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Two thirds of the way through the school year, the last thing on many students’ minds is their living situation. Between midterms, final exams and group meetings, students, especially those in residence, begin to see their rooms as a place to get a few hours of sleep before racing through another day. Unfortunately, some residence rooms are dealing with new, unwanted roommates.
For the past few months, Whidden Hall, a residence in the North Quad of campus, has been contending with an outbreak of bedbugs. Once associated with squalor, bedbugs have become a common pest in recent years, with discoveries of their presence in hotels, movie theatres and on public transit.
For this reason, Kevin Beatty, McMaster’s Director of Housing and Conference Services, is reluctant to call the recent outbreak a problem. “We typically see bedbugs over the course of the year. It's not uncommon to see them. But what is uncommon in this situation is that there seems to be a bit of a flare-up,” he said. He added that while the current bout has been present in Whidden for a few months, the treatment plan was put in place fairly soon after. “We have a comprehensive bedbug response plan in residence,” he said.
According to Beatty, all Community Advisors in residence are trained in how to deal with the reporting of bedbugs. Within 24 hours of a report being issued, pest control is brought in. “If the pest control company has something called proof of pests, so an actual bedbug or some trace that it exists, then they would take the next steps which would be working with the students to execute the treatment plan.”
This treatment plan involves students washing their bed sheets, clothing and other personal effects in biodegradable plastic bags, which help heat the objects in the washing machine, a process that kills the bedbugs. Pest control also treats the room in question, and comes in 14 days later to re-treat it.
While the initial reaction to the discovery of bugs may be to move to a different location, Beatty explained that this is not an ideal procedure. He said that if students are not present in their environment, the bugs will remain inactive. “The other reason is that you don't want people to move because one of the challenging aspects of bedbugs is that they're distributed in social networks ... that's why we advise students not to go home and why we don't move them.”
At the time that spoke with Beatty, the flare-up was isolated in Whidden. Since then, reports suggest the issue has spread to Bates Residence in the University’s West Quad, but Beatty could not be reached for further comment.
“We typically see bedbugs over the course of the year ... But what is uncommon in this situation is that there seems to be a bit of a flare-up."
For his part, Beatty remains optimistic about the “flare-up” being taken care of quickly and without fanfare. “We're lucky that residence students are quick to identify which allows us to be quick to respond,” he said.
Photo Credit: Jon White/ Photo Editor
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The end of reading week and the return to midterms and papers is never pleasant. However, the end of first week back from the break for Ontario universities was punctuated with a surprise from the provincial government. With the release of the budget for the upcoming year, the province introduced a free tuition policy for low-income students.
According to the budget, students from families with a collective annual income of $50,000 or less are entitled to a grant that covers the average cost of tuition in Ontario. “If you're a student coming from a low-income family and you're paying average or below-average tuition, that's where that free tuition designation comes from,” explained Spencer Nestico-Semianiw, VP (Education) of the MSU, and President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. For university students, that grant is worth a little over $6,000 a year while college students will see a grant of around $2,000.
The money required to fund this initiative is already being used within the postsecondary education sector. The government is repurposing several smaller grants, including the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant, the Ontario Student Access Grant and the 30 percent off tuition grant. However, the majority of the funding comes from the elimination of the tuition and education tax credit, something OUSA has advocated for over the course of the last decade.
“That was something that we are absolutely ecstatic about because we're now using the money that was previously used for tax credits, which wasn't up-front, it was going more towards higher-income families and students who didn't need it and so now the money's being repackaged and put into the hands of students who need it most,” said Nestico-Semianiw.
For long-term advocates of affordable tuition, the new budget marks a significant victory.
“These were recommendations that OUSA has clearly had in our policy papers for a number of years and we've seen a large number of those recommendations in this budget … For any student that was benefitting under the 30 percent off tuition grant previously, they are still going to be receiving at least the same amount of money now and the students who need it the most are going to be benefitting even more,” explained Nestico-Semianiw. He added that the OUSA’s advocacy week in December launched a renewed interest in discussing tuition in the province.
