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Chapter 11: The Answers to Your Biggest Questions About University

I know I usually start off every entry with something similar to “oh dear, where did the time go.” Well, this one is no different. I have just over 40 days left in Ottawa until I go back home to Cow Town (aka Calgary) for the summer.

I have NO idea where the time went. It’s crazy to think that this time last year I was thinking about accepting my residence offer, starting to look at what classes I was going to take and starting my countdown to September. I sure had a lot of questions about what my first year of university had in store. After having been in Ottawa for the better part of a year, I figure I’ve answered most of those questions myself.

So, I decided to devote this entry to those very questions, in case any of you guys have the same ones. I also polled a few people on Facebook to see what they wanted to know or what they wished they’d known before going to university. Here’s what I came up with:

Q: Why do universities make their websites so hard to understand?
A: Good question. I was fortunate that Carleton’s website is fairly straightforward, but some of the others I looked at were positively terrifying. Perhaps it’s a way of weaseling out the faint-of-heart before they even apply to the school. That, or they need to give their web designer a raise.

Q: Is university as terrifying as everybody says?
A: When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher was a little bit terrifying. She had crazy hair a la Mrs. Frizzle, and the personality to match. We would be doing an assignment – something like a book report that at the time seemed like a huge project – and she’d go on and on about how she was preparing us for university. In grade five. The message my teachers passed on to me didn’t really change in the next seven years of school: “You think you’re working hard now? Wait for university.” Personally, I didn’t find anything to be overwhelmingly difficult to adjust to (apart from the whole being-halfway-across-the-country thing).

Q: How much harder is university than high school?
A: That’s up to you. School gets harder year after year, but we also – hopefully – get smarter every year, too. Most of my high school teachers went out of their way to terrify us about the amount of work that universities like to dole out. The workload is considerably hefty, but it's manageable if you are motivated enough to stay on top of it.

For me, personally, I didn’t find the work to be necessarily more difficult than it was in high school - there was just more of it. The most important piece of advice I can give you is one you’ve likely heard before: manage your time. Trying to write a term paper at three in the morning the day that it’s due is not how you want to go about things. I’ve slipped up a few times and left things to the last minute and regretted it. Case in point: I finished my History term paper at about 1:30 a.m. today. I could have had it finished a month ago. Do the work ahead of time when you can, and save the early morning hours for sleeping, not citing sources.

Q: How do you maintain your marks and your social life?
A: You don’t.

(I’m kidding.) It’s hard, but again, it comes down to time management. The other thing that’s important to keep in mind is the fact that you’re going through the same thing as everybody else. You may be feeling bitter at the fact that you’re spending your Friday night in the library, but there’s usually going to be a few hundred other people there with you. I often go to the library with my classmates or floormates, and while we’re usually working on different things, its nice to be able to be together and trade the odd word while still getting our work done. It’s really important to find that balance, because university has so much more to offer than simply schoolwork.

If you have any other burning questions, leave me a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer them as soon as possible. If you’re in the process of navigating through applications, residence forms and all that good stuff, good luck!