Prelude: Recently I wrote a blog about the various options that students often choose from and discussed the prospect of each option. Originally I intended the blog to be about my personal experience and my struggles in choosing what I wanted to do after HighSchool but I ended up deviating.
First World Problem: The Problem With too many Options
Short story short, I ended up going to University to study Computer Science and still have no clue what I want to do. Living in a very developed and “free” society, I am given the privilege and “freedom” to do what I want to do. This comes with a downside, which is that I have too many options to consider. This means narrowing down my options is quite hard since I do not have many limitations in what I can and cannot do.
Thoughts Before Senior Year: Becoming an Electrician
Ever since entering High School, I always thought I would go to college and become an Electrician since I thought it was an interesting career to pursue (and the Main Character of one of my favorite anime, Clannad, was an electrician). However, I know very little about circuitry and physically unfit. But I still wanted to try pursuing college since I heard that Electricians also earned quite a bit in Canada.
Note: To clarify for those in different countries, Colleges in Canada are not the same as US Colleges. Colleges in Canada are less academically rigorous and more hands-on than Universities and often offer diplomas rather than degrees (some colleges do offer degrees). Read more about it in my previous blog where I explain what Colleges are in Canada.
Asian Expectations
Coming from a Korean family where we place a lot of emphasis on Education, my Mother was obviously against me going to college to become an Electrician. For some reason, there’s this view among Koreans that if a child does not go into University, the child will have a terrible future. They view any jobs that are hands-on such as Electrician as a more lowly job for those who are not educated and have little success in society. Which meant that I had to go to University to please my parents.
Since I have no ambitions in life (and the fact that I only consider becoming an Electrician after watching the anime Clannad), I didn’t bother arguing much with my Mother about it. However, this presented me with a new issue which was now I need to find another career to pursue.
Being a High School Student Rocks
When I was a young High Schooler, I didn’t think much about the future too much and went by the flow. However, as I approach my senior years, I no longer had the luxury to enjoy life and go by the flow anymore. The more I thought about the future, the more I did not want to leave High School. I love my High School and I wished to stay there for a bit longer. The teachers were nice, my friends were there, and I was doing “very well” academically.
High School was a period where I least studied in my 12 years of schooling and got results. Before High School, I was a kid who always got bad grades, sent to ESL, or to special classes for students who cannot keep up with the class (I was even exempted from taking the Grade 3 Provincial Exam due to my academic ability). However, in High School, all of that changed. My grades rose 10%-20% from Middle School and I no longer got any grades lower than an A- (with the exception of English, Gym, and grade 10 French in which I got a B or a B+) and the best part was that I put less effort in High School (However, there was a downfall to that but that’s another story). I also got to enjoy a lot more freedom since my Mother started to relax and lower her expectations of me around Middle School and progressively got lower so I no longer had to do extra homework and a bunch of extra-curricular activities.
On a side note, I also didn’t want to become an adult as well. Once you are an adult, you are slapped with responsibilities and burdens associated with adulthood. This meant that I now have to start filing taxes, be expected to be productive in society, start paying my own bills, and be independent. I know a lot of teenagers who want to become independent but I was not one of them. I was comfortable at home with the exception of being forced to play a musical instrument which is probably the only major rift between my mother and me since it still bothers me.
What’s the point of University
Having no goals made me become stressed a lot during my last year and a half of High School (High School in Canada is 4 years). Having no goal meant that I had no direction in life. I just went to school because that was my “job” (or at least that is how my mother puts it) and it was fun.
The people around me had goals and dreams they wanted to pursue but I didn’t have any. I knew that if I wanted to please my parents, I had to go to University and get a good job. But for the typical Asian family, that either meant becoming a lawyer, doctor, or Engineer. Thankfully my parents didn’t pressure me to become a doctor because they knew becoming a doctor was way too hard and out of my reach (my Dad suggested it but he never pressured me). My parents were fairly chill parents when I reached High School and it kind of felt that they gave up on me in a sense. All they expected of me was to attend school, practice Violin, do chores, go to University, and get a good job.
