Reflecting on my Whirlwind First-Year Journey (So Far)

So… my first term and a half went by insanely fast.

If there’s anything to note in particular, it’s that even when you’re overwhelmed, time carries on. The proverbial train keeps chugging. My only options here were to adapt and overcome! Thus, I did:

I remember coming to UTM on Residence Move-In Day extremely excited to start a new chapter of my life (also already knowing I had this fabulous gig to look forward to! Cheers, OST ❤ ), and I’m so thankful for the time that I have spent here so far.

From accustoming myself to my new home in Mississauga with the help of UTM’s Residence Student Services team, and becoming a part of a community, I’ve met countless excellent people.

I’ve been fortunate to have kind, supportive roommates. Though we’re all in different fields of study, our university struggles are one and the same. Quite frankly, I think that’s why you can make friends so easily here. Aside from the welcoming environment, you’ll always have that common ground to build a relationship upon. It might not seem like much, but the feeling of camaraderie and not necessarily being alone is reassuring.

I’ve also been so fortunate to have been in the hands of super teaching faculty enriching me in both my favourite and new– thanks, distribution credit degree requirement– subjects. They didn’t necessarily make things easy (I mean that well, haha!), but they made things respectfully challenging, and therefore rewarding.

Thanks to my abundant meal plan, I swear I have tried almost every drink item offered at Starbucks. Another feat!

Additionally, I can say I participated in many activities and events to add to my experiences. Between a job with the Office of Student Transition, I tried out and balanced a dance club in my schedule for the Fall term: more amazing people to connect with!

To get back in touch with my love of performing, I participated in a flash mob, and also had the opportunity to present an old routine from my competitive dance days for an event on campus.

The latter performance was especially heartwarming since it felt like growing up; the last time I had performed the routine, I was in Grade 12. I’d already felt like a significant period of maturation had passed by for myself. Which, in fact, was true…

University is a time of major self-growth and development, and as of right now, I can say the best thing I’ve done has been to embrace every second of it. Between every fumble and success, I have learned so much. But the best part is knowing there’s even more time for me to grow and change as a person. I do love and value myself, but you should also never stop trying to be the best person you can be.

Finally, I wanted to say thank you to the wonderful person reading this. I have especially loved documenting my first-year journey on this blog. I hope that my experiences were enjoyable to check-up on, and I have appreciated every read greatly!

I also hope that I inspire the next generation of first-year bloggers, much like the OST’s blogger alumni did for me!

A gracious doodle for everyone here. I don’t just create with words! 🙂

Much love, and signing off,

Devon 🙂

Getting Course Help: High School vs University

They’ll say it once, and they’ll say it a hundred times over:

“It only gets harder from here!” Or, “Nobody is going to hold your hand!”

My high school teachers weren’t entirely wrong, I suppose, but I’ll explain what I mean.

I was fortunate to have an insight into post-secondary expectations thanks to my lovely significant-other who’s further ahead in their academic journey. When I had heard what it was like from somebody who was experiencing the environment firsthand, the insight was relieving. Hence, this one is for the curious high school students on the bridge towards their own journey this fall. I know that I appreciated the advice at the time; I’m sure you will too!

My Top 5 January Jams to Power through the Day!

I like to think music can be a very personal thing, but without playlists (hello, Spotify and Apple Music!), how would we show ourselves to others? Whether for car-ride jams, morning strolls, or parties, music is a huge part of our day-to-day lives, and it has been a big part of my university life as well.

Since I would never make it through a day at the grind without it, here are five (in no particular order) tunes that have been the most played for me since coming back, fired up to take on the Winter term.

Let’s Review! Why utmONE was the Ultimate Course to Start my University Career

Happy New Year, folks! 

The turn of a new year comes with many things, such as inevitably screwing up when writing the date until March; or on a more positive note, it can be a time to reflect on the past year and the one that lies ahead. For me, my tumultuous start to university was something I eventually embraced. When I think back now, I couldn’t have started the school year better.

How so? Aside from making plenty of mistakes, I found comfort in a great support system– that was also a for-credit course! If you’re an incoming first-year applicant, look no further!

Let’s Get Artsy! UTM’s Enchanted Coffee House Night

Bless the email updates that I get from Student Housing & Residence Life because otherwise, I wouldn’t have discovered the fantastic event that I attended this week.

