Christina VarvisWhen I was in my second year of university, one of my professors posed a question to the class.
It was simply, “Why are you here?”
After hearing a myriad of responses from the class, which included students working towards careers, towards a Master’s degree, and many who just said, “I don’t know,” it was my turn to answer.
Slightly in jest, I replied, “To learn.”
Most laughed including the professor, and while I wasn’t being entirely serious, I think my response reflected the prevailing attitude of many university students and educators today who treat university more of a means to an end as opposed to an experience.
I started my university experience not having a clue what I wanted to do with my life, and five years later, I still don’t really know. I have a better idea definitely, but in terms of a career, I still haven’t come close to deciding yet.
I won’t remember my university experience as one where I found a career. I’ll remember it for all of the other things I learned outside of the classroom, which will be relevant in my life for many years to come.
For starters, I learned about prioritizing my time. In high school, I found I could spend a negligible amount of time on my schoolwork, and still get by with adequate grades. By grade 12, I nearly had this down to a science, spending no more than an hour or two on homework each week, usually right before bed, so I had the maximum amount of goof-off time after school.
The importance of this really hit home during my second year of university, my first at the U of A. Having transferred to a school where I could freely hang out with friends at almost any point of the day on campus was exciting to me, and I started doing just that — in lieu of going to classes or studying. I sailed by with the same mentality that I had in high school, and it cost me. I failed Stats 141, and nearly flunked out of university.
In a weird way, that was my first dose of the real world. I didn’t put as much effort into a task as I should, and I nearly paid the consequences — something that I didn’t have to deal with in high school. Time management isn’t something that has a corresponding class in university, it doesn’t have a syllabus or a textbook. It’s something you learn informally throughout your degree.
In high school you had teachers keeping track of your every move — your attendance, whether you handed in homework, and even when you went to the bathroom. That’s not the case in university, and some students struggle with the fact that there’s nobody monitoring their activities. I certainly did after skipping my fair share of classes in my first year here. I didn’t have my Stats professor seeking me out in Tory basement and asking why I hadn’t been to class in two weeks. I had to learn the value of going to class on my own. I had to be self-reliant. Sometimes people aren’t going to look out for you, and you’ve got to look out for yourself.
Most importantly, I learned to appreciate my time at university. Your time at the U of A, or wherever you choose to spend your post-secondary career, is a unique life experience. You’ll have highs and lows, but throughout it all, you’ll learn lessons that will stick with you for the rest of your life.
Be it first years living away from home for this first time — learning how to cook, living on their own money, and attempting to balance school and work, or someone like me, we all have to learn the value of time management and putting the right amount of effort into our work.
Chances are most of the adults around you learned these skills and more when they were in university, and chances are, they didn’t find the solutions in the back of their Stats 141 textbook.
Treasure your time here and use it to better yourself. You won’t get a better opportunity to do that than right now.
