When I was eight years old I loved everything about summer. That is, until those “back-to-school” commercials started popping up everywhere (why they air those commercials as soon as we have our first taste of summer, I’ll never know.) As soon as I saw those advertisements, I was reminded of the horrors of going back to school—but that was before my education included lectures about movies and playing beer pong.  So, for those of us lucky enough to go to UofT, seeing a “back-to-school” advertisement no longer needs to fill us with mortal dread. Instead, we can embrace this time;  September is reborn as a time for Toga parties, being reunited with old friends, and even making new ones.

While many readers will have already passed Freshman year, I’m sure there are those of you who are still a bit nervous about heading off into the direction of academia. For those lucky few, I have prepared the following crash-course on how to spend your first few weeks at UofT.

1.Don’t freak out.

You’ve signed up for your classes. You’ve paid your tuition (hopefully!). You know where you are going to live.  Beyond that,  don’t worry over anything just yet. Just because the anti-calendar says your class is going to suck, doesn’t mean it actually will.  Just because you don’t know anyone in your class, doesn’t mean you can’t make some new friends– or at least meet someone to share notes with.  Don’t listen to people when they tell you to just “turn back while you can!”. You obviously did well enough in High School to get into Uni, so there is no reason you can’t succeed once you get there.

2. Seriously, don’t freak out.

All of those things you are worried about—making friends, tests, term papers, parties, getting lost—they haven’t happened yet.

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blogUT has been busy working behind the scenes with My City Lives to film and showcase a number of hot spots at the University of Toronto St. George Campus. September is just creeping around the corner and we know there’ll be a ton of new students joining us, many of whom will have no clue of where to go or what to see on campus (ah, to be a froshie!). We wanted to provide a resource to better acquaint these newcomers to our lovely campus. Lord knows we needed it back when we started at U of T. And seriously, what better way to do it than through a video series introducing all the different spots to visit on campus?!

Oh and to those of you who aren’t newbies to the university but still find yourselves lost sometimes? Don’t worry, this is for you too! And to be honest, while we were filming these little snippets, we discovered so many spots we had never been to or even heard of before! It just goes to show that no matter how long you’ve been in one place, you never stop finding new things to do or see!

We’ve got quite a few videos up and ready for viewing, so be sure to check them out on the My City Lives website or just click here. Oh and if you’re wondering who these mysterious “My City Lives” folk are…they’re our friends who have developed an online platform that gives us the chance to capture and share our daily experiences around the city on video. Presented on an interactive map, these web stories show exactly where each video was filmed so you can learn more about the city based on the stories and experiences of your fellow citizens. Pretty cool, huh?

Now our friends at MCL say, “Let’s Magellan our city” and now we’re calling all of you to Magellan our campus!

In the meantime, here’s a sample video where we show you around Hart House…quite literally the “Hart” of U of T, bringing together all of the different colleges and students on campus together to experience life outside of lecture halls, labs, and tutorials!

*If you cannot view this video, please click here.

U of T already has a student-developed iPhone app, but now we also have a handy tool for searching for U of T courses online. Created by psychology student Ammar Ijaz, it allows you to search by course code, term, professor, date and time, enrollment indicators, enrollment controls, and whether or not there is a waitlist. Ammar says:

Don’t you hate trying to find courses to take? Using the timetable and calendar books is bad enough, but the archaic website is even worse! I hate searching for courses, too, so I decided to create a website to make the task easier. Looking for 3rd year psych courses? Just put in “PSY3″ as a course code and hit “Show me!”

Check it out!

Ahhhh, it’s that time of the year  that we love to hate and hate to love…the dreaded/beloved course selections. I don’t know about you but I’m on the love side. There’ s nothing like planning a fresh new academic year. It’s just so full of hope, optimism, and excitement…free of the crushing weight of readings, labs, exams, and tutorials. It’s the calm before the storm and yes, I love to savour every moment of it.

Unfortunately, ROSI wasn’t so kind to me this year. I’m in my final year of undergraduate studies and got the late 10 AM enrollment time…leaving me on waitlists for courses that I desperately want to take. But alas, that is the life of a U of T student.

Read what other students are tweeting about course enrollment…some were successful, others, well, not so much!

In one episode of The West Wing, speechwriter Sam Seaborn finds himself trying to secure funding for a quantum physics experiment that has no practical applications, whatsoever. Trying to justify himself, as usual, before an unfriendly senator, Sam shouts out that the experiment matters because discovery has no roadmap, because we cannot know when something will come along that will change the world.

That’s the really frustrating thing about the humanities, even more than quantum physics – that so much of what happens in the humanities has small effects, maybe inspiring an article here, a dinner-time discussion there. If even. But every now and then, something earth-shattering comes along, some profound thought that changes the way we view ourselves, what we study, how we live, and what we do. Like the writings of Rousseau, Locke, Neitzsche, T.S. Eliot, that changed the way entire generations, entire centuries viewed themselves, or that changed, like Locke, the layout of the entire world. Celtic studies, Middle Eastern studies, and Eastern European studies are so contentious because people are still using them to define themselves. When Edward Gibbon wrote his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, his work said as much about Victorian England as about late antiquity.

And then there are those works in the humanities that will never shake the earth, but that make that which shakes the earth happen. Every discovery builds on previous thoughts. Robert Butts and Lawrence Cremin’s A History of Education in American Culture is not a groundbreaking work – it is only available in one copy in the entire U of T library system – but it informed the opinion of the court in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education supreme court case, which ended school segregation in the United States. (more…)

Yeah, yeah, yeah it’s summer time and if you’re like me at all, you want to push the thought of school out of your head as much as possible. But the reality is that the campus has been buzzing with activity in the past week especially as the dreaded G20 fast approaches and a new batch of graduates attended convocation. Take a look at what some students are saying on Twitter…

** Use the hashtag #UofT and you might just be featured on our weekly OH on Twitter feature!

You’ve seen him do the Soulja Boy in his underwear and you’ve seen him in a banana costume. This time he’s running through the U of T campus, New Ho King, and a grocery store dressed as a chicken. Why?

I believe being confident or cocky is a personal characteristic that’s developed over time. Being confident has nothing to do with one’s race.