In one of my previous blogs, I have gone over my struggles in choosing what to do after High School. Like most students, we all have to find a program or vocation to major in. After many dilemmas, I choose to study Computer Science (Specialist Program) at the University of Toronto Mississauga. As usual, this blog will be poorly written and incoherent.
The transition between High School and University can be very tough especially when you are in a new city with no friends. Many students each year make the decision to leave their hometown to pursue studies away from their hometown and even home country. Not being from GTA (Greater Toronto Area and not Grand Theft of Auto), I am unfamiliar with the area and I am not used to living in the city. This made me scared as I chose to leave my hometown to attend University that is over 400km away from the comfort of my house. Many students have it worse than me. There are many students who come from other countries and from countries that do not speak English and often face a lot of cultural shocks when they come to Canada. I myself did face some slight cultural shock but nothing compared to those who are from different cultures.
One of the first things I did after accepting my offer was to research the school and the city of Mississauga. I quickly was scared of going to University because someone on Reddit (which was the first time I visited the website) stated that UTM was basically a larger High School and that it is a challenge to make friends. The reason is that many students know each other from High School and tend to form cliques. This made me fear that I won’t be able to make friends since I knew no one going to UTM nor anyone in Mississauga. The transition to University wasn’t too bad when I look back. I have seen and heard stories of many students having terrible experiences in their first year of University. I personally did not have too much struggle in my transition to University other than the fact my grades dropping. When I first came to the city of Mississauga, I was overwhelmed on the number of humans from Central and Southern Asia (i.e. Indians and Pakistanis). I have nothing against humans from those areas (and most of my friends in University are ethnically Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Iran) but for the first hour of arrival, I only saw Brown people and made me scared that I would be the only East Asian in the area. My fear quickly dissipated after going around the city more and especially when I went to the University.
Living in the dormitory has opened my eyes to current modern culture and trends. I have learned a lot from living in a dormitory for a year. A lot of students have problems with doing chores such as cleaning and laundry but I have no problems since chores is expected of me ever since I was a young child. Food was provided in the dining hall but I would have no problems cooking since I have been cooking my meals since 4th grade. I am not a good cook and like to cook my food very simple and bland but at least it is edible. A lot of friends around me both in High School and University have often called me a person who lives under a rock because I am oblivious of modern trends and culture. For example, I did not know who Drake was nor knew that a lot of teenagers and young adults like to have sex. I come from a conservative area and I thought most humans have sex after marriage. So it came as a shock to both my Mother and to me when my younger brother explained to us that a lot of young humans have a one-night stand and are more open to having sex with strangers they have never met nor have known each other for a long period of time. In addition, I did not know how casual humans are with smoking marijuana in GTA. I had a friend who became addicted to alcohol and drugs back in my senior year of High School but I did not think there would be a sizable population that smokes marijuana frequently and are open about using recreational drugs. I always thought of drugs as a taboo and is something shameful. But when I can smell marijuana in the hallway and hear students casually talking about drugs and sex, it was a cultural shock to me. I never knew how different this generation has become. I would like to use the term degraded but I have not made any reasonable justification to use the term. One particular thing I hated in my first year was hearing males grading females and talking about other female students’ bodies. This irritated me a lot because it is extremely rude and morally wrong to comment on a person’s body in a very sexualized manner. If I was a female, I would feel very unsafe to study with males who talk about my body in a sexualized manner.
Despite the cultural shock I faced, I really appreciated my time living in the dormitory. I have learned a lot about modern culture and the city of Toronto and its neighboring cities. Furthermore, I have made a lot of friends and had a lot of good political debates with those in my dormitory. Residence is where I made most of my close friends and close acquaintances who also introduced me to their group of friends and acquaintances. I would say, residence helped me a lot to have some presence of social life at University. I did not talk to many people during High School except with my close friends that I made in Middle School and Elementary School and in fact ignored a good number of people throughout High School (at that time, I didn’t see a need to talk to others). An excerpt from a comment I posted on Reddit:
In my personal experience, I would have dropped out of university if I didn’t seek help from others. In my first few weeks in GTA and at UTM, I just holed myself in my residence for a few weeks and only went out to eat and attend lectures. I had no friends and knew no one. But I realized I am not smart to understand the course materials and needed help. If I stubbornly decided to not leave my comfort zone (my room), I would not have been able to pass my freshman year nor in any successive years after it as well. I sought help from others in residence and made my first friends from seeking help. I am very thankful to those who helped me because they really changed me. I started to hang out in the common room every single day and exchanged my knowledge to others (though I ended up helping others way more than I studied, it was still fun). I learned a lot from others not only in academics but in other ways as well. When I was in HighSchool, I never really talked to people and my English was very poor despite living in Canada basically my entire life. Although my socializing ability is still poor, it is way better than when I was in High School.
