Tag Archives: school

Once upon a time…

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Once upon a time there was a girl who couldn’t decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. As she got older, she felt compelled to enroll in a post-secondary institution for no reason other than: everyone else her age was doing it.

She tried to find her way, attempted to find a program of study that fit her interests, but alas she could not. After three years of wasted tuition she gave up, resigned to the fact that she was not one of those people for which post-secondary education fit.

She carried on with her life, found a job in an office, worked her way up at a company from reception to accounting. One day she stumbled upon the University of Toronto’s website. She decided immediately that she would try again to finish her education.

She went back to school that year. She was older than all of the other students and for the first few months she felt as though she might be found out at any time. Soon she came to understand that her age didn’t put her at a disadvantage.

She studied hard, went to her classes, and soon she was nearly finished her degree, but in the course of the years she was at the university, she met many young students who, like her nearly twenty years before, were lost. She struggled with the urge to impart the wisdom she had gained from her experiences and the urge to not sound condescending.

She wished with all her heart that all of those younger students struggling with feelings of indecision and fear of the future could know that it’s okay to be lost…not everyone knows the path they will travel  when they are twenty years old.

Some of us take a straight path towards our future. For others, like me, the path wound and curved. My journey has taught me that conformity is not how I learn. I cannot be twenty years old again. I cannot pretend to write a paper or answer a question as though I bring only the knowledge of high school with me into the classroom.

I incorporate who I am and what I’ve experienced into all my learning. Even if you are twenty you can do this too. You may not realize it, but your experiences matter and they contribute to your perspective. You must own them.

If university is about finding your voice, you can’t ignore any part of what makes you, you. Embrace it all the good, the bad, and the ugly and make it your own. For me learning is about polishing all the parts of what make me the person I am. Unlike, what some people may think, coming back to school hasn’t changed me…it’s helped me to remember who I am.

-Lori

Study and SAIL Abroad!

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Last week, Lori posed the question: ‘to be or not to be…in summer school’.

Last summer, I ended exams early and had about five months of summer. Sounds like the dream situation for many, but after the first two weeks I was sick of the endless routine of eating, sleeping, and then doing nothing… without consequences. By the end of it I just wanted to go back to school already! I spent the majority of summer working a desk job and although I was gaining valuable work experience, I never got to spend time soaking up the sun or much of anything else either.

So to answer the question: to be or not to be in summer school? I chose the best of both worlds and decided to study abroad! In fact, it’s something that I have been considering since way before I even applied to university. Apart from immigrating to Canada several years ago and making a few trips to Disney World and Cuba once or twice, I have never left North American borders. Plus, going to theme parks and resorts hardly count as travelling and experiencing the diversity and culture of the countries firsthand.

U of T offers a summer abroad program sponsored by Woodsworth college. I received a tempting brochure in the mail earlier in the semester and could not make up my mind between all of the amazing countries where study abroad was offered! I looked throughout the site and imagined myself in each of the different countries. The great part is that the courses transfer for U of T credit. However, only certain courses are offered in each country, and when I realized that, it looked like my dreams of studying abroad this summer were far out of reach.

At that point, I received a letter in the mail that I was admitted to sail on the Summer 2011 voyage of Semester at Sea hosted by the University of Virginia. While I was wishing I was somewhere else, I applied to the program one day at work. I convinced myself to apply through wishful thinking, not thinking that I would actually get accepted!

If you’ve never heard of Semester at Sea, it is basically a campus on a big cruise ship called the MV Explorer. You take classes on the boat as it sails the oceans and makes stops in several different countries. I have always dreamed of doing something like this ever since the days of watching Breaker High on YTV when I was younger. If you have no idea what Breaker High is, they no longer air it so instead, think of Family channel’s Suite Life on Deck with Zack and Cody.

All blast-from-the-past pop culture references aside, this trip is actually for real. Students do have the opportunity to study and sail on a boat. In order to make it a reality, I had to somehow find a way to pay for tuition, board and lodging, flights, hotels, traveling and spending money! So I put in my deposit, applied for every scholarship I was eligible for and crossed my fingers. I was fortunate to receive the Diversity Abroad scholarship and will be meeting with the other scholars to discuss our encounters with diversity on the ship and abroad. The trip is mostly full of American students and with only a few Canadian students on board, I am proudly representing our campus aboard the MV Explorer.

