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.

(more…)

Just three weeks before the end of the fall semester, I have come to the realization that I haven’t done any productive work outside of school since the start of classes.

As a first-year student, I naturally had many plans to do extra-curricular activities over the summer. French Club. The Varsity newspaper. Engineering Toastmasters. Engineers Without Borders. The Blue & Gold Committee (a spirit group for engineers). The Engineering Society, Academic Committee. The Engineering LEGO Club.

Tons of plans, but they’ve fallen through due to:

1. Time commitments. Toastmasters ends at 10pm on Thursdays, when I am often staying up late completing PHY180 lab write-ups. I also have limited time to begin with because the commute eats up 3 hours each day. LEGO Club… well, meetings are also on Thursdays, and I guess doing error analysis calculations is more feasible than constructing a house made of LEGO bricks.
2. Lack of response from group executives. I’m serious – I signed up for a gazillion clubs during the UTSU and Engineering Clubs’ Fairs, but have only been e-mailed by a handful. And some have only e-mailed once, and never again. The only French Club meeting I’ve been to was their introductory brunch, which, incidentally, was delicious.
3. Laziness. I signed up for blogUT, knew I was going to blog the second I had something to say, and… kind of forgot about it.
4. In my defence, it was partly also due to shyness and decision-making. I was trying to come up with something interesting to talk about. Whatever was remotely related to engineering, I stuck the blog entry into the Online Design Journal I’m required to keep in preparation for one of my final exams.

Considering that all of my friends here at U of T are first-years in engineering, I haven’t been doing non-scientifically-related writing for a while now, and I am slowly losing my French skills, my inactivity is clearly something I should deal with.

Fortunately, I kept the last e-mail I got from blogUT, in my Inbox where I could easily see it. And I discovered that not only was the founder a former EngSci graduate, but there were posts, personal ones (i.e. not just artsy reviews or school events!) that could resemble what I’d write in any blog.

I decided not to write for the Arts section of the Varsity when I realized that they didn’t publish book reviews (plus my  reviews are generally outdated – a few months after the book’s release), and didn’t write for the Science section because they seem to expect up-to-date news from research conducted right at the U of T. The Cannon, the engineering newspaper, has never e-mailed me since I wrote my contact information on the sign-up sheet.

So much for trying to be connected to student life. I guess that’s how blogUT started, because it sure feels good to be blogging and just… doing something aside from problem sets and whatnot.

I JUST joined blogUT! In fact, I JUST joined the community of U of T, like many of you! This post will be an introduction of me, to everyone on blogUT, I think.

At this moment, I am still a random dude to you, so let me tell YOU a little bit about MYSELF. I am 18 years old, I immigrated from Shanghai, China to Toronto when I was Grade 4. I am in University College, and I hope to do a double major in either Urban Studies, Psychology or Film Studies – any two of the three, I like them all, I think. And I commute from Markham.

I don’t know if whether I am introverted or extroverted, both I guess — it takes me some time to settle myself in a new environment, before I am comfortable to run and yell and do whatever I want. I sing (:D) and draw and observe and socialize and appreciate all kinds of ideas and cultures. It’s a real pleasure to be in U of T, since it’s so very multicultural and friendly - much much friendlier than my high school, which is a place where I didn’t have many friends over the four years.

Like everybody else, I am trying to get used to the new atmosphere., pushing myself to do this thing called studying harder than usual, and attempting to make friends with all kinds of students and people.

Speaking of making friends, here is my MSN email address: apricot_3817y [at] hotmail [dot] com and my UTOR email address: jam.zhou [at] utoronto [dot] ca. Add me and we can try to be friends, I think.

This is a photo of the tower near University College, I always see it sticking out of other buildings, so here's a picture, taken during my amazing Frosh Week. Enjoy.

Readings are very elusive things, but probably only to first-year students like me who only have two or three days’ worth of experience at university.

Of all three of the lectures I’ve been to, none of the professors have told me (or rather, the whole class of several hundred or even a thousand students) to read pages X, Y, and Z. Nope, they didn’t mention readings at all before, during, or after their lecture.

If this were high school, we’d all be cheering, “Yay, no homework!” at this point. Heck, it might even turn into some crappy remake of (the already-mediocre) High School Musical.

That was how I was feeling for the past couple of days. I mean, I knew I had readings… I just didn’t take it very seriously yet. I thought, I can read fairly speedy. I have the weekend to read. I can handle this.

Today, since my ECO prof. cancelled today’s lecture, I visited my high school. And one of my teachers said ominously (when I admitted that I hadn’t purchased all my textbooks yet), “Oh, you better get started soon then, or it’ll be very hard to catch up.”

With that word of warning in mind, I finally cracked open my new PSY textbook this evening, and started reading. And what do you think surprised me most? No, it wasn’t the interestingly easy and understandable way they wrote it, nor was it the fact that my highlighter didn’t soak through the pages. What surprised me most was: “Why is the reading so, so, SO very LONG?!”

Maybe it’s just me and my note-taking, but I’ve only gotten slightly less than half of the way through the required chapter. At least I still have until Tuesday to finish reading it, which is probably manageable.

But after Tuesday’s lecture comes Thursday’s lecture, and that means reading (and comprehending) one chapter in two days. I just hope I won’t be done in by that…on the second week of school.

Disclaimer: No offense intended towards High School Musical, Disney, or Zac Efron fans out there. You like what you like. That’s fine with me.

I like it.

The three words that pretty much sum up my feelings today, being an undergrad student here at U of T.

As with any brand-new student, there’ll always be that time of transition and change. Nothing can change that – it’s a part of life. However, I have to say that it’s not as scary as I thought.

Then again, I’m taking the Music program. Which everybody dislikes. For some odd reason.

Wait, wait, wait, don’t click the Back button – I know that reading a rant about an undergrad at Music might seem extremely boring, but please hear me out.

Let me introduce myself first (more…)