Wiping away the U of Tears: A First-Year Survival Guide
First year can be intimidating, frightening and every other scary word you can think of, but here’s how to make it memorable.
First year students during the FROSH week cheer-off. Photo via: UTSC orientation website.
It’s been about a year and a half since I first came to University of Toronto (UofT) and I clearly remember the clueless 18-year-old, standing in the lobby of the university residence with two bulky suitcases literally as heavy as himself (I was pretty skinny). The past four months of my life had been all about ‘preparing’ for university; I was telling friends and family how excited I was, how I’m going to make friends from all around the world, have the most enjoyable time and the most serious lock-in of my life before landing a fancy job and making six figures.
What could go wrong? Life had other plans because the first few minutes of actually being here had me thinking I was not so prepared for this. How do I make friends? Everyone seems so happy. Why am I not happy? How do I do well in my classes? Wait—where are my classes? If you’ve completed at least a week at U of T, you may have found yourself stuck in a loop with these questions among millions of others scattered across your mind. This is before things start getting better, and you slowly start to figure things out. I’m not sure if this happens to everyone but I feel that university is such a dynamic experience that I regularly have realizations that make me feel like ‘ I wish I had known earlier.’
If you’re new to university, you might find reassurance in what I’m saying here. However, if you’re further down the road than me, this is a good opportunity to recall your own experience and potentially have a good laugh about my lack of expertise at U of T survival. You might be thinking “wait till he discovers C-level courses”. I've heard it’s rough, but hopefully I’ll be fine. Anyway, don’t stop reading just yet or say this guy’s trying too hard to be funny, because here are things I wish I knew as a freshman.
Chaos is constant and it’s not just you
Through my first few months at university, I would think it’s only me who feels overwhelmed. Why is there another assignment out as soon as I finish one? How did I get a bad grade on my assignment? It’s only been a week and people around me are already joining clubs on campus, am I too late? How do I speak to my professors? Why would they want to talk to me in a class of 100 students? They already have a lot to do. Something I can tell you, even if it sounds cliché, is that it gets better everyday. It’s never too late to join clubs, you realize that your professors are delighted to talk to you, and even though the academic intensity gradually goes up, you grow accustomed to it. There’s new problems you encounter, you complain about them and soon you figure it all out and feel stupid for being so hard on yourself earlier. The chaos is an acquired taste, I would say. As I’ve spent more time in this place and had more conversations with people about their experiences, I’ve realized that everyone goes through the same roller coaster of emotions. At the end of the day, university is supposed to be an adventure, isn’t it?
There’s always more help and resources than you think there are
Once you get through the initial phase of making a few friends, starting to understand a little bit about your classes, and how everything works, it suddenly hits you that there’s more waiting for you. Suddenly, it’s time for reading week, everyone is stressed about midterms, and things suddenly don’t feel as relaxed as they were starting to feel. This will never end. I realized there’s always going to be more levels to everything. After you feel like you’re academically on track, you may feel you’re not doing enough extracurricularly. If you manage to do that, suddenly, it’s all about finding a co-op and internships, and the list goes on. What is common in all these experiences is that along the journey, you realize there is more help and support available around you than you might originally think. There’s a reason thousands of people manage to graduate each year right? Through every phase I’ve had in university, from not knowing how to cite sources, to writing full research papers, and not being able to get into clubs, to being involved with what some might say is too many, I’ve realized that being completely on your own, and being responsible for how your future turns out is an anxiety-provoking experience. However, these moments remind us how important that experience is, which is why you look back after each step and say “that wasn’t that bad.”
Finding your balance
When I first got here, I was too stressed about doing well at university and making the most out of it, often overburdening myself over every little thing. I exaggerated things for myself, making them harder than they were. One thing that I can tell you is that more than helping me, it made it harder for me to complete my schoolwork because I would think maybe it’s not good enough. I started applying to almost everything on campus and soon realized that some things weren’t really for me and I couldn’t keep up with them. After this experience, and thinking I’ve spent enough time complicating things, I decided to take it easy. However, it was only a matter of time before I started taking things too easy and had a tough time making deadlines. I had to rush almost all of my work due to procrastination, and at the end of the day, both cases left me disappointed.
Different teams posing for the student life crew at FROSH week. Photo via: UTSC orientation website.
What I’ve made out of these experiences is that you need to strike a balance that is unique to you. We all have different aspirations and different things we hope to get out of our time here, and there will always be people around who are intensely focused without much time to spare for recreation. On the flip side, you’ll also find people who go out everyday and are seemingly having the time of their life. Once you realize that you have to recognize your own goals, whether they are academic, professional or social, and how much time you need to devote for them, everything feels more peaceful.
To be brutally honest, I wouldn’t say the anxiety goes away, or you don’t have to struggle as you spend more time at university, but you gradually start feeling a sense of belongingness to the place. You grow more accustomed and ultimately find more people to wipe the U of Tears when they come out! Trust me, the support helps a lot.