Quite frankly, I’ll admit I don’t go to as many of the advertised events as I should, and I think tonight entirely changed that for me. UTM’s Artistic Resource Team put on a fantastic show– one that I was even able to take part in myself!

Back to that email, it was only last week that I opened my inbox, immediately screenshotted, and sent the advertisement to my roommates in our group chat.

“Well, should I do it?” I asked.

I was met with unanimous “yesses” from my friends, eagerly encouraging me to get involved.

For those reading that don’t know me personally, I used to be a competitive dancer back home. I try to keep dancing up whenever I am able to at UTM; I often miss the feeling of performing. I had a solo costume an hour away, and I would be going home that weekend for my grandmother’s birthday dinner. Everything was falling into place.

 

*That’s So Raven voice*  YUP that’s me.

 

I would perform my graduation solo from my final year— I hadn’t danced the routine since this past June at my last recital. I was fortunate that I still remembered it, and I listened to the song whenever I could, even just practice my facial expressions in the mirror (that’s musical theatre for ya).

A week flew by and the night finally arrived. I wasn’t sure how much space I would have to work with (I haven’t had a class in IB, but at least now I can say I’ve danced in one of the rooms?), but the event coordinators were fantastic and had everything planned out perfectly! Not to mention, the decorations were adorable. It was all Disney themed, so there was lots of magic in the air. Shame my song wasn’t from a Disney movie— some singers picked Disney songs, and they turned out to be fantastic coincidences.

 

The majority of the night’s acts were singing (as I watched in awe, wishing I could have a fraction of their talent). There was also a (dare I say, hip with the kids) lit rap performance and a compelling spoken word poetry performance. I was excited to be the only dance act!

It was hard to be nervous since the audience’s encouragement was phenomenal (that, and even seasoned pros get anticipation butterflies). My performance went better than I could’ve ever imagined. I nailed every move and was received with plenty of cheering and applause. People even laughed at the funny parts! The best part, though, had to be the encouragement after the performance, where I was met with a flood of compliments from tons of people, both those I hadn’t met before and those I knew but hadn’t seen me dance. I was gushing: so much kindness and support in a single room!

The moral of the story? I said it in an earlier blog, I’m sure, but get out and participate! Tons of fantastic opportunities are available on campus, by-students-for-students, and they’re perfect chances to unwind for a few hours. You’re bound to leave with a smile. Keep an eye out on campus for more announcements throughout the year!

Keep on keeping on,

Dev 🙂

Work Hard, Play Hard! Ways to Relax on Residence at UTM

Living on campus often feels like having a year-long sleepover at your full-time job. Except sometimes that sleepover also feels like when having multiple-night sleepovers with a friend and being lowkey sick of them by the second night even though you still love them dearly deep down… somewhere. What I mean is that there are definite highs and lows.

Needless to say, a proper winding-down is critical at the end of a day/week. When you’re always surrounded by the idea of academia because you live in residence, having fun is essential. Here are some ways to chill on our fantastic campus!

Grab Some Grub at The Blind Duck or Colman Commons

It’s Time University Students say “Goodnight” to the Legendary All-Nighter.

Ah, midterm season. The time of year where stress is high, sleep is low, and productivity is debatable.

Sleep is low. Sleep. Is. Low.

Gee, I wonder why?

NOT YOU TOO, BIG BIRD.

 

For us university students, it seems like a typical rite of passage to sacrifice sleep, or ultimately one’s well-being when it comes to tackling the never-ending list of assignments and tests. Look, I understand that sometimes life happens and thus we can be left doing something at the last minute. Good for whoever it is for eventually getting it done, too (assuming their decision was actually worthwhile), but why brag about it? Why have students glorified something as detrimental as The All-Nighter?

Your body functions better with sleep!

Keep in mind that this is just my opinion (and I’m not your mother, but she’d be saying the same thing), but who would ever want to lose sleep? In fact, something more worth bragging about would be the number of hours of sleep that you did get, as opposed to what you didn’t get! If you’re looking to impress people, you’ll sound a heck of a lot more put-together when you can say you woke up in the morning with a solid period of rest under your belt (that’s minimum 7-8 hours, folks!).

Guilty.

 

Studying all night might as well be like not studying at all!

Picture this: it’s incredibly late, you’re reading, and your eyes are merely glazing over the words on the page, eyelids getting heavier and heavier with every passing second. If you can barely recall the last sentence you read, there’s an excellent chance that you won’t remember it in the morning, either. If your body is subconsciously telling you to hit the hay, do it! It’s a much better idea to sleep early when you’re tired and start again early in the morning than to push through exhaustion (which will only get worse). Listen to your body!

