Erin Millar - The Canadian Campus Companion: Everything You Need to Know About Going to University and College

Erin Millar is one of Canadas leading post-secondary education journalists and has written about education for publications such as Macleans, Chatelaine, Readers Digest and The Globe and Mail. She has also appeared as an expert on university life on radio and television across the country. Erin is perhaps best known for her work as a founding editor of Macleans OnCampus, a section of Macleans.ca dedicated to university life.

Ben Coli contributes to a weekly advice column and blog at Macleans OnCampus about university life. He was a property tax consultant before turning to writing full-time and brings his knowledge of financial planning and marketing to The Canadian Campus Companion.

The
Canadian
Campus
Companion

Everything you need to know
about college and university

Erin Millar & Ben Coli

THOMAS ALLEN PUBLISHERS
TORONTO

Copyright 2011 Erin Millar and Ben Coli

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systemswithout the prior written permission of the publisher, or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Millar, Erin, 1982
The Canadian campus companion : everything a student needs to know about going to university and college in Canada / Erin Millar, Ben Coli.

ISBN 978-0-88762-640-1

1. College student orientationCanadaHandbooks, manuals, etc.
2. College studentsCanadaLife skills guides.
3. Universities and collegesCanada. I. Coli, Ben, 1976 II. Title.

LB2343.34.C3M55 2011 378.1'980971 C2010-903804-5

Editor: Janice Zawerbny
Cover design: Sputnik Design Partners Inc.
Cover image: Corbis Images
Illustrations: Shutterstock

Published by Thomas Allen Publishers,
a division of Thomas Allen & Son Limited,
390 Steelcase Road East,
Markham, Ontario L3R 1G2 Canada

www.thomasallen.ca

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of The Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

We acknowledge the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

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Printed and bound in Canada

The Canadian Campus Companion

Contents

Preface: What Do You Want to Get Out of Your Education?

The Canadian Campus Companion

B EFORE YOU COMMIT the next few years of your life to higher education, you should ask yourself why youre doing it.

Dont just recite a list of reasons why other people said you should go; those are probably all great reasons, but what matters now are your reasons. Why are you going to college or university, and what do you want to get out of the experience?

You dont have to stick to your answermost students change their minds along the waybut you should probably have some kind of an answer in mind before you begin this journey. Your reasons for going will guide your decisions about what kind of education you want, which school you want to go to, and what classes youll take. Then, when youre in school, your reasons will influence how you approach your classes and what kind of extracurricular activities youll get involved in.

Some people go to university or college because they want to get a good job. Others go to broaden their minds or start a career in academics. Some go with the intention of having as much fun as possible while getting marks just good enough to graduate. Many people go because they dont know what they want to do with their lives now that theyve graduated high school, and university is a good place to figure it out. For most people, it is some combination of these reasons.

Both of us (the authors of this book) went on to post-secondary education immediately after high school because we were expected to. We had good grades, and college or university was where students with good grades went, simple as that. We each developed different reasons for going to school along the way, and we both ended up learning things from the experience that we never would have imagined beforehand.

Theres a good chance that the best thing youre going to get out of university or college is something you havent even thought of yet, so keep yourself open to the possibilities. It happened to us: Erin went to college to get a degree in jazz studies, became the editor of her schools student newspaper and is now a freelance magazine journalist. Ben went to university for a business degree, picked up a philosophy-reading habit and has ended up writing advice books for students. Neither of us could have guessed at age 18 that this would happen.

What you end up getting out of your education will depend a lot on what you decide to put into it. If you attack academics with zeal and enthusiasm, youre going to learn way more than if you do the bare minimum to pass your classes. If you attend events, join campus clubs, participate in student government, and get involved in the life of your school, youll have a richer experience and meet more people than you will if you dont spend any more time on campus than you have to. All of these things take time, of course, so youll have to evaluate your commitments and decide where your priorities lie.

We cant tell you what you should want from your education and how you should go about it. This is your life, and these are your choices to make. This book instead aims to provide you with information to help you make thoughtful, conscious decisions. We wont tell you what to do. Instead, well alert you to potential pitfalls and difficulties you may encounter. Well pass on the advice and share the experiences of students who have already been through this. Well relate the wise words of the dozens of professors, counsellors, university officials, and other experts we spoke to. Well also give you a heads-up about choices youll have to make in a few years, such as what kind of career you want and whether you want to go to graduate school, so you can have a good, long time to think about it and prepare for those decisions.

This book is divided into seven chapters.

Chapter 1: Before Classes Start. Its time to get ready for school. Youll have to pick which school youre going to go to, figure out what youre going to study while youre there, and come up with a plan that will begin with registering for your first courses and end with you graduating.

Chapter 2: A Roof Over Your Head. Whether its your parents house, a residence, or an apartment of your own, youre going to have to live somewhere while youre going to school. Well talk about the benefits and drawbacks of these options and give you tips on surviving residence and making sure the apartment you rent isnt a total slum.

Chapter 3: Making the Grade. This isnt high school anymore. At universities and colleges, students are much more responsible for their own learning than they were in high school, and classes move a lot faster. Youre going to need to sharpen your academic skills and learn how to use your studying and reading time more effectively.