Since I had no clue what I wanted to do in life, I started to question the point of going to University. It would be a waste of money and time if I just went to a random programs and decide to switch in the middle of it. I was considering of taking an extra year of High School to give me more time to find what I really wanted to do in life. My Dad talked me out of it since he said there’s no point because I still won’t find what I wanted to do in life. That was not nice but he had a point because even after 3 and half years after I graduated from High School, I still do not know what I wanted to do.
Seeking Career Advice From Parents
Since my parents wanted me to go to University, they must have some thoughts or plans on what I should do in life is what I thought. Turns out I was wrong. I talked to my mother for advice and she was very unhelpful. I guess after having a lot of arguments with my older sister, my mother no longer wants to restrict my choices as long as I went to University (even though one of my Sister’s main argument was the fact that my Mother barred her from entering College. But I guess my sister’s argument won’t apply to me since I didn’t particularly struggle academically compared to my sister who has a learning disability). Although she did not want to restrict my choices, she quickly reversed that after volunteering for a University Fair that my Korean Church ran after I went to University (One time she stopped the car and told me to leave when I joked about switching to Psychology). All my Mother said was that I probably should avoid any program that requires a lot of writing such as English, Literature, and Journalism since English is my weakest subject and the job market in those fields did not seem very good. The response my Mother gave me was obvious to me since I never consider pursuing any career that required me to have good writing skills. You can probably already tell that my English writing is not the best from this blog. My Mother also hinted to me that she does not want me to go into Business since all of her siblings are in Business and they keep going on sinusoidal ups and downs. My Father on the other hand told me to go into Software Engineering (Fake Engineering IMO) or Computer Science. My father thinks I am a genius for some odd reason in Computers since I knew a bunch of programming languages. Long story short, my friend in Middle School introduced me to the idea that you can make a website by writing “code” and that everything I see on the computer was coded and not magic. Ever since then, I started to borrow books from the library, watching videos, and learning online about programming and my Dad found out about it during his bi-yearly visit. However, I have no interest in making a programming career and that was what I decided in my early years of High School. I just found it interesting, a good timer killer that was more productive than reading manga all day, and was something to get my mind off of since I was struggling academically in Middle School (My grades were fairly average by the time I entered Middle School though (perhaps a bit below average) at the time but it sure did not please my Mother).
Applying to Universities
The time comes around and it is Fall (late October) when University application begins. I had to choose 3 programs but I ended up paying extra to apply for 5 programs. I quickly narrow down my options based on the following questions:
- What are my weaknesses that may hinder my progress in the program
- What is the job prospect in those programs
- What program seems cool and fun to try out These are very simple questions to ask yourself and really did narrow down my choices a lot. English is my weakest subject in High School and still is my weakest subject. Writing took a lot of time and my mental strength away. I never found myself able to write clearly and concisely. Nor did I ever understand what I was reading in class half of the time. Furthermore, my English oral ability was absolutely terrible. I was mistaken in 11th grade of being an International Student despite only being “fluent” in one language. I had very little vocabulary and had a problem pronouncing words. Most of my vocabulary I knew was either from watching anime, reading manga, or from video games. I had a big struggle picking up languages around me which is why I never learned Korean even though my parents can barely speak English and only spoke Korean to me (this may also be the reason why I struggled in Elementary and Middle School).
The 2nd question I asked myself was job prospects and it turns out that a lot of Social Science and Humanities have low job prospects since there was an over-saturation of Social Science and Humanities students. Therefore, most of the programs in those two disciplines were crossed out from my checklist. In addition, after researching, it would seem that even sciences had low job prospects. Researchers apparently don’t make much money and if you don’t go to specialized fields, there isn’t much future in science is what I found at that time. In addition, I didn’t take Biology in High School since I hated Microscopes so any medical field was out of consideration (Not really as you’ll see later).