If you must be a night owl…

I get it. Sometimes the night time is when people are simply most awake. I actually know of a UTM alumnus who had their entire day flipped around: they would go to bed at 7PM and wake up around 3AM to study and start their day– it’s just what worked for them! If you don’t want to test that extreme out for yourself, find time in the day to take a power nap or two to recharge if you continuously plan on burning the midnight oil!

 

At the root of these suggestions, it all comes back to the ol’ idea of self-care. Budget your time wisely so that you won’t have to consider working so late. Make your routines healthy ones, then maybe tackling the days to come won’t seem like such a daunting idea. While we’re at it… did you eat lunch today?

Keep on keeping on (and best of luck with whatever assignments/tests stand in the way of sweet freedom!),

Dev 🙂

 

Pull Yourself Together! How to Stay Organized through a Hectic University Lifestyle

Two months have passed since moving Mississauga and UTM for yours truly. At this point, routines have been crafted, tested, accepted or long-rejected in my life: whether it be for organizing my class work, or my dorm room, everything is mostly in smooth order by now! However, getting to this point was no easy feat!

Curious as to how I’ve made it so far? Here are some essential tips covering two areas of ground:

Schoolwork/Scheduling

If there’s anything that changed about me upon starting university, it was that I became a planner person. Not that I ever looked down on the act beforehand, but I don’t understand how people can survive university without one, or at least without putting essential dates in their phone calendars. My planner has become my Bible, as you can probably tell…

I promise that week wasn’t as crazy as it looks!

Upon their upload date, I put all of the dates for my weekly readings from my syllabi in my planner, as well as assignment due dates, and midterm/exam dates when those were released. I personally work well with a to-do/checklist-style outline, where I can mark off as I go. If you’re really creative, try your hand at bullet journaling and make one before the year to use!

Bonus: if you want something to look back on when the days seem bleak, make a column for good things that happen every day, no matter how big or small! It can be very reassuring for the days when you feel like you wake up only to work and go back to sleep again.

Living Environment

No matter how ironic the name, organizers are fantastic. They’re great for making space, which is essential for dorm rooms that are an inevitable downsize. I bought a closet shoe-organizer from IKEA: the slot sizes are perfect, and it’s narrow enough for any closet space. It made an ideal area to keep little things like hats, scarves, or miscellaneous stuff like hairbrushes, etc.

I hope my parents are proud.

Spot the blog-ception!

For my desk in my room, I feel most motivated when everything is tidy. I have a calendar above where I keep track of assignment dates in month-at-a-glance format, and little decor things that make me happy. I also have a desktop drawer space (far right) to keep knickknacks.

My roommates and I have our own baskets for the bathrooms, too. Being girls, one can imagine how messy that gets, and so dedicated places for everything was a must. These smaller baskets can also be useful in the limited drawers provided for clothes that aren’t hung up, to divide neatly for socks, undergarments, and other things that tend to get mixed around!

 

Something like this. I’ll spare you my own on this one.

In university, take advice wherever/whenever you can get it. How I figured out my way of getting by came from others’ tidbits of insight and my own habits that might’ve had to be modified a tad for this new environment. Ultimately, it can be a process of trial and error; as tedious as it can be, your comfort will be worth it in the end. Trust me, you’ll want to have at least something going for you in chaotic times.

What are some habits that help you on a day to day basis?

Keep on keeping on,

Dev 🙂

Here’s What Changed my Horrible Week of Grades into My Best Asset!

I like to equate last week to getting on a train and discovering that you’re numerous stops in the polar opposite direction to where you needed to be. Just when everything appeared to be going smoothly, it’s like the perfect illusion shattered.

How I wish I could’ve been to my mom when I flipped over the rubric.

In short, that was how I felt about getting some of my first marks back for most of my classes : bad.

High-school me would’ve gone comatose had she seen those marks being returned. I knew that the transitional “grade-drop” was inevitable– I did! Honestly speaking, seeing it for real, and not only joking cynically to mentally prepare myself is staggeringly different. It hurt. A lot. Especially since it was a lot lower than I had set my standards for (which were already fairly low, ahem).

