. There was some rambling about practical skills that could be gained from the course on my own part – and I maintain that beyond the value of the reading and assignments, any experience in a seminar setting has its own practical application – but it was agreed that it was a question perhaps worth returning to at the end of semester.

The second thing that happened, was that a cousin of mine, to whom I had recently sent a necklace I made in the mail, wrote on my Facebook wall thanking me for the jewelry. She added jokingly that perhaps I could make a career out of it – and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she meant that in the most complimentary, just-because-she-loves-the-necklace, not-at-all-related-to-the-value-of-my-undergraduate-degree sort of way. But still, it made me think. I absolutely love my program at U of T – I am beyond impressed with the amazingly precise, fascinating topics I have been able to study. But when I tell people what I’m studying, following a measure of curiosity, I am met with the question of what my plans are for after the completion of my degree. Will I need to find something else to make a career out of, when all is said and done? Will I end up doing something that is so far removed from my degree that these years won’t retain their meaning for me?

Which brings me to the present.

There is a certain preoccupation I have noticed for some time now with getting from point A to point B. Everything in life gets you from one point to another; everything is a trajectory. High school is a Point A that gets you to university, college, or whatever path you so choose or fall into – Point B. And the formula is easily applied specifically to university as well: undergrad is a Point A that can lead you to quite a selection of Point Bs: medical school, law school, graduate school, teacher’s college, straight into your career… There are many opportunities; but so far, in second-year, I don’t find that people (including third-years) have such a quick answer regarding what their plan is after undergrad, where as high school students seem to know their trajectory earlier on.

I’ve seen a lot of jokes lately on the internet and on television (notably on Daniel Radcliffe’s appearance on Saturday Night Live, in a hilarious and clever sketch called “You Can Do Anything”), poking fun at the age we live in for producing a generation that is ‘entitled’ in the sense of being encouraged to do anything we want, rather than forced into studying for obviously practical occupations. I do find it quite funny, and I think a lot of students share the sentiment that they can laugh at their lack of a clear trajectory or obvious practical application for their degrees. But that’s not to say that straight A science students who are obviously going to medical school, or political science majors who could have told you on your first day at U of T that they were going to law school, are any better than any other student, just because they have a very clear Point B.

A third thing happened to me, a few days ago. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, in a science program (but without a clear Point B as well), and she was telling me something really interesting she learned in a psychology class. It reminded me a lot of something I learned in a history class, which I then told her, and then we spent an hour or so discussing this historical anecdote I had offered in the context of this psychological phenomenon she had learned about.

Here’s what I’m getting at: there is a certain preoccupation with Point A and Point B – but for your undergrad experience to really resonate with you, you need to go beyond that line of thinking. This is a time to learn, so unique to any other academic experience you’ll ever have. This is about practical skills, certainly, and in any classroom at U of T, science, arts, engineering, you are guaranteed to gain those in one way or another, in the experience of attending lecture; taking notes; participating; writing, and so on. Of course, this is about Point B; getting the grades you need to get there, figuring out what you want that to be. But the essence of undergrad, as I see it, is developing a worldview; learning what your interests are and becoming a scholar in those fields; not just reading and writing about the world, but engaging with it, from whichever standpoint appeals to you. This is a time, more than to achieve high marks and get to the next step, to become intellectually actualized, establishing this new toolbox of knowledge that you can continually reference and build upon in your life.

U of T, for certain, is an excellent Point A; worth fully appreciating the pause, before rushing off to Point B. It’s not what you’re studying here, or where you’re going next, that makes your experience worthy: it is your engagement with your studies, the impressions that permanently mark your point of view; not the grades and the diploma and the plans you leave here with, but the person you leave here as.

At the beginning of this academic year, I made myself a mental list of New (Academic) Year’s Resolutions to follow in order to do better here at U of T. Among this list were such goals as: not driving myself crazy with stress, something which I have successfully followed through with although I have certainly maintained a fair degree of my natural insanity; not skipping lectures and tutorials for frivolous reasons, something which I have mostly managed to do; and continuing with my system of abiding by false early due dates, which has fortunately become habit to me.

While keeping these goals was not particularly difficult, one goal I found to be more of a challenge was that of frequently attending office hours in order to engage with professors and T.A.s, get feedback on papers, and generally network. For many U of T students, myself included last year, office hours are a mere footnote in a syllabus; perhaps worth highlighting in a fleeting moment of eagerness, but realistically, something to be skimmed; perhaps prior to a paper, if you’re having trouble, you may go to an office hour to get a push in the right direction, or at least a pull away from the wrong one; perhaps after a poor test grade, you might go to dispute your grade or pinpoint where you went wrong. Often times these interactions are vague and frustrating.

This year, in keeping with my goals, I regularly attended several office hours. I scheduled them into my agenda and went to discuss course material with professors and T.A.s, with an emphasis, of course, on the content of my assignments. This experience was rather enlightening, and I got a good sample of the different types of office hours you may encounter and their value.