The last question I asked myself was “What program sounds cool and fun to try out”. Although I had no ambition, there were some things that I found were either interesting or cool. In High School, I always found Gundams to be cool and started assembling Gunplas a bit before my senior year of High School. I always thought it would be cool to design a Gundam and told my friends and classmates to call me if they ever start a company to build one because I would work on it with no pay provided that they give me food and shelter. The start of my fascination with Gundam was during Elementary School but never gave it much thought till I rewatched Gundam and saw the OS that was installed in ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam from Gundam Seed that sparked my interest. Another fascination I had was on Nuclear Energy. I have no clue why I was so obsessed with Nuclear Energy but I liked it so much that I wrote a 10-12 page report (my teacher didn’t allow me to write a 25-page report) on Nuclear Energy for my Gr.12 Chemistry Paper.
After answering these 3 questions, it became more apparent that my options were in a program that was not in Humanities nor in Social Science since they usually require a lot of writing or presentation skills. I also wanted to avoid a career where I need to interact with strangers so that reinforced my decision to not go into Social Science. This also ruled out Business from my option (I know Business is part of either Humanities or Social Science but I wanted to single it out because it’s a program that is acceptable to Asian parents). I also lacked creativity skills and had no artistic ability so I cannot go for the Arts either. I have terrible visual design and color choice so I had to drop any idea of going to Media Design (which is also art but I was considering going there since a person I looked up to went into Interactive Media Design). Since Sciences doesn’t seem to pay much and was more of a field people go into to either become a doctor or to pursue their intellectual curiosity. So I dropped any consideration of going to Physics or Chemistry. This is why I rejected an offer to study Astrophysics at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus even though I didn’t apply (it was an alternative offer and is one of my regrets in life). I love Physics in High School but since there doesn’t seem to be much prospect in the field, I rejected it. The only options left were Math and Engineering. I don’t like Math and I think I am “terrible” at it (fate sometimes can be cruel, I am currently a minoring in Math). I also told myself that I would not go into programming which ruled out Computer Science and Software Engineering.
The programs I ended up applying for were (Ranked from top to last choice):
- Electrical Engineering and Computing Technology at the University of Ottawa
- Computer Systems Engineering at Carleton University
- Computer Engineering at the University of Ottawa
- Biomedical and Electrical Engineering at Carleton University
- Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto
As you can see, I only applied to Engineering in my University application. You may be asking me, “Hey, you said you didn’t want to do programming as a career. Computer Engineering includes a software component”. You probably notice that all my options require me to do some programming but that was something I compromised to myself. My Father who is a Senior Designer for Memory Chips told me that there weren’t many job prospects for those who don’t do programming in his field anymore (especially if I don’t want to move to the US and remain in Canada). Programming has now become a skill set that is valuable and practical in many fields that it is coming to the point where if you plan to pursue any career in STEM, you probably need to know some programming.
Another motivation for me choosing to apply to Engineering is that Engineering was one of those few degrees that open many opportunities. Since I had no clue what I wanted to do as a career, I didn’t want to limit myself. An Engineering Degree allows you to go into many fields since an Engineering program teaches students mathematical, analytical, business, social, communication, and scientific skills. Not many programs can offer you a wide skill set compared to Engineering. I know and heard from others of Engineering graduates going to business, finance, education, medical, ministry, social work, journalism, and literature.
Reasons Why I did not Go To College
Although my plan for the majority of my time in High School was going to College, I decided to not apply to College for various reasons. The first reason is that my mother was against it. My goal of becoming an Electrician only started due to an anime so there was not much reason to argue. So I should probably stop bothering my Mother about it. But the main reason was probably due to all my friends and most of my classmates were going to University. In Ontario High Schools, there are generally 2 divisions which are the Applied/College Route and the Academic/University Route. Students who wish to go to University have to enroll in Academic/University courses (You do not want to mess up on your course choices or else you’ll have to repeat a few semesters to fix your mistake. My general advice is that if you are not doing badly academically, choose the Academic/University Route so that you don’t have to repeat a semester or two and take as many core courses (i.e. science and math) as you can to not limit yourself to only College). Since I was enrolled in the Academic/University Route, I had very little encounters with those who were in the Applied/College Route even though my High School was some small Countryside High School.