I can’t say that I was sad, but I was definitely frustrated. Frustrated because I wanted to fit in academically at the university. Some students I know are already soaring, and –metaphorically speaking– support back home thought I would be up in the clouds, whereas I felt like I was barely getting off the ground.

But we all know one can’t stay down in the dumps forever!

It’s okay to feel down at first, but soon enough, I turned that frustration into my determination. And thus, my friends, I present to you the superpower of the growth mindset.

Couldn’t have reacted better, Chris Pratt.

Golden Rule of the Growth Mindset- Feedback is your best friend, not your enemy!

Having done competitive dance for many years, I’m used to taking all sorts of feedback (whether from instructors or judges) and applying those corrections. Feedback is universal, so those skills go hand-in-hand for grade feedback as well. Don’t take it personally as direct criticism to yourself (that’s a fixed mindset- a big no-no for university): it’s giving you exactly the steps you need to take to improve for the future!

But what if the feedback isn’t clear?

Write your TA an email (once you’ve figured out what to ask and you’ve given your emotions a day or two to settle in) and seek their advice, whether through said email(s) or booking office hours with them! They’re the one’s doing your grading 99% of the time, so it’s a good idea to get inside their heads and learn what they usually look for when reading your work. Having a growth mindset would mean taking the incentive to see their approach on how they want to help you grow, so that you can understand how to grow!

Because University is noooooo joke.

It definitely takes a big mental shift to go from dreading turning over a rubric (don’t worry, I understand that CGPA requirement life!) to feeling excited about it no matter what shows up, but as many have told me, it can be the biggest difference in how you take on university. Turn those personal failures into your fuel for success!

Keep on keeping on,

Dev 🙂

 

PS: What was a pivotal point of mindset change that happened to you? Leave a comment and let me know!

 

Why Going Away During Reading Week is 110% WORTH IT

And no, I’m not talking Spring Breakers-style. Well, I mean, that one’s on you.

Time off in university can be both a blessing and a curse. For starters, you can use the time off to catch up or get ahead on your seemingly endless list of things to do for your classes. On the other hand, though it may be called “reading week”, it wouldn’t be much of “time off” if you didn’t leave any time for yourself to relax, would it? If you plan out your time wisely (like I somehow barely managed to do, à la student), take a break and spend some time on yourself– take a vacation!

You heard me: TREAT YO’ SELF.

It doesn’t have to be Expensive! 

Back in May, my boyfriend and I had been scouring countless cheap-flight sites for something, including package offers to Nice, France. Whereas I would have loved to practice my French on the Riviera (who wouldn’t?), in my student-financial-state it simply wouldn’t be reasonable. Hence, we decided to explore some more of Ontario, and booked a weekend in Ottawa to explore there. We found a fantastic Airbnb at an incredible price for two nights that would’ve matched a single night in any hotel, and decided to trek out using VIA Rail. Comfortable and cost-effective!

 

You can find things to do almost anywhere!

Back to Ottawa, many raised an eyebrow and asked what I was doing out there when I mentioned my destination. Sure, it’s no Ontarian young’un’s first choice for a getaway, but I had yet to actually explore the area and see what it had to offer. There were plenty of touristy things to do, such as Parliament and museums, but we also went to a fairly-priced QMJHL (Québec’s OHL equivalent) hockey game in Gatineau. Definitely a destination more-so for the locals, but it was great to find some Friday night entertainment. Even wandering about can have its perks : we stumbled across the MosaïCanada exhibit after walking the Alexandra Bridge and saw the fabulous hedge creations there! Opportunity is everywhere!

You deserve a break!

Regardless of whether you have a stay-cation or a vacation (as much as I recommend the latter), everyone deserves some time off in the midst of a hectic lifestyle. Take time to forget about everyday stresses. I got a bunch done in advance before the break knowing that I had my week off and weekend away coming up, so I reserved that time for a total mental breather after working tirelessly beforehand. Not only is it for fun, but resting and relaxing is good for you. Over-exhaustion helps nobody, and so there’s more of a self-help aspect to time off/vacations than usually thought. It’s not selfish in the least!

No matter what you did this past reading week, I hope that everybody took some time for themselves (even if you feel guilty that you still have work looming over afterwards)! Take some of these tips the next time a break rolls around, and make the most of it: for your sake!

What’s somewhere that you would vacation to for reading week if money wasn’t a dependent factor? Let me know (and subscribe)!

Keep on keeping on,

Dev 🙂