Despite the perks, the free tuition plan has left many skeptical. Some articles published misleading headlines implying the total erasure of tuition, and others raised the concern that the constant inflation of tuition means that the $6,000 calculation will likely be inaccurate just a few years into the future. The calculation of the grant also only considers the base price of tuition. Universities and colleges require students to pay mandatory fees beyond the cost of classes, including books, student union membership fees and living expenses.
Additionally, the new grant is calculated based on the average tuition for students in general arts and science programs, meaning thousands of students, such as those in engineering programs whose parents make less than $50,000, might still have to cover some of their own tuition depending on the amount of money they are granted.
“These were recommendations that OUSA has clearly had in our policy papers for a number of years and we've seen a large number of those recommendations in this budget."
Despite the concerns that have been raised, Nestico-Semianiw stressed his excitement over the policy changes. “To be completely frank they're absolutely fantastic,” he said. “Obviously [OUSA is] going to continue working with the government to make sure that tuition is affordable for students and that it doesn't outpace what we've seen in this budget … [but] I'm optimistic that we'll be able to work so that the next tuition framework doesn't lessen the impact of these changes but that's a conversation that still has to happen.”
While the new tuition policy is something for OUSA to be proud of, work remains to be done. The organization is currently occupied with helping the Ontario government finalize the specifics of the new grant. This will be followed up by more work on the new tuition framework, a task OUSA began to work on in January — a letter-writing campaign asking for a tuition freeze was one of their first advocacy efforts related to the framework.
For his part, Nestico-Semianiw thinks these are positive changes and hopes that his successors in the organization will continue to advocate for affordable tuition. “I think this opens up another very good conversation, but I think the next student executive will have to have those conversations too.”
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I love a good subtweet. So long as it isn’t misogynistic, racist or a personal attack on my upbringing, I usually get a strange form of excitement from people sending pseudo-insults across cyberspace.
Working for a creative product, I am no stranger to people thinking they can freely insult our product because it is something visual and easy to critique. Sometimes these comments are harsh and unwelcome and leave me questioning our readers, but every now and again, a productive message gets filtered through. And those are the subtweets our paper lives for.
The Silhouette is McMaster’s student paper. Your student fees pay for it, and we want to represent you accurately. All of our content is made by student staff, and everyone here is part of the McMaster community and the MSU. We like hearing from you. We like knowing what you want from us.
It’s easy to throw a snarky insult our way and reap in the favourites on your Twitter or Facebook post, but what we’re really looking for is your honest concerns and advice for a product that will make you happy.
To help get this feedback, I am excited to announce a new initiative that will help you share your ideas, while also providing us with the constructive comments we’re hoping for. “Silvision” is a three-part campaign that includes a feedback survey and public forum, and will share the ways you can get involved and materialize your visions for your student paper. Subtweet or not, we want to get your input.
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By: Gwenyth Sage
I walked out of her room glowing. For the first time in a long time, I smiled a smile borne out of genuine joy. It was my last time seeing Kristy. I had written spontaneous poetry for friends before and wanted to do the same for her. I asked her for a word as inspiration for the poem. She gave me healing.
Kristy was my counselor, the guardian angel who selflessly held my hand and led me inch by inch out of the eye of the storm, through the turbulence, and onto safe ground. Kristy was tireless in picking up the pieces of the emotional mess that I was, helping me organize and reconfigure the thoughts that plagued and overwhelmed me.
Before Kristy, I was a different person. Mental illness is someone else’s problem, I thought. I was a nursing student after all — I’d know if something was wrong. It is an unfortunate reality that many people, like me, do not seek help until they find themselves in the middle of a mental health crisis. Changes in mood, eating habits, lack of motivation — these are easy to read as a list in a textbook but are difficult to identify in your everyday life especially when they’re commonly attributed to academic stress.
Shifts in mental wellness sneak up on you, inching ever so slowly that you are unwitting to the change. As Elizabeth in Prozac Nation muses, it comes “gradually, then suddenly” and “you wake up one morning, afraid that you’re gonna live.”
I went to the Student Wellness Centre on a whim for a drop-in counseling session to get a second opinion. It was an optional measure in my mind. I recalled from my mental health nursing placement that people were always the last to see when they needed help, so I went in to see what they had to say. My reaction to trauma was to ignore it, suppress it, and try to move on with life. While I wanted to be done with the trauma, it clearly wasn’t done with me. And so, when I told the mental health nurse in my initial appointment, the floodgates opened, and I was made acutely aware of the mental health crisis that I was in the middle of.