Application Details
University applications can be stressful depending on where you are applying and the country you live in. Some countries have national exams, some Universities have their own exams, and some universities just look at your High School marks. The latter is how most Canadian University works. In Canada, applying to University is not difficult at all. Just select the University you wish to apply for and fulfill the program requirements. No additional exams at all (with exceptions of some competitive programs). Some programs in some Universities are very selective such as Theatre Studies, Music, and Visual Design. Art programs such as Visual Design, Music, and Theatre Studies usually require an audition or portfolio to show your skills since there are very limited spots in the University. In addition, some Universities may require students to send an essay and their work/volunteering experience to choose the most desired candidate.
In my case, the University of Ottawa and Carleton University does not require any additional work. Just fulfill the course and minimum grade requirements and your application will be considered. However, in the case of the University of Toronto Engineering, there was a lot more work to be considered as an applicant. After sending the University your intent to study (through the Ontario Universities’ Applicant Centre – OUAC), you need to fill out a student profile. The student profile contains all the extracurricular activities you participated during High School, your contribution to society such as volunteering, work experience, and accomplishments. In addition, you must indicate whether you retook a course and if you took the course outside the regular fall-winter semester such as night classes or summer school, and explain the circumstances why you deviated from the norm. Furthermore, you will also have an online “interview” where you will be asked a problem-solving question. Engineering programs at the University of Toronto are internationally renowned and garners a lot of talented applicants across the country and the world which makes the application process to be more tedious than your typical Canadian University application. However, that was not the cause of my University Application Headaches.
Application Headaches – The problems of being an Asian Twin
As you may not know, I am an Asian who happens to have a twin brother who also applied to the same University as me (except for the University of Toronto) but in different Engineering Programs (he was more into mechanical, sustainable, and medical Engineering fields). The University application system for uOttawa and CarletonU is absolutely terrible in handling edge cases like dealing with twins, triplets, etc from minority ethnic groups (I heard of the Royal Canadian Military College also had this issue regardless of what ethnic group the applicants were and this was the University my brother ended up going to). I have no actual proof that the University Application System was “racist” in the sense that it only affects minority groups but I just like saying it is. The headache came about when my brother and I noticed that our accounts were joined together and this caused a worry that only one of us can go to University due to this mistake (Years later, my brother told me that happened to one of his friends that was a twin but not a minority at some school). My brother and I being twins that live together have the same address, have similar Asian names, and the same birthday. This apparently caused confusion with the University and so we had to call the University to explain our situation. The University quickly responded (I believe CarletonU was very quick to fix the problem which comes as no surprise since CarletonU has the best administrative staff I have dealt with among the 3 Universities I contacted throughout the years). This confusion ended up my brother being accepted to all the programs I applied for at uOttawa (sadly I did not get accepted to the programs my brother applied for).
Scholarships
Education Scholarships are great ways to reduce your student loans. It’s essentially free money based on your accomplishments. Different organizations and universities have different requirements to be eligible for scholarship. Scholarship can either be earned or given depending on the sponsor. Some scholarships are given based on your background such as being the first generation in your family to pursue higher education or being an orphan or single child due to war if your parents served in the military. Most scholarships are earned though. Although many scholarships available are based on your academic accomplishments, there are other scholarships that look at different criteria such as volunteering and innovation. This gives students who are not academically smart an equal opportunity for the scholarship.
At uOttawa and CarletonU, the entrance scholarship is very simple to apply for. In fact, you don’t even apply for the entrance scholarship since they just give it to you if your High School marks make the cut (and you must have a Canadian Citizenship, PR, or refugee status).
- 80%-84.9% Average = $1000/year
- 85%-89.9% Average = $2000/year
- 90%-94.9% Average = $3000/year
- 95-100% Average = $4000/year
In my case, my average for the top 6 courses I received that the Engineering department looked at for both uOttawa and CarletonU was around 84.5% which was neither a terrible nor an excellent mark but it made me eligible for Entrance Scholarship and was earned despite my lack of motivation to study during High School. uOttawa offered me a 5-year 10k scholarship (meaning I get to receive 2k/year for my 5-year Engineering program) and Carleton only offered me a 4-year 1k scholarship since I didn’t exactly make to the next cutoff. The University of Toronto offered me zero scholarships. UofT has high requirements to be eligible for scholarships which meant an average unmotivated student like me will be given nothing. A scholarship would have helped a lot since I have spent about $75000 on my education including living costs in my 3 years of studying at UofT (currently not in school but interning at a company to help pay off my education).