The summer voyage is 66 days long and travels across the Atlantic ocean, making stops at the following port cities and countries:

  • Nassau, Bahamas
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • Naples / Civitavecchia, Italy
  • Dubrovnik, Croatia
  • Piraeus (Athens), Greece
  • Varna, Bulgaria
  • Istanbul, Turkey,
  • Casablanca, Morocco
  • Boston, MA USA

I will be taking courses in Global Studies, Art History and Social Sciences. There are so many courses to choose from – psychology, to biology, writing, music, and business. Si ! Oui! there are even language courses in French and Spanish for beginners.

Even with the scholarship, I know it is super expensive and I will probably be spending years and years paying it off, but it is truly the experience of a lifetime. In fact, the thing that had me sold was the field trips and global campus experience. How many people are able to say that they’ve studied on a floating campus?

Several field trips are offered by the Institute for Shipboard Education and among them are authentic experiences with diversity that you would not easily be able to do on your own. For example, they offer opportunities to have service visits in orphanages, community projects, dinner with an Italian family, and opportunities to experience culture firsthand.

So not only is it an opportunity to study abroad, but I will also be able to do service abroad. Many people take trips to do service abroad and choose to do so in favour of study abroad or summer school. The fact that I will be able to combine study, service, sailing and travelling all in one is the perfect combination for what I was looking to do this summer. The experiences I will have in all eight countries are valuable life lessons in themselves.

Studying abroad takes a lot of advanced planning, sacrifices and commitment, but I really think that in the end it is all worth it. So if it is something that you are looking into doing, I would research everything possible and plan ahead. Semester at Sea is not sponsored officially by U of T but it is still possible to get credit. At times, I felt like this trip would never happen for me but I stayed positive, looked into all possibilities and never gave up. This trip sprung up pretty late on me and it would not have been possible without the scholarship I received. Talk to your registrar if you are interested in studying abroad and they will definitely help point you in the right direction. You can also find out more about study abroad from the Centre for International Experience. As for me… now I’m just ready to plan, end exams, pack my bags, and get on that boat. I’m going to take advantage of every moment!

- Danielle

Preserving Chinese heritage through handicraft

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As a child growing up in Hong Kong, I remember the heavy emphasis placed on doing well in academics by my teachers.

I remember being told that I had to do well, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to get into a good high school, and if I couldn’t get into a good high school, how would I be able to get into a good university, and if I couldn’t get into university, what was I going to do with my life?

Let’s not get into how wrong that line of logic is for a second (there’s enough fodder for an entire rant right there), but I asked my friends, and they had similar experiences. I can’t say if this is what school is like now; I can only speak about my experiences more than a decade ago.

Ironically, my mother never really cared (she was more “practice piano!”, haha), but I remember going home with a heavy knapsack filled with math sets and rows of blank squares to practice my characters. That’s all there is to my memory of primary school in Hong Kong.

There wasn’t arts class, like I had when I was in Canada. I remember taking art classes outside of school, but I never picked up a paintbrush in class. I remember being completely confused on my first day of school because I didn’t have to start by doing problem sets or reciting text. I was even more baffled when there were two recesses and a lunch break (I was used to having lunch during my one break), and was completely flummoxed by the time we got to the end of the day and I was given glitter to paint with.

But I heard it wasn’t always like that. I heard from my aunts and uncles that when they were in China, school included a lot more arts and crafts. But with the increase in people competing for spots in universities, the arts and crafts were filtered out and replaced by academics.

Revitalizing this culture is what the Chinese Handicrafts Community at U of T set out to do. They’re a small group that was established last August with the purpose of cultural exchange.

“Young people don’t have the passion for culture and handiwork anymore,” says Kelly Zhong, the club’s president. “Handiwork is getting lost, and I want to protect and share our culture.”

And so using money out of their own pockets, Kelly and Alexandra Zhao, the club’s vice-president, bring back traditional supplies when they are in China for the club’s use.

“We want to create a space for cultural exchange,” said Alexandra. “A place where anyone who is interested in East Asian culture can experience it for themselves.”

The club does a variety of Chinese handicrafts. From cross-stitching (I remember doing this in kindergarten!) to paper cutting to making knots to cooking traditional Chinese food, the club tries to give its members a full taste of the rich Chinese heritage once or twice every month, the most recent being a workshop on cross-stitching.

I was curious to know where the club’s executive learned how to do the handicraft, and Kelly told me that a lot of this was self-taught, “We’re passionate about Chinese culture and handicraft, and so often, we would find books and videos to learn how to do a particular craft. The club’s spirit is more about the cultural exchange.”