The fragility of the equilibrium I had tried to maintain by avoiding the psychological aftermath of trauma was revealed. Everything triggered me, everything hurt, everything was heavy. A response to constant pain is to numb. And for a while, I was numb, robotic; I was a zombie. As opposed to having low mood, which I did experience, more often than not, I had no mood at all. Emotion is an experience integral to the human experience and to lack such a basic part of myself was deeply distressing.
The results were in and I was to begin the most intensive, reflective, and painful chapter of my life with my counselor Kristy. The course of cognitive processing therapy would last ten weeks, and painstakingly, Kristy would break me apart, reset my bones, reassess, and repeat.
Counseling was not easy–the road to happiness never is. She challenged me with questions, understood and validated my concerns, and recalibrated me to be able to live amicably with my painful past. Pain is a part of the process in understanding and coming to terms with sensitive experiences. It is now just a memory, no longer lingering uncomfortably in the forefront of my conscious thought.
Avoidance is not therapy. You can shove it under a rug but you’ll never forget and it won’t go away. If you feel numb, anxious, or that your baseline mood has shifted to a level that is less than comfortable, please do not wait to seek help. In that state, you may be of the belief that you are irredeemable, unsalvageable, out of reach. It’s a lie. Help is available, and you are not alone.
Kristy gave me healing. This is what I gave her:
life was through a reel
the ins and outs of
an assembly line
revolving door of
broken mindsshe sprinkled
she sewed
she shared
the wisdom bestowed
upon her
by history
it takes one to know oneempathy is pain
empathy is wisdom
pain is temporarywisdom is not
To get help, please reach out to MSU services like Peer Support Line, Women & Gender Equality Network, and the Student Wellness Centre. If you are in a crisis, do not hesitate to call COAST, Hamilton’s 24 hour crisis outreach hotline at 905-972-8338. There is help, there is hope.
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By: Sophie Geffros
Community members in Westdale and Ainslie Wood are right to be concerned about the continued growth of so-called “student ghettos” in those neighbourhoods. Given that an increase in student residents leads to higher rents, fewer single family homes and an increase in high-end expensive retail outlets, it is hard to see this growth in its current form as anything other than gentrification in a mortarboard.
One of the great tragedies of gentrification is the rate at which it forces the elderly out of homes they have lived in all their lives. This is partially caused by the fact that businesses no longer cater to them — why bother when there are thousands of young people with ample disposable income — and partially by the rapid increase in the cost of living in a gentrifying neighbourhood. Since 2006 the population of Westdale over the age of 65 has decreased dramatically.
Ainslie Wood encompasses the area east of Osler, south of McMaster, and west of Longwood. A longstanding working class neighbourhood, the majority of the low rises and single-family homes were built after World War II to provide housing for veterans and widows. Many of the single-family homes were sold to veterans in the post-war period for a dollar. Unlike Westdale, it remained a strong working class neighbourhood until well into the 21st century — only recently has the number of student occupants overtaken traditional residents. Many community members have expressed the opinion that the closing of Prince Philip School and the construction of a 15-room student house sound a death knell for the neighbourhood.
To understand how the 18 to 24 year old population of Ainslie Wood could increase from approximately 15 percent in 2001 to 45 percent in 2012, we first need to look at McMaster University’s full-time undergraduate enrollment numbers, which have increased by 129 percent since 2001. In that time, the student population has more than doubled. In the 2009 Campus Capacity Report, it was noted that there exists a 30 percent student housing deficit, meaning that there is not space for 30 percent of students who apply for student housing. In that same period, rents in Westdale Village increased by over 20 percent. In their rush to cater to wealthy students, Westdale landlords had effectively made it very difficult for students — or anyone else — to live there.
Rents have increased in Hamilton as a whole over the past five years, no doubt in part due to the two percent vacancy rate in the city. Since 2012, the waitlist for social housing in Hamilton has increased by six percent. At present, there are 6,000 households waiting for placement in city housing. Many of those households are currently waiting in shelters or in accommodation that is unsafe for human habitation. One of the most common complaints about gentrification is the way that gentrifiers move into a neighbourhood, raising the rents and changing the cultural landscape, and then leave. 35 percent of the residents of Westdale and Ainslie Wood moved there within the last five years.
