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. 

huron and harbord intersection

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...".

My Expectations vs My Reality

Hi, my name is Agustina and I am this year's first-year blogger! Why start a blog of a journal? One of the most obvious reasons to keep a blog or a journal is to express your thoughts. It helps you create an honest space where you can express and track what is happening in your life, revealing your thoughts on certain subjects. As first-year students or university students, we all go through our student lives with certain expectations. Here are some of the expectations I encountered about having to start university.