But Kelly tells me that there are plans to invite relatives to come in to host workshops. Apart from imparting their knowledge, Kelly says it’s a great way for the elders to see how youth are still interested in the culture and history.

So, readers, if you didn’t do all your schooling in North America, what was your experience like? I’d love to hear about it.

- Cynthia

It’s New Year’s, time for resolutions!

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Happy 2011, dear readers! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with fun and food and friends and family.

We all know what most people make during this time of year: the New Year’s Resolution. It’s the time of year where gyms see a marked increase in subscription purchases, and we vow to change our lives and do this and do that.

But we all also know that most people don’t achieve their New Year’s Resolution(s); in fact, most have already forgotten by the end of January!

(New Year’s Resolution postcard from 1901, United States)

So how do we keep the resolution(s) we make?

I remember back in high school guidance class, we were required to read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, by Sean Covey. Like the rest of my class, I scoffed at the book, but after the end of the semester, it was the one textbook I kept, and to this day it’s still on my bookshelf. The one thing that I remembered from the book was about goals and habits, and it said that the success of goals depends on the formation of habits.

Forming habits is easier said than done of course; after all, you’re trying to change the way you’re used to doing things! I’ve made many goals (if you can believe it, everybody was required to goal-set at the beginning of each semester and share it with our homeroom teacher in my highschool) and looking back, I realize that the ones that were successful were the ones where I’ve learned to form new habits. Funny fact: setting goals has now become a personal habit because I was forced to do it regularly since grade 9!

I’ve found that there are several things that help me to keep my goals and form new habits, and I thought I’d share them with you. It’s not the only be-all and end-all of goal-setting of course, but it’s what I’ve found to work best for me.

1) Costs/Benefits

I think this is the most important thing to do – to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. It’s easy enough to say “I want a better GPA!” but it’s much harder to realize that this becomes a priority commitment. This may mean having less time to go out, not doing other things you want to, studying longer hours, etc., but having a better GPA means getting into the grad school you want and the feeling of satisfaction at having done your best.

Thinking through what my goals cost me have allowed me to be realistic about what needs to be done to achieve it, and so, for example, when I have to turn down a party because I need to study, I’m already mentally ready to make the decision because I’ve prepared for it. This makes me go, “oh yeah, I need to study because getting into grad school is important to me”, instead of, “ARGH, THIS SUCKS. I HATE SCHOOL. WHY. WHYYYYY.”

(or well, it minimizes the latter thought to a faint whisper instead of the loud roar that it would have been, heh.)

2) Breaking it down

If you want to eat a pizza, you’ve first got to slice it up! Same with goals. “Getting a better GPA” is huge. I’ve found that dividing a goal into manageable chunks makes the goal less lofty-feeling and scary, and easier to accomplish. By being more specific, small goals also conveniently turn into action steps, liking plotting a route on a map to your final destination.

3) One at a time

This one I’m constantly guilty of. I feel like there are so many things I want to do that I try to do a bajillion things at once. But like there are psych studies showing that multi-tasking actually slows you down, so does trying to realize more than one goal at a time. As I’ve said, small goals are like action steps, and action steps turn into daily habits. I give myself a week deadline for each habit, and re-evaluate the habit at the beginning of the next week.

For example, my constant goal is to “be healthier!” Rather than trying to change my diet, exercise and everything else at once, I started with switching from drinking juice and pop to water and tea for a week. In the beginning of the second week, I realized that reaching for the tap has become second nature, so I started the next action step, which is to walk instead of taking the streetcar every day.

4) Don’t give up

Things don’t always go as you plan, and I realized that it’s important not to beat yourself over it. Exercising regularly and keeping up readings are two big ones that I fail at, and I try to not think negatively by looking ahead. I let myself mope for a few minutes, and then take a deep breath and analyze why I failed.

Last semester, I tried to keep up with my readings by reading during my commute. That was an epic fail, and I realized that there were several reasons. Sleeping instead of reading because I’m so tired was a big one, but also little ones, like the friggin’ textbook being a giant brick that’s hard to hold if I have to stand the entire ride long. By analyzing what went wrong, I can revise my action steps and add new ones. This semester, I’m trying to get on the train a tad earlier than normal to skip rush hour so that I know I can get a seat.

5) Just do it

I love Nike’s motto. Just do it. Just go, go, go. Don’t give yourself excuses to not do what you want. That’s what I tell myself when I need to kick myself into action: “C’MON. GOOO. STOP MAKING EXCUSES! YOU CAN DO ITTTTTT!”