Ironically, student renters are victims of this gentrification as much as they are perpetrators of it. It is not unusual to see single rooms in student houses be rented for 500 or even 700 dollars — rents that would fetch a onew or two-bedroom apartment on the East Mountain and in Stoney Creek. It’s no wonder that over the past ten years, the non-student population of Westdale and Ainslie Wood has decreased to one third of its previous size.
Students have a responsibility to our neighbourhoods, and to our city. It doesn’t benefit anyone to have the elderly and families with children pushed out of neighbourhoods so that unscrupulous landlords can charge outrageous rents to students. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen and heard these students express disdain towards living in the city centre or in the east end, and by extension, towards the residents who already live there. There is a pervasive perception of the downtown and the east end as dirty and dangerous, and not places where university students should even think of renting. It’s classism in its purist form.
Regardless of what neighbourhood you rent in, students must start thinking of ourselves as residents of a city. Neighbourhoods around the university are not de facto McMaster dorms, they are established communities with vibrant histories. Students must be more interested in integrating into communities, in supporting local initiatives around gentrification and transit justice, and in living with the local residents rather than displacing them. If we don’t, we can’t act surprised when locals object to more student housing in their neighbourhoods.
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A little over three years ago, I excitedly moved into my student house. I predicted it would soon become the backdrop of my soon-to-be reality TV-worthy student life, but instead I was welcomed into my new home with a slew of landlord upsets. With everything from bathroom leaks, to broken decks, to a mysterious older man who used to enter our home at night to fix the plumbing (yes, this was as terrifying as it sounds), at times my student house was more of a problem than a personal oasis.
At the time, I didn’t realize that all of these issues were at the fault of my landlord, since he often asserted his authority in a way that made myself and my housemates feel responsible.
We are definitely not the only students to be in a situation like this. Tenants of Westdale and Ainsliewood homes have often fallen victim to landlord traps that place them in uncomfortable and unlawful positions. In an effort to combat this problem, the MSU’s Student Community Support Network has launched the #MacLivesHere campaign, a Twitter and recently MUSC-centric campaign that will help students become better acquainted with leasing homes and give them an opportunity to share their grievances.
The #MacLivesHere campaign is, in theory, a great idea. So many students get into signing leases without knowing all their rights, and this has led to complications in the past where students end up getting the short end of a deal that is supposed to be in their favour.
The only unfortunate part of the campaign is that it is run by a somewhat overshadowed MSU service, the SCSN.
The MSU is a big organization. It is comprised of both large and small services, with some getting more attention than others. This structure is something expected, but it also begs the question, how necessary are all of our services, and can our money be better used serving groups with the power to make campaigns noticed and accessible?
The SCSN is a service that is meant to help students build positive relationships with the Hamilton community. Unfortunately, even though their aim is noble, some of their efforts and campaigns often get overlooked when larger groups take center stage. It could be a valuable and well-used service for students, but when larger promotions sidestep its actions, the group just appears to be another accessory of the MSU that helps keen students piggyback on a service to work their way towards a future full-time job with the Union.
As a person who is more informed about campus events and services than most, I still don’t know all that much about the SCSN. It is one of multiple MSU services that passes just enough under the radar that very few seem to be checking up on them — this is a disservice both to them and the student body.
Perhaps its time to take a good look at our services and decide which ones are worth our time, and figure out how we can better use our resources to make those shine. It would be great to see more students exposed to the Mac Lives Here campaign, but as far as many students are concerned, SCSN hasn’t even signed a lease.
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Sitting outside of Les Prince Hall is the most recent installation of the initiatives made possible by the Student Life Enhancement Fund.
Officially labeled as the McMaster Outdoor Fitness Circuit and Boulder Climbing Facility, the outdoor installation is a playground for fitness enthusiasts and beginners alike. Located by the track in front of Les Prince, the circuit contains various bars and benches that allow an individual to perform a variety of strength and conditioning sets. Two large, man-made boulders are also connected by a small rope-bridge.
