uoft – Page 21 – Life @ U of T

How To Complete A Large Task

Imagine you are a waiter/waitress. It’s currently rush hour at the restaurant you work at, and you have 24 plates of food to deliver to the customers in the eating area. Based on past experience at your job, you know that you can handle carrying 3 plates at a time. How would you deliver the plates to customers?

A) Take only 1 trip from the kitchen to the eating area – carrying 24 plates at a time. B) Take 2 trips from the kitchen to the eating area – carrying 12 plates at a time. C) Take 8 trips from the kitchen to the eating area – carrying 3 plates at a time.

My Experience With The Academic Success Center Drop-Ins!

Hey guys! In last week's post, I had vowed that I would go to the Academic Success Centre (ASC) during the drop-in hours to meet with a learning strategist to help me prepare for my upcoming midterms. A learning strategist is a trained professional who provides individualized academic support; they help you understand your learning style and guide you towards the appropriate strategies to maximize your learning efficiency. During the ASC drop-in hours, you can meet with a learning strategist for up to 30 minutes. The ASC is located in the Koffler Student Services Centre building at 214 College St. Drop-in hours for this Fall semester are:

Tuesdays: 10a.m. - 12p.m
Fridays: 1:30p.m. - 3:30p.m.

Here is an account of my first-time experience with meeting a learning strategist:

In Which I Harness Procrastination For Good

I think it’s safe to say I was at the point in midterm season, or huge-influx-of-essays-due-in-one-week season where my mind was frayed. It was the kind of fraying where I just comfortably threw my clothes on my chair when I got home. I comfortably began ‘forgetting’ to put away the snacks I had on my nightstand. I comfortably hadn’t made my bed in who knows how long. I comfortably stopped using my table as a study space and instead used it as a storage for all the books and articles I had to read. It was like when Frank Ocean sang “a tornado flew around my room before you came”, only my situation was a lot less poetic and probably wouldn’t win any awards. I’m just going to come out and say it – my room was a mess.

ALT="A photo of my nightstand and corner of the room cluttered with clothes." — An example of how my room looked at the time

Who knew procrastination would not only be the reason for it but also the resolution of it?

In Which Sargam Seeks Help!

For Self-Care week, I want to share an experience that literally changed the course of my entire university career and perhaps, changed how I will live my life from now on. Okay, yeah, I’m overly dramatic usually but I’m not exaggerating here, promise. Brace yourselves.

a box of assorted cookies — PS. A lot of my self-care tips include food, in one way or another.

My Dates with Myself

I'm think I am an introvert, I probably always have been. I try not to shy away from it anymore because I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Also, I think a lot of people misunderstand what introversion means. It can mean "a shy person" but I like to think that the psychological definition of introversion is much more relevant:

"a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings"

This makes a lot more sense to me; I'm not a quite person because I have nothing to say or I'm scared to say it but more so because I'm taking everyone's inputs in and assessing my own thoughts first. I'm the kind of person who doesn't need to have other people around in order to feel happy, energized or active. I'm perfectly content spending a weekend with myself, just going about daily life and reading a book or two (or 10). I like listening to my music and staring into space (or simply staring into space).

View of Huron Street from Sid Smith Lounge — Chilling in the Sid Smith Lounge and "people-watching" (a fancy term for staring into space)

How To Stay Focused This Midterm Season

A maple leaf has turned mostly orange in colour and is on the pavement

It’s the middle of October and you know what that means? Pumpkin spiced lattes, a chilly breeze, Halloween décor, and midterms. Around this time of year, students often find their schedules filled with due dates, exams, quizzes, labs, papers, and assignments. During times like these, time is of the essence. On that note, here is a life-hack to help save time: one of the most effective ways to maximize productivity is to minimize distractions. From personal experience, an hour of distraction-free studying is generally equivalent to 5-6 hours of distracted studying. Therefore, by staying focused, you can actually save a lot of time. So, how can you stay focused when studying?

Skating Level I at Varsity Centre

Last week, I started my skating class at Varsity Centre. I LOVED it. In addition to registering for the class, I registered to rent skate – which I’ll have access to every week for the hour I spend in class. I haven’t put on a pair of my own skates in a long time, so I imagined any pair I could dig up at home would be four sizes too small. I really appreciate the option to rent because not only is it inexpensive ($20 for the duration of the class) but it also means I’m not lugging skates to and from campus on top of my course materials. When I got to Varsity Centre, I swiped my TCard and made my way to the arena (a familiar route, having attended a couple of MoveU skating events there already).

This is the entrance to Varsity Centre where you swipe your T-Card.

It wasn’t long before I ran into my coach, whom I identified right away (she was wearing a big headband with the word “SKATE” across the front so… lucky guess). Shannon later explained that what she was wearing was a concussion headband with significant padding to protect her head. “Cool!” I thought.

A Little Help Goes A Long Way

Confession time – I'm a third year student at UofT, and up until now, I haven't really used any of the university services that were specifically designed to guide students towards academic success. It’s time to change that. Growing up, I have always had the “I can do it myself” mentality. This attitude held me back from reaching out to university services. But recently, I came to a realization that I should have taken advantage of these services.

A picture of a small milk carton, with a large opening, because I opened it the wrong way. — I denied my friend's offer to help me open this carton because "I could do it myself!" Clearly, I couldn't.

The world doesn’t revolve around me?

One of the things about being a university student is that you start to say, "OH SO I'm NOT the only one who...". When I was in high school, I felt like I was the only one around who cared about the environment or that I was the only one who enjoyed classical music. With a group only 800 students in the whole school and around 200 in my grade, it really was difficult to see diversity. Not to mention, everyone in my grade came from the same neighbourhood and likely grew up there their whole lives so we tended to focus on the similarities between us and our peers while ignoring the parts of us that make us different.

When I started at U of T, one of the largest and most renowned schools in Canada, and lived in the city, I truly saw the world from a diverse lens for the first time. Concepts like accessibility, citizenship status, equity and intersectionality were either not in my vocabulary radar or I hadn't thought about them on a larger scale whatsoever; I had a pretty narrow view of the world which was shaped by what was immediately around me. I also didn't use the Internet in order to keep up my grades for university. After coming to university, I started realizing my own privilege and found the ways that I could make a difference in the community using that privilege but most importantly, I found communities that eliminated any misconception I had had about being "the only one who...".

Getting in the door: Overcoming barriers to participation in physical activity

I’ve realized I’ve done you all a great disservice by not expanding the perspective from which I write. I’ve recently come to appreciate just how easy it may be for me to engage in physical activity on campus compared to some of my peers. So this year, I vow to do my best to step out of my shoes and into some of yours. To start, I asked what prevents students from participating. With help from my peers and the people of Reddit, I’ve become aware of a few big hurdles… Nobody likes to be the new kid. Being new at the gym can be incredibly unnerving. I can totally understand that. Gym culture these days is hard to avoid and it seems to be growing increasingly garish.

White and grey text on a black background reads "Set some goals, then demolish them." — The community can be a little intense sometimes.
Source: goodmorningquote.com

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