Why yes, I yell at myself in all-caps.

Share with me your new year’s resolutions, dear readers! How do you keep your goals? What do you do to accomplish it? Tell me, I’d love to learn your tricks!

- Cynthia

Are you getting sleepy?

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Hello dear readers! This is my back-up post.

What is a back-up post, you ask? Well, we update UpbeaT everyday, right? But we’re all U of T students, so what happens when school hits and we don’t have time to write anything? Being U of T students, instead of not posting, we write a post ahead of time just for the occasion.

If you’re reading this, I’m either:

  1. sleep-deprived and buried under piles of lecture slides and colour-coded notes and trying to cram for an exam;
  2. sleep-deprived and buried under glasses of unfinished water and bowls of half-eaten instant noodle and trying to write an essay;
  3. sleep-deprived and sick;
  4. any variation of the above.

Regardless of which (edit: turns out, I’m choice 3 and 1, in that order), the common theme is sleep deprivation. So just what is sleep deprivation? Helpguide.org says you may be sleep deprived if you…

  • Need an alarm clock in order to wake up on time.
  • Rely on the snooze button.
  • Have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.
  • Feel sluggish in the afternoon.
  • Get sleepy in meetings, lectures, or warm rooms.
  • Get drowsy after heavy meals or when driving.
  • Fall asleep while watching TV or relaxing in the evening.
  • Feel the need to sleep in on weekends.
  • Fall asleep within five minutes of going to bed.

Sound familiar? I’m pretty sure most of us have been sleep-deprived at some point during the school year. If you aren’t because you have such good time management skills (and luck, because Murphy is a horrible influence on Lady Luck) and you’re on top of everything? Honestly, kudos.

But what about the rest of us? Our schedules are varying levels of ridiculous and not “real world” at all. The well-meaning advice I get from non-students who say “just make sure you get your eight hours of sleep!” is unfortunately not realistic when all I’m trying to do is live from assignment to assignment while trying not to forget to eat. Robarts is open 24 hours for a reason.

I make do with naps, which has been scientifically proven to improve your ability to learn.

I don’t know about you though – sometimes I wake up from naps refreshed and energized and ready to go; other times I wake up and I’m groggy and for all intents and purposes, a zombie minus the cannibalism. I wondered how I can consistently get the good kind of nap, so I researched the science of sleep.

There are 5 stages of sleep: REM sleep and 4 stages non-REM sleep. You can read more about the scientific difference, benefit and purpose of both here and here, but generally, REM sleep replenishes the mind while non-REM rejuvenates the body. You enter REM (rapid eye movement) sleep first. This stage is the lightest and where you dream. Then you get into deeper stages of sleep (the non-REM sleep). Since sleep is cyclical, you can be in any point of the sleep stages when you wake up. So the groggy feeling you get is if you’re jolted awake from your deep sleep (non-REM). It’s like diving in deep waters – you can’t swim to the surface too quickly.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleeptracker-Wake-Up-Monitor/dp/B000E8FG20

What this means for us is that when we nap, we want to get into REM as quickly as possible and then kick* ourselves awake before we hit Stage 1 of non-REM. This is how we wake up feeling refreshed, more or less.

Since everybody’s circadian rhythm is different, I can’t exactly give you a definite amount of time to nap. Experts say between 15 to 30 minutes (Douglas Adams says 42!). Ideally, the way to figure out your ideal nap time is to be well-rested and keep a sleep journal to see whether you’re most alert when you wake up from a 15, 20, 25, or 30 minute nap. But if I had time to do that, I’d probably just sleep.

Here’s what I do. I budget for a half an hour nap, but I set two alarms. I set my wrist watch timer to go off after 20 minutes (it beeps for around 10 seconds) and then I have my phone go off like a bomb at 30 minutes in the most obnoxious, loudest noise possible. I keep both on top of my notes/binder/whatever I need to work on and away from the bed. I also keep my desk lamp on. That way, when my alarm rings, I have to get up from my bed to my desk, where it’s bright, and the work I have to do is right in front of me. I won’t just give in to the temptation to sleeeeeeeep. All I end doing is glaring at my phone and sitting down resignedly to work.