Application Results
As expected from “mid-tier” universities such as CarletonU and uOttawa (great schools in my own opinion), I got a reply within 1-2 weeks and got accepted to all the programs I applied for with scholarship. CarletonU and uOttawa didn’t have much expectations in 2015 (that probably has changed now). My result for my application to University of Toronto came very slowly as expected. UofT’s Engineering program is a very competitive program to get in and was my last option since I did not want to leave my hometown and be broke paying for high tuition and rent. I also doubted I would ever get accepted to UofT with my academic scores and extracurricular activities. I never joined a club in High School since I didn’t have much interest and my High School was very far from my house. No public transportation in the countryside so I cannot attend any after school clubs like the Jazz Band nor prep for the Solar Car Race (those are the clubs I did back in Middle School). As I expected, around mid Spring (April I believe), I was rejected from UofT Engineering Program. So I proceeded to accept my offer to Electrical Engineering and Computing Technology at the University of Ottawa and convinced my friend to follow me to the same program. For those who may not be familiar with the program, it’s essentially an Electrical Degree with an additional degree called Computing. As the name applies, it’s a degree that is mixed between Software Engineering and Computer Science. Since it was a double Engineering Degree, it was a 5-year program with co-op. I only choose it because too many classmates were going to Carleton and I wanted to avoid meeting with people I knew (I was not in bad terms but I really did not want to make the effort to talk to them since I disliked socializing at the time). My friend and I planned our courses together but I ended up leaving him to go to another University. After finishing my course selection, I got an offer to a University called University of Toronto Scarborough Campus for Astrophysics. I never knew UofT had 3 campuses till I got an alternative offer in which I said no. Unless I get another offer that had better job prospects, I refused to go study at UofT. Later that month (May) I got another offer to UTM (University of Toronto Mississauga and not Universal Turing Machine if you get the “pun”) in First Year Study in Math, Computer Science, and Statistics. At first, I thought this was a one-year diploma which I thought was great since I can learn all 3 subjects for a year and get more time to think about my life. However, I shortly found that the offer was actually a 4-year program and I only got offered to the department since that is how UofT works and your program of study is determined after 1st year (Very odd system compared to other Canadian Universities. The closest program to UofT’s Art and Science program system is the Undeclared stream in which students can opt to choose the program of study after taking various courses to see what they are interested in but in the case of UofT, all students are “undeclared”. Perhaps I’ll write more about it in another blog).
Dilemma of Making Decisions
Humans are incapable of foreseeing the future. That is what makes life both interesting and nerve-wracking. Often times you don’t know what is the right choice to make in life. Making life decisions are hard because once you make a decision, you close other options around you. The damage has been done so whether you like your decision or not, you can never go back in time. There is no save point in life. Regardless of the outcome, you must take responsibility for your decision. You can try reversing your decision but you cannot take back all the time, resource, relationship that was lost if you made the wrong decision.
I now faced the question: Should I accept my alternative offer to “Computer Science” at UTM or not. The way I made my decision was not always rational. Often times I would get a random number generator or a coin flipper to make my life decisions.
Therefore, I decided to apply the same logic to decide whether I should remain in my program or go to UofT. So I played a mix of random number generator and coin flippers.
However, an old friend of mine found out about it and gave me a lecture about how I should use rational thinking to make life decisions instead of leaving a coin to decide my life. I agreed and had to make hard decisions.
