‘Nobody said it was easy.  No one ever said it would be this hard.’
The Scientist- Coldplay

Yes, yes, I just quoted Coldplay!  I’ve got to get my point across somehow.

Welcome back to school! This post is for all those students who, behind those bright, wonder-filled eyes, are struggling with the nag of self-doubt.

“Will I be successful here?”
“Will I fit in?”
“Will I pass my courses?”

My answer to you?  A firm “YES!”

How will you do so?  You will PERSIST and PERSEVERE.

Because, you see, persistence got you where you are today.  You’re a minority in our society, standing on the ground reserved for those who see value in education.  Many veer off of this road for various reasons, but those who persevere through the years of dedication necessary to meet this achievement are exactly where they are meant to be… right here, right now!

And you shall continue to persist and persevere.

It certainly does not get easier from here; if I said so, my words would be false.  However, the challenges you will face here will lead to new wonders in your life.  Success is measured in achievements, so never stop achieving.  Be persistent and relentless with both your self-development and achievements and you will experience massive success.

Perseverance, like success, is not a convenient process.  Hurdles need to be mounted.  Many of them are internal and, once overcome, life progresses quickly and smoothly.  Focus all of your intentions and efforts on the main task at hand; have a successful and fruitful experience while you are a student here at this prestigious institution.

Success builds upon success, so pat yourself on the back and shout this declaration : To persist is to persevere, and that is why I am here!

Stress – it affects all of us, some more than others. At times, university students may find themselves under more stress than most people. Aside from midterm and exam seasons, student stress is so much more complex. First year students feel the stress of having to adjust to a new school, second year students face the internal dilemma of having to choose their subject POSts, those in third year worry about what courses to take, and students in their fourth, fifth, and sixth years are stressed about convocation and the aftermath of their undergraduate studies. Regardless of the predicament, lean back and relax – here are five straightforward strategies that will help you keep your stress under control.

1. Take a deep breath. When you find yourself in a stressful situation, remember to breathe. Reflect and think clearly and critically. There is always a reason why stress was triggered in the first place. What is the cause of this stress? How can you deal with the current problem, and what can be done differently next time to avoid it?
2. Eat healthy. Pigging out on junk food is no way to deal with stress and, on the flip side, starving is not the solution either. Aim to have three healthy and balanced meals each day. Healthy food will help enhance neuron activity in the brain and will aid in activities such as studying.
3. Stay active. Take a yoga class, work out at the gym, brush up on your Taekwondo, or do whatever something else that’s more your cup of tea. Not only is exercise a key component of body fitness, it also helps reduce stress.
4. Organize your time. Stress often arises unnecessarily due to a lack of effective time management skills. The solution? Start a to-do list and make sure to assign deadlines for tasks. Keep your list updated. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen is a book available at Kelly Library and at other libraries on campus. As the title suggests, the content of this book will assist in the achievement of stress-free performance through analysis of numerous personal organizational strategies such as goal reassessments and how to stay focused when a challenging situation arises.
5. Take advantage of the University of Toronto’s services. Stress can be overwhelming, but the good news is that help is just around the corner. The U of T Office of Student Life offers a number of  on-campus resources to help you succeed, which include Accessibility Services, the Career Centre, Counselling and Psychological Services, and more. Check out www.studentlife.utoronto.ca to learn more about the Office of Student Life and its departments. For academic success services, the Academic Resource Centre offers workshops that will help develop academic skills. Workshops topics include time management, dealing with procrastination, exam preparation and writing, stress management, and so forth. Keep an eye out for these activities and check out other services at the Academic Resource Centre by visiting www.asc.utoronto.ca.

These five strategies will help you deal with and prevent stress. However, while these strategies look good on paper, in practice, stress management can be a challenge. Work on it and you’ll soon find yourself experiencing less and less stress. When stressful situations do arise, the main thing to remember to stay cool and, if necessary, to seek the necessary help.

Have a great, stress-free academic year!