So why the wrist watch? When it goes off at 20, I either wake up, or I sleep through it. If I wake up within that 10 seconds, it means I got up at the right time of the sleep stage. I get up with a longing look back to my bed, but my mind is clear. If I sleep through it because I’m so exhausted, well, I still need to wake up, so at 30 minutes, brute force it must be. It’s better than waking up past 30 minutes, which I’ve found guarantees me grogginess or waking up 4 hours later, when the assignment/exam is due, and I’m groggy and not done.

A fun way to see if you’re awake? Go to BBC’s Sheep Dash. It checks your reaction time to tranquilize sheeps. I just went ahead and tried it and I need caffeine:

So dear readers, how are you faring? How does the week look? How do you balance school and work and extracurriculars and social life and sleep? What did you get for the Sheep Dash? Let me know in the comments!

- Cynthia

*C’mon, I’m talking about sleeping and dreaming. How can I NOT slip an Inception reference? If you haven’t seen it, omg, go now.

Surviving setbacks: the end of the year

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I have now sunk to the lowest point a student can sink to. I have begged for marks.

I’m not quite sure how I got to this point. I think it was a result of four months in one of my Criminology classes, where I had been receiving an 78 percent all semester – on a paper plan, on the first test and on the second test. I was determined to get an 80 percent in the course, and with a final test and a paper worth 30 percent it seemed realistic.

I decide to really buckle down for the last stretch. I spoke to both the TA and the professor to make sure I understood the requirements and was on the right track. I handed in a paper plan for how to improve. I started studying and working early on the assignments. The 80 percent was really important because it would significantly help my GPA, which appears to be sinking unnervingly fast this semester. I worked 100 percent to ensure I would get an 80 percent.

Needless to say, when I went on Monday to pick up my marks and saw 77 percent and 78 percent on my final test and paper, respectively, something inside me broke. I stared at my professor, helpless, and said, “Isn’t there any way I can do some credit to boost my mark?” BAM! My tush hit the lowest floor a student can sink to – the begging floor.

Because I have been in the dark about my progress in each of my courses, it seems that every mark I get back is a setback from my goal of an A- average. In several of my courses much of my mark has yet to be determined. For example, in my Drama class, there is still 60 percent of my mark remaining. We handed in a paper on the last day of class worth 40 percent and I don’t know yet how I did. It’s exactly the same situation for one of my other Criminology classes – 70 percent of my mark is still undetermined and classes are over! By the time I get marks back, it’ll be too late to do anything to improve them. As a result, every mark back becomes a weight pushing me down. It feels a bit like I’m drowning.

As you can tell from my dark and twisty state, I am having more trouble than usual writing an inspirational last post. I looked to some of my previous posts for guidance – The Final Words for example - but somehow, I just can’t seem to get my blog on.

I guess, in many ways, how you deal with life stems from your attitude. A wise woman once said, “When you are on the Titanic, you load a lifeboat! You don’t stop to yell at the icebergs!” Okay, okay so the line comes from a TV show called Everybody Loves Raymond but hey, Debra has a point. When you feel you are sinking, it is best to do what you can rather than to lament over what you cannot.

Setbacks are something that you will experience not only as a student, but in the real world. And although it is frightening to step out of the bubble of university, many students don’t realize how well-prepared they are. I disagree when people patronizingly say things like university is a safe zone and the real world is different, because we have all been in the real world. We have all struggled to earn jobs, to learn skills like time management and dealing with stress, and most importantly, we are learning to deal with setbacks.

Setbacks. We face them everyday. Some cause us to stumble, others bring us to our knees. And along with pain and heartache, setbacks bring the opportunity to rise up, to be better and stronger and braver than before. Whether you are graduating or returning for another year of university, you will have the opportunity to prove yourself.

Have a wonderful summer, my lovely UpbeaT readers. I look forward to hearing all about your student experiences this September.

Cheers!

- Fariya

Seeing clearly

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A perk of being an optometrist’s daughter is that you get to test out revolutionary technology. As a self-proclaimed, passionate anti-glasses individual, I’ve looked far and wide for a solution, and orthokeratology (ortho-k) is the answer. What is ortho-k, you ask? Well, I go to sleep wearing rigid contact lenses, and the lenses reshape my cornea so that the next morning, I have 20/20 vision without any glasses or daytime contact lenses.

Cool, huh?

I love it — it lets me see independently, without any fear of breaking my glasses or losing a contact lens while playing sports.

But there is only one catch: sleep.

You see, last night I stayed up working on a 20–page research paper. It was extensive, exhausting and draining. I basically worked straight for 24 hours. My brain is exploding, still reeling from the effects of that paper. As a result of my all-nighter, I didn’t get to wear my ortho-k lenses.