Making the decision myself was a very difficult task since I am the type of person who just follows others and have people make the decisions for me. And the situation was not getting any better since the deadline was less than 7 days when I received the alternative offer and so I had to make a decision quickly. This had affected my sleep a lot (I get little sleep on a daily basis i.e. 6 hours but this reduced my little hours of daily sleep) since it was always stressing me out. The more I thought of it, the more I did not want to go to University since making a decision was really hard. I risk failing, leaving my friends, and in potential debt, for the decision, I was about to make. I am not academically motivated to study, nor do I have any friends going to my campus, and I hate the idea of socializing with strangers.
One of the reoccurring problems I faced during my senior year was planning out how I can pay off my Education. I never worked and I don’t plan on ever working part-time while studying full time (unless it was a job at the University). Luckily my parents saved up enough money for me to study at a local university for 2 years. With my scholarship, co-op, and student loans, I would not have a problem paying my education. However, I could not devise a plan to pay off my education outside of my hometown. I calculated and it would cost me over 100k if I study Engineering in Toronto. Since I got an alternative offer to a non-Engineering program, the tuition is significantly lower (at least that is what I thought at the time). I did not research much about the tuition of UofT’s Computer Science which came to bite me later on. With my poorly thought and research, I calculated that I would need to pay about 80k to fund my Education. I had nowhere near the amount I would need to pay if I studied at UofT. During my senior year, my Father always reassured me that he would pay my entire Undergrad regardless of the cost. I do come from a relatively well-off family and my Dad did have a plan to pay off all three of his children’s Undergrad if we studied at a local University since he does make a fair bit. My parents also wanted me to consider studying in the US as well which has ridiculous tuition and also wanted all 3 of their kids to study in Toronto (UofT). Along with the fact that my mother demanded that we study at a University so we did expect some financial assistance from our family if they demand us to pursue a degree.
However, the cost always bothered me since money has always bothered me since I was a young child (perhaps as young as 7 years old). I would always worry about my meal for the next week and always debate whether or not I should open a new pack of snacks or whether I should hang out with my friends to the movies. I usually end up declining hangouts since I disliked spending money. This habit of mine always bothered my parents since they never raised me to be stingy on money. The memory of the dot-com bubble (my Dad lost his job and had to leave my Family behind in Canada due to that) and being raised with a lot of refugees around me, money has always been an issue to me. I think the effect of my Dad losing his job affected my brother and I since we never grew up with our Dad and my family’s habit of spending money did not help our financial situation. Which is one of the main factors for my brother joining the military to be independent from my Father so that he could save up for his retirement aside from the job security.
Since my brother got accepted to the military, the Canadian Government agreed to pay for his entire tuition which left me enough money to pay off my entire education if I studied at a local University.
After a long thought, I decided to go to UofT thinking I was accepted to Computer Science (I completely forgot about the POST System, Program of STudy, that my University had). I always have hated Labs and if you are in Engineering, you will be required to do a lot of labs. I always have been relatively great at writing labs back in High School and sciences were my best subjects as well. But my hatred for labs made me rethink about Engineering since I heard a lot of nightmare stories from Life Science University students about labs. I am a slow person when it comes to following instructions (which is why it takes me forever to bake which happened to be one of my past times in High School). Since “Computer Science” was the only program that did not have science labs, I decided to choose Computer Science. I figured that Computer Science was just programming and learning how computers worked i.e. Circuitry (I had a huge misconception of Computer Science and did not realize the amount of Math is involved) and thought to myself how hard can that be. I also thought I had enough money for 3/4 years of University which I was completely wrong about but that’s another story.
Another thought also occurred to me that I may find a program that interests me and since UofT was a bigger school, there may be more opportunities and programs to consider. I did not know what I wanted to be and so I thought going to a distant University may help me find motivation and be more disciplined. I will no longer enjoy the luxury of living at home and staying with my group of friends. I will be pushed outside of my comfort zone and be forced to learn and polish skills that I severely lacked.
Anyways that basically wraps my experience. I ended up choosing to study at the University of Toronto Mississauga Campus in First Year Studies in Math, Computer Science, and Statistics and now I am a 4th year student in Honour Bachelors of Computer Science Specialist and also minoring Math and Geography (officially but I plan on dropping my Geography minor).