As my first day of classes at university approaches, I find myself wondering more and more what is going to happen, and exactly what to expect. I talked to a girl I met at some frosh events and she told me that there is a lot of reading and that, for the most part, it’ll be reading instead of assignments and whatnot. (Of course, then I’d imagine that final assessments would be worth a lot more.)
I’ll certainly have more free time at random hours – when I’m not studying, I can pretty much do whatever I want, and provided that I manage to get enough reading and/or notes done during the week, I can pretty much do whatever I want on the weekends. Considering that I’ll likely be working most of the weekends, that’s probably a good thing, as it means that I won’t be up late Sunday night trying to work on something due Monday. However, since I don’t have any 8 AM classes, that’s not as much of a worry (at least for this semester!), since technically I don’t even have to get up until 9 AM on most days unless I happen to work early, or I agree to drive one of my sisters to school.
I’m just worried that in university, since I tend to procrastinate until the very last minute and sometimes not even get things done, I’ll fall behind quite easily. I might put the reading off for one week and then assure myself that I’ll do it later, before the next class, but then that might never happen, and eventually I’ll have no idea what’s going on in class. I think I’ve even heard that’s why first year drop out rates are so high – people get lazy and then can’t keep up. I only hope the same doesn’t happen to me, but time will tell.
I’m fairly excited, though. Although my university doesn’t have a lot of clubs, the ones that they do have seem interesting, and I’m already thinking of joining a history club, the student newsletter and a women’s group. There are also some campaigns run by the student union that I’d like to get involved in: queer/trans* issues (a very dear friend of mine falls into this category and as such it’s important to me), combating rising tuition rates (self-explanatory… not to mention that Ontario’s tuition fees are the highest in the country), and raising the minimum wage (the current minimum wage of eleven dollars sets full-time workers below the poverty line).
I’m also hoping that joining various activities will allow me to meet others, as all of my friends from high school are going to different universities than myself. I’ve already met some pretty cool people at the frosh events I’ve attended, so I’m hoping I find friends soon! It’d be especially nice to have some friends in Commerce, because then we could study together, and I’d have someone to talk to about the classes, discuss professors, etc. It seems like the vast majority of people at this campus are in Psychology, which isn’t too surprising considering that the campus is not that old and the Commerce program has been around for at most two years. (I study at a satellite campus that shares their facilities with a college. There are mainly humanities programs offered.)
I don’t have classes tomorrow (Wednesday), but I may go up to the university all the same and explore the campus some more. I’d like to check out the student union office and get some more information about the different campaigns and clubs anyways.
Thursday is my first day of classes, and I’m particularly hoping for luck in regards to parking and actually locating my classes. It wouldn’t be good if I was late because I couldn’t find a parking spot! That’s the main thing, really; getting there on time is the first, and probably the most important, step for me, because I have a terrible habit of underestimating the amount of time it takes to get to a place and then leaving far too late to actually get there on time.
Signing off for now. I plan to write a series of blog posts detailing the various trips I took over the summer while I was off from school, and I’ll see about getting at least one of them published in the next week. I’d like to make a post about my classes as well, but that should probably wait until the weekend, when I’ve been to three of them, or until next Wednesday, when I’ve been to all of them. I’ll see. I’m thinking it’ll just be a comparison post on how university classes seem different to high school classes right now anyway, so I can probably write it having only gone to a few classes.
Until next time! Louisa. 🙂
Louizzz, the Wizard! 