You’re probably finding yourself in the same sleep-deprived situation right about now. It’s that time of year, when somehow, the multitude of essays and exams which you knew about at the beginning of the term have piled up. You’re tired, Christmas Break seems too far away to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and you could really use a nap and some strong coffee.

Part of the wondrous experience of being a student, in my opinion, is the joy you get from taking pride in your own work. I’m fiercely independent; I dislike receiving assistance from other people because I like to be 100 per cent accountable and responsible for my mistakes and achievements. When I receive a grade, I can look at it, satisfied, and say it is a product of my hard work, without blaming anyone else for the areas that need improvement. While it sounds good on paper, there is a bit of a flaw with this thinking.

It is similar to not wearing ortho-k lenses all night, and then deciding the next morning that you will be perfectly fine without wearing your glasses for the rest of the day. In an attempt to see independently, you miss out on the fine the details of the view.

I find that a lot of students take this perspective at the end of the term — the assignments and deadlines seem so overwhelming and imposing that it becomes easier to just shut out the world than to listen to its helpful voices. What I am trying to say is, it’s okay to wear your glasses. It’s easy to think we have it under control, and harder to voice to say we need help.

Every student, even a very good student, can use some assistance. Sometimes it’s a trained professional who’ll look over your essay at the writing centre and give your work that extra boost. Other times, you need a counsellor to voice your concerns to, and to provide advice on how to deal with daily issues that can feel overwhelming. Perhaps you need a bit of guidance on how to tighten up your résumé, or sign up for a fitness class at Hart House to get your blood pumping?

What many students forget is that U of T has a wide range of resources to assist you. Many times throughout your student career, you’ll need to talk a step back and remind yourself not to get swept up in the attempt to be superhuman. We all have our blind spots. If you can acknowledge and address those areas — whether you’re a glasses, contact lenses or ortho-k kind of person — you’ll be able to see clearly.

- Fariya

Hissing Cockroaches and Confused Flowers: A History Student in the BIO150 Lab

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There are some questions which never fail to rouse my curiosity. One of them pertains to how flowering plants, native to to the southern hemisphere but growing in small brown pots on my living room table, know that even though it’s winter here, it’s summer back home; and they celebrate by bursting into flower as the first snowflakes hit the ground outside. My Christmas Cactus is one such culprit.

How does this pertain to U of T, you may ask? My answer: biology class. After this term I only have one class to finish in order to complete my degree, and as I’m already a few years older than most fourth-year students, most of my friends question my sanity when they realize I intend to take a full-time course load over the spring. This summer I decided that although I’m very happy with the historical database I’ve internally amassed, I wouldn’t feel right about graduating without at least a basic understanding of some other rather important fields of study. That is how I, a die-hard history student, ended up in the BIO150 lab.

Having not participated in a lab for several years, I was admittedly a little scared at the start of term that I would be that dupe who, standing above the microscope trying to figure out how to turn the thing on, would accidentally start a chemical fire at my lab station and permanently ruin biology for everyone. Luckily this has not yet happened. Instead, the labs have become my favourite courses of the term.

This affinity emerged during the very first lab, where we were to be observe, even handle, a variety of big, exotic, and very alive insects. Stick insects, rhino beetles, hissing cockroaches, and giant caterpillars had all been invited, and I was going to meet them all. While I didn’t actually hold the giant hissing cockroach, I did get to play with the baby stick insects. These little critters wobble back and forth in imitation of branches moving in the wind, when the leaves upon which they stand are moved.

Successive labs proved just as interesting. In one we grew metal-tolerant grasses; in another we scored genes using protein electrophoresis; in another still we simulated genetic drift by mating with other classmates. (Read: exchanging white slips of paper carrying letter symbols representing genes). The lab room itself is a veritable treasure trove of oddities. Reminiscent of a nineteenth-century phrenologist’s study, it’s filled with animal skulls, reptile skeletons, and taxidermied birds; just the kind of space where you could lose yourself for an hour or two before you realized you were late for your next class.

The science courses I’m taking this year are perhaps superfluous to my final plans; but nonetheless, I do feel (and I’m not just being positive because this is a U of T blog) that this variety of new courses has absolutely enriched my university experience. And I’m sure that it will be knowledge that I’ll use at various junctions down the road – not least when a lull in the conversation at social events allows me to bring up the hissing cockroaches one last time.

- Mary