{"id":2740,"date":"2009-09-01T15:28:08","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T19:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/UpbeaT\/?p=2740"},"modified":"2009-09-01T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2009-09-01T19:28:08","slug":"guest-post-theres-more-to-school-than-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2009\/09\/01\/guest-post-theres-more-to-school-than-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post &#8211; There&#8217;s More to School than Books!"},"content":{"rendered":"<em>As we wait for the return of our regular bloggers in mid-September, we have invited a number of people to guest blog for us. Our first post is from Asma Desai.<\/em>\n\n<figure id=\"attachment_2744\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2744\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2009\/09\/msa-pic-lo-res.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2744\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2009\/09\/msa-pic-lo-res.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"266\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2744\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The MSA is just one of hundreds of clubs you can join.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<strong>By Asma Desai<\/strong>\n\nEnd of summer is fast approaching and that can only mean one thing...SCHOOL! aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!! September usually means pens, paper, and lots and lots of BOOKS! But school can mean and should mean a lot more than that. No I'm not talking about libraries or eating (although when I think about school the first thing that comes to my mind is always food!)..I'm talking about clubs! UofT has clubs as diverse as its student population, there are academic clubs, art clubs, leadership clubs, spiritual clubs, athletic clubs and social clubs. <a title=\"Ulife link\" href=\"https:\/\/ulife.utoronto.ca\/organizations\">ULife<\/a> has a great list where you'll be sure to find a club that's just right for you!\n\nBut..a word of caution: although there is an abundance of clubs please do NOT join each and every one of them. For the faint hearted, that will cause an overload...or it should in theory.\n\nLast year I got involved in the <a title=\"Muslim Students' Association\" href=\"https:\/\/ulife.utoronto.ca\/organizations\">Muslim Students' Association<\/a> (MSA) and had so much fun at the few events I attended that I decided to run for an exec position. But, before I decided on how involved I wanted to get (i.e. a list-serve member, a regular member, a active member, or an executive member), I considered four things and you should too:\n\n<strong>1. Your courseload<\/strong>\n\nHow many courses are you taking? Is it a full course load? Are you taking a course that's known for its extremely hard TA? Or a course with 140 pages of readings per class? Or are you taking a \"<a title=\"Everybody loves a bird course\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2008\/12\/11\/everybody-loves-a-bird-course\/\">bird course<\/a>\"? Analyze your timetable and see how much time you'll have in a given week after you've allotted time for lectures, labs, tutorials, readings and assignments. If you've got a ton of time, think about taking a more leadership or active role in the club.\n\n<strong>2. Your work schedule<\/strong>\n\nSo you've finally decided to get a part-time job. Don't forget to include it in your schedule and take out the 5-15 hours a week. If you're not working, you've got nothing to worry about!\n\n<strong>3. The club<\/strong>\n\nMake sure its a club that you love! You should agree with the purpose and objective of it and it definitely helps if you're passionate about it. If you're not so sure, there's no harm in trying it out. Attend the first couple of meetings and get a feel for the club and its members.\n\n<strong>4. The fun scale<\/strong>\n\nBecause you already have school and maybe a job, you really don't want this new commitment to be something boring or, heaven forbid, \"work\". There's nothing worse than not enjoying what you're doing. For me, when I'm working on <a href=\"http:\/\/uoftmsa.com\/\">MSA<\/a> things, I'm always having fun, it's never tedious and that's the way this type of commitment should be.\n\nTo find out which clubs you would like to get involved in come on out to <a title=\"Link to Clubs Day\" href=\"http:\/\/utsu.ca\/index.php?section_id=1167\">Clubs Day<\/a>, Friday September 4th and have a look around! \ud83d\ude42\n\nDon't forget to check out the Muslim Students' Association's <a title=\"MSA Orientation link\" href=\"http:\/\/uoftmsa.com\/2009\/06\/frosh-halal-meat-a-muslim-orientation-of-uoft\/\">Frosh Halal Meat<\/a>, which will supplement frosh week provided by your college. It's a great way to learn what the MSA is about and see if it's something you'd like to be involved in...if not take your pick from the one of the other hundreds!\n\n<em>Asma Desai is the General Secretary of the <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/uoftmsa.com\/\"><em>Muslim Students' Association<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nAs we wait for the return of our regular bloggers in mid-September, we have invited a number of people to guest blog for us. Our first post is from Asma Desai. By Asma Desai End of summer is fast approaching&hellip;\n<\/div><div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2009\/09\/01\/guest-post-theres-more-to-school-than-books\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Guest Post &#8211; There&#8217;s More to School than Books!&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2009\/09\/01\/guest-post-theres-more-to-school-than-books\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Guest Post &#8211; There&#8217;s More to School than Books!&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,65,70,69,67,68,77],"tags":[135,939,819,933,504,25510,938],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}