For some of you, this time of year means facing the reality of a student budget and no one to cook for you. Apartment style residences, such as Woodsworth Residence, don’t offer meal plans for their students. Students who have chosen to move out and live by themselves face the same problem. Budgeting for food, especially when you live downtown, is hard and more often than not you end up spending more than you planned due to unforeseen circumstances (ie. your sudden craving for Sun Chips). I’ve been living by myself for the past two years, and will be starting my third. There are tricks I’ve picked up, things I’ve learned to look out for and websites I’ve come across that might be useful for all you student foodies out there.

1. Always have the basics stocked up.

Things such as oil, rice, pasta, dry seasonings and condiments last a long time and are cheaper if you buy them in larger sizes. They are also typical staples in your diet, and can be used in many different dishes, many different ways. If you’re a meat eater, you can stock up on meat too! Meat bought at the butcher shop or sold in packages can be cut and sectioned off by portion in plastic wrap and put into the freezer. Ground meat is especially versatile and easy to cook. Frozen vegetables are also very useful to have on hand.

Things to stock up on:

• A carb, like pasta or rice
• Olive oil, cooking oil
• Salt, pepper, dried herbs, sugar, other seasonings
• Canned goods, like canned fish
• Ground meat and frozen vegetables

2. Keep it simple.

Having watched The Food Network religiously while at my parent’s house for the summer, I can safely say that no matter how complex the dish may seem, the key is to keep it simple. You’d be amazed at the variety of things you can come up with when you have two or three ingredients.

For example, I had lemons and chicken breast in my fridge one day. I decided to make pan-fried chicken breast with lemon zest as the main flavor. Season the chicken with a bit of salt, pepper and dried herbs like basil. Then, quickly sauté some chopped garlic and lemon in olive oil. Add the chicken and cover. Flip. Make sure it’s cooked and then plate. For a bit of zing, squeeze some lemon juice on it. Serve with salad, rice or pasta. Voila, you’re done!

Gourmet salads are even easier. If you’ve got fruits or vegetables that are almost nearing their end, and lots of leafy greens, just toss them into a bowl. To make a homemade dressing mix olive oil, mustard and something acidic together and you have a base for delicious vinaigrette. Season to taste and you are set.

Just… don’t make it too simple.

3. Portion control.

Cooking for one person is hard. It’s cheaper to buy things bulk, but you may not be able to finish it all. Some of you may be like me and will be tempted to finish it as fast as you can, thus overeating. Others might end up with good food going bad after only being used once. Either outcome isn’t something you want. Portioning is very important.

I’ve already mentioned that you can section meat in the freezer. You can do the same thing with already cooked food. Save the time, cook everything at once, and pack it up in containers to freeze. It’s a tried and true trick, and is especially useful when exams and big assignments are coming up.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Of course, the most important thing about food is to eat healthy. There will be times where no name mac and cheese is on sale for 50 cents a box (I kid you not) and you will be tempted to buy it. Even if the boxes come alive and start dancing, don’t. Chances are, you can make your own mac and cheese that taste better with as much money per meal. Buy fresh. Look for products with less sodium and preservatives and more natural ingredients. If you snack, snack on fruits, nuts and vegetables. Nothing new, right?

Here are a few websites that are useful if you’re running out of ideas:

• Working Class Foodies
• Baked Bree
• $5 Dinners
• Cheap Eats
• Just a directory with 100 cooking blogs for students

Many of these things are common sense, but when you’ve got your head in the books (or other places *ahem*) you might forget. Just keep a cool head in the grocery store and at the cutting board, and you’ll have a great time in the kitchen. Here’s to a healthy and delicious year!

Your first year at U of T has the potential to be the worst year of your life. You might start university and, after a month of classes, start spending all of your time feeling sorry for yourself because, if you had only gone to Carleton, you’d be getting grades that are 20% higher with half the effort.

That being said, your first year at U of T also has the potential to be the best year of your life.

I’ve complied a list of cool stories about my life things you should try to do during your first year to make it the best year ever.: (more…)

One of these vials contains: a concentrated solution of denatured proteins; elemental and polyatomic ions; deoxyribonucleotides; a bit of RNA for good measure; and freshly replicated DNA strands that, when visualized on a polyacrylamide gel, will provide the final evidence confirming the hypothesis of a seventh year PhD student. The other contains water.