There are a lot of obvious benefits to attending office hours.  First of all, there is the development of a relationship with your professor or T.A. In the long-run, any U of T reference is going to be a helpful one for you, and you want to be able to approach a professor who genuinely knows you and can write a letter that reflects that. Office hours are an opportunity for you to connect with professors and articulate your ideas to them. Another benefit of becoming familiarized with your professor or T.A. through office hours is that they will appreciate the effort and thought you are putting into their course. Further, when you receive an assignment or test back, you will find it easier to approach them afterward to discuss your grade without any implication of underlying hostility on either end. Rather than a defense, you can generate a helpful discussion.

Regular attendance to office hours also help you to develop an outstanding thesis and paper. Professors and T.A.s are evidently the ones grading your work and they have specific expectations and preferences which are hardly a secret – but you need to put forth the effort to inquire about them in order to obtain such information. Many profs and T.A.s, in my experience, will read parts of your paper and suggest changes. They may at least read your thesis or give the paper a thoughtful perusal, which itself is incredibly helpful. They will also point out small errors in formatting that you may have missed to ensure your essay is up to the standards of citation style in a given class; this helps so you don’t lose marks for frustratingly arbitrary reason such as putting a comma where there should have been a period in your Works Cited.

Not all office hours hold the key to an A of course. Some T.A.s will provide evasive and insubstantial answers in order to avoid any academic misdemeanour, for example, or some profs will provide far different criticism than suggested by your T.A.s that throws you off. However, I have found that most of the time, office hours are a really valuable use of 15-20 minutes in your day that can significantly enhance the quality of your work, as well as the quality of your understanding of course material.  Attending office hours to discuss course content is a really effective way of engaging meaningfully with a class.

I find I rarely have to wait at office hours. Professors are required to hold them, but they don’t often see much of an audience, except the week before a paper is due. They’re there every week, offering you the opportunity to include them in the process of producing your assignment and to have their guidance in the process of learning and understanding the course material. The art of the office hour, therefore, quite simply, is largely remembering to attend it.

I can feel it in the air – that distinct sense of shifting, as students are handing in their last essays and attending their last few lectures; the end of the semester is finally approaching, and as usual, it looks gruesome. The exam period – not only the actual writing of the tests, but the process of studying – overnights at Robarts, rewriting and rereading, cue cards, highlighters, coffee, sweatpants, snow, slouching – is just around the corner. It’s not a pretty time for U of T students, but it’s always laced with the comforting knowledge that winter break, that brief pause in our otherwise non-stop academic year (pardon me – there was that oh-so-satisfying “micro reading week”) where we might do a bit reading for year-long courses, but mostly can sleep, breathe, eat, and do all those other things that normal, non-U of T students do regularly and might consider, in fact, necessary to human survival.

I’m hoping to maintain my peace of mind during exam season this year, and while I know those moments of panic are unavoidable, there are certainly a lot of opportunities on campus for students to relax and defeat the stress plague, if only momentarily.

Hart House offers a variety of programs to soothe the stressed student:

• Massage Mondays – Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like. Free massages, because U of T knows – you deserve it.
• Lunchtime Crafts – Personally, I find arts and crafts to be really relaxing – though, of course, I have never produced anything presentable. Distract yourself with a little A&C, and who knows, maybe you will produce a great work!
• ThursTeas – Enjoy a warm cup of tea at Hart House while chatting with some new friends or reading a (non-school related, perhaps) book.
• Let Shakespeare distract you with the production of Macbeth playing at Hart House Theatre until November 26.
• Jazz at Oscars – This free event every Friday night brings all sorts of different music to the Hart House Arbor Room. Be entranced by live music to distract yourself from stress. The monthly Sunday concert in the Great Hall might also be of interest.

It’s difficult for students to keep up exercising during exam time, but sometimes going to the gym is exactly what you need to wake you up and keep you studying productively. Both the Athletic centre and Hart House offer a wide variety of drop-in fitness classes. The AC has free yoga among its repertoire, certainly a relaxing pastime.

The Multi-Faith Centre offers a variety of yoga and meditation courses over the term, designed to help you relax and find peace of mind.

The Angela Grauerholz exhibit is still on the University of Toronto Art Centre until November 26, and the centre remains open until December 10, for your perusing pleasure. Take your mind off exams by taking a brief tour through this great U of T resource.

Every Friday night at Innis Café, story tellers come deliver tales for “1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling”, a tradition which has been running since 1978. A well-told story could be just the right thing you need to wind down and distract yourself from the looming stress of exams. Innis Town Hall also has inexpensive movies playing throughout the exam period, which may also serve as a welcome distraction.

Exam period is one I clearly characterize as bleak, but I think there are definitely ways to limit your stress. You do yourself a disservice by climbing under a pile of books in a library for a week and not facing the light of day until you are forced to enter the outside world in order to walk to your exam destination. Taking some time during the exam period to not study for exams will make the time you spend studying all the more productive. It’s always a pleasant feeling to realize that the world is going on when you feel like it’s ending, so allow yourself to bear witness to that comforting truth by taking a break. Whether it’s a yoga class, or just a walk around our beautiful campus, indulge yourself this exam period, if only for a moment.