A lot of students at my campus complain about unable to make a social life nor able to make friends. Residence is really the only easy way to make friends in University. You can make friends outside of residence but is quite difficult if you are not part of a club. I have made various acquaintances who I talk to quite frequently outside of residence but it was only possible because I lived in Residence since it changed me.
I have talked to many students in various universities and one common theme I find is that most students enjoy their life in University rather than in High School. My brother and I find High School to be the best time of our lives but most people disagree. University gave you the freedom to be free from your parents and the flexibility to choose when you want to attend school. Furthermore, many students found University to be much more interesting since you can pursue and take courses that interest you while in High School, they force you to take a lot of courses that did not interest most students. I have found students who even said University gives you more free time to do what you want. I partially disagree with that statement but I’ll explain that later. It is true that University gives you more flexibility and freedom. I am able to schedule my courses such that I can avoid going to school everyday and not wake up as early. I used to wake up around 6 to catch the yellow bus that leaves at 7 am back in High School. Since I attended a country school, there was no public transportation and taking a taxi to school would have cost me around $80. But living in Residence, I was able to wake up late and go to my room after each class. In addition, I was allowed to take a few courses that interested me in University such as Astronomy, Italian, French, Geography, Physics, and various Computer Science courses that piqued my interest. But I miss my years in High School where I did not have to worry about paying off my education, be expected to study hard, and the content in High School was much easier as well. In addition, my close friends were with me and a home where I can feel very comfortable in. Since my parents were paying for most of my living fees and tuition, I felt obligated to study and felt bad when I didn’t study and did poorly academically.
I did not perform well in my first year of University but I managed to get into the Computer Science POST. At my University, all Arts and Science students must take certain courses and obtain good marks in their first year of University to get into their desired program of study. Unlike other Universities where you apply to a program in your senior year of High School, my University required students to apply to a department in your senior year of High School and then a program after your first year of University. Essentially think of it as being in High School all over again and taking prerequisites to apply for a program. Somehow I managed to do well enough to get into Computer Science after my first year of University while all my close friends in University failed and ended up dropping out of the University after a year to three years of trying to get into the program. There are various reasons for the existence of the POST System. The spirit of the system is to weed out those who got into the University because of over-inflated marks. Since every school and teacher have different marking scheme, there are no consistencies in student’s grade and academic ability. Therefore, it was necessary to implement a system whereby there can be more consistency and standard among the students to judge the best and qualified students to the program since Canada does not have a national entrance exam nor does the University have one either. The other reason is to make quick cash by accepting a lot of students into first year and then pressuring them to drop out of the University after a year or two.
The idea that University gives you a lot more free time depends on the program, year, and which school you study or study under (i.e. professor). For example, I found myself not having a life in my 3rd year of University. I was at school from 9 am to 12 am every weekday and spend about 8-10 hours on the weekend at school. In my first year of University I actually played way more than in High School. In High School, I probably watched anime and read manga for about 6 hours a day. But in University, I probably spent about 8-12 hours watching anime and reading manga everyday. Which was the cause of my mediocre grades in first year. I have done well in most of my courses in 1st year and 2nd year before the exams with the exception of one single course but I don’t study much for exams and tests so I often did poorly on exams (not on tests). On average, I would study about 4 hours for a test and exams (that is how much I studied for in High School) and so I would drop 10-20% from the exam. Luckily the contents in first year are mostly introductory, so it is not hard to keep up if you do actually study.
The biggest difference I found in the quality of education between High School and University is the depth of the course. University Courses such as Introduction to Mathematical Proof and Introduction to Programming has made me realize an entirely new realm of Mathematics and a new way of seeing problems. I was ignorant of what Computer Science is and I always though Mathematics was dull and boring because it was simply memorizing formulas and steps. But I was totally wrong and was “slapped” to reality. I almost failed my Introduction to Mathematical Proofs due to my ignorance (along with the fact I didn’t listen during lectures and barely studied for the tests and exams). Despite almost failing the course (1% off on the exam to automatically failing the course), I have come to appreciate Mathematics and its importance in many fields such as Computer Science. In my Introduction to Programming 1, I was introduced basic complexity notations and it fascinated me the idea that you can classify and judge algorithms. What was interesting was the fact that I had the basic idea of Complexity in my head before I was taught Complexity in my first semester of University. One of the most enjoyable moments is when the ideas and theories I thought of during High School have actually established theories and taught in schools. It is interesting to see how University formalizes and corrects a lot of my theories I thought of in High School while also teaching me many ideas I never thought of such as search algorithms and Data Structures. For example, in my first year computing course: Introduction to Programming 2, we have introduced the idea of solving problems using recursion, quick sort, merge sort, binary trees, breadth-first search, and depth-first search.