Life Science students spend a lot of time worrying: worrying about grades; whether or not to buy the $150 textbook for the ‘suggested’ readings; residence life (in a few cases); relationships (in even fewer cases); and grades. But there is something else we should be banging our heads against the biosafety cabinet about: the nature of biomolecular research.

I may not be saying anything new, but a significant portion of Life Sci students do some kind of lab research. You’ve probably already heard plenty of negative things about the long hours, thankless lab mates, inconclusive results, and distant profs, but I want to share some other aspects of lab research that you may not hear about until it’s too late.

This machine will become your new best friend. Without it, there are no numbers for science to work with!

Biomolecular research consists of mixing one colourless solution with another by pipetting miniscule volumes. Labeling these vials of clear, colorless, odorless liquid results in 80% of your time being spent with permanent markers, so prepare to sniff plenty of fumes.

After properly mixing all your nondescript liquids and labeling them (don’t forget today’s date!), you place these liquids in a complicated half-a-million-dollar machine designed by  some corporate engineers. As far as we’re concerned, the real magic happens inside this machine and it just poops out numbers on a monitor. These numbers are then processed by a grad student’s statistics software and voila! You have results.

There isn’t anything particularly wrong with this situation – it’s just the way it is. Think of it as one more strange and unusual environment we undergrads must persevere. And, for those who do, honour and glory await (or at least your chequing account is $4000 richer thanks to that summer grant)!

What ROSI looks like in my head. "WAITLIST"

For all the first years (and anyone who suffers from ROSIphobia), here are some course selection tips and tricks I’ve learned throughout my years at U of T. Hopefully they’ll help you beat ROSI at her own game: (more…)

That special time of year is just around the corner and for first-year students (and all other students, for that matter), it’s a pretty important time that always requires some planning. Yep, it’s course selection time.

Starting off, first year courses are pretty important. They may not be the most interesting, but we all have face the unbearable one day and first year can be exactly that. For your first year, just have an idea as to what general field you want to get into. For example: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English, and so on. You’ve got to have a general idea because that determines what kind of courses you have to take to start working towards your Subject POSt/degree. Having to switch part-way through would be frustrating since you’ve already put in so much effort working towards your first choice. So choose wisely in order to avoid such a tragedy. And I mean that. Seriously.

You’ve also got to look into whether a slightly ‘harder’ version of a course is recommended or needed. What I mean by this is that there can be multiple courses that count towards the same thing. However, certain majors require/recommend one over the other. Let’s take Physics, for example. If you’re taking Physics in first year, you essentially have 2 choices: PHY131/PHY132 and PHY151/PHY152. Both are a set of 2 half-year courses. From what I know (don’t quote me on this), Physics programs recommend PHY151/PHY152 while other Science programs (excluding Computer Science) allow you to pick between either. So if you’re keen and into Physics and want to do a Science program, you can go ahead and pick PHY151/PHY152. The only downside, if it even is a downside, is that not a lot of people in the same program take the ‘higher’ and ‘harder’ (note the quotes = not literally) courses. PHY151 and PHY152 are ‘harder’ and more in-depth than PHY131 and PHy132. So yeah. That’s pretty much the main thing you have to watch out for. Usually, though, the majority of people are indecisive when it comes to what they want to do, so it’s nothing to get too uptight about. Just keep some ideas in the back of your head.

Lastly, even though it’s a minor thing, is deciding whether you want to do a specialist, major, or a minor. Specialists are more in-depth versions of majors. And minors are… well, you get the point. Of course, there are pros and cons for each one. In my opinion, majors are more flexible and allow you to do more than one thing. So, if you want to focus on two things, a double major might be best for you. Specialists are for people who are seriously interested in only one subject matter and want to take a lot of courses centered around just that discipline.

Hopefully this helps you out if you needed help on this whole course selection thing. If it did, I’m glad I could help. Until next time!

Click here to see this year’s course calendar.