The installation was originally built in August, but had its official launch on Nov. 12.
"I think it's a cool idea because we're always talking about space and how space is a premium and hard to come by, and I think it's cool that [Athletics and Recreation] is moving outside," said MSU President Ehima Osazuwa.
“Inside, there is literally no space to do anything, so we need to think about creative and new ways of utilizing space; there's a lot of outdoor space on campus that we currently don't really utilize,” he said.
The circuit was one of two initiatives selected by students as the best ideas during last year's Presidential elections, alongside a plan to enhance and optimize the space in the Student Centre.
An open period for new, student submissions is currently ongoing for SLEF, and Osazuwa described his excitement for several ideas including heated bus shelters and napping stations on campus.
Once the submission period ends, members of the Board of Directors will determine the feasibility of projects and present a shortlist to students to vote on during the Presidential elections this year. Once the top ideas are chosen, a suitable partner must be found to keep the initiative maintained and sustainable, like with the outdoor circuit being maintained by Athletics & Recreation.
“I'm a really big fan of SLEF because I think SLEF gives people the chance to dictate where their money is going to, and also give us creative and new ideas as to where we should spend student dollars on,” said Osazuwa.
However, not all initiatives necessarily have such a quick turnaround. An on-campus skating rink has been in the works for over three years now, but has run into various issues regarding feasibility and the logistics in implementing one and maintaining it during the winter.
While Osazuwa highlighted various hurdles such as the falling Canadian dollar and the details involved in maintenance, he indicated that he was hopeful with the progress this year.
“There's been more progress compared to previous years,” said Osazuwa.
Students have until Nov. 20 to submit their ideas.
Photo Credit: Jon White/Photo Editor
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By: Saad Ejaz
According to MSU Diversity Services Abilities Coordinator Sophie Geffros, there is a positive wave of support and engagement for making campus more accessible for students with disabilities.
On Oct. 8, Diversity Services and the University Affairs Committee hosted the Second Annual Accessibility Forum.
The event focused on how individuals with disabilities and other student groups can come together to share stories and brainstorm ways to improve the accessibility experience at McMaster. The topics of interest focused on how disabilities, chronic medical concerns, mental health issues and madness affect student life.
The theme of this year’s event was “Breaking the Stigma,” and unlike other discussions around accessibility, the focus was to further explore the other challenges common to being a student aside from attending classes.
“We had small group discussions, all of which were lead by facilitators with disabilities, and we talked about things like social events, attending parties, disclosing to an employer and relationships,” says Geffros. The third year Philosophy and Biology student stated, “The end result of all of this is that, by working with University Affairs, I will generate a report based on what we heard from students who attended it, and actually will make recommendations to how we can change Mac and perhaps even the McMaster accessibility policy.”
The committees are also working on a Maccess service along with other bi-weekly support events, which are aimed at strengthening the McMaster community in particular for students with disabilities.
The event was a great success. However, Geffros said it is only the first step. The real work is yet to come in order to implement ideas and continue to build the already positive McMaster community.
Photo Credit: Mike Beattie
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To suggest that university students are buying into the culture of partying and binge drinking as an expected part of campus life is an all too clichéd and patronizing generalization. The myth of the “party campus” does not exaggerate the existence of large-scale frosh and homecoming house parties, but it does exaggerate their occurrences and popularity.
In popular media, post-secondary institutions are still synonymous with Hollywood depictions of young people, enjoying their newfound freedom through excessive partying, cheap beer, drugs and sexual liberation.
There’s some truth in these depictions, but they are mostly stories told about a minority of students. While this myth has not influenced the behaviour of the vast majority of students, it has created a perceived norm among undergraduates. More significantly, it has skewed measurements of how much alcohol is too much.
Binge drinking — five or more drinks for men, and four or more for women in one sitting — is inevitably part of not just university life, but young adulthood as a whole. The Canadian Campus Survey in 2004 reported that 28 percent of students across Canada are heavy drinkers, and 32 percent of undergraduates meet the criteria for “drinking hazardously.”
Even underage drinking, while clearly frowned upon, is widely accepted as an essential part of the coming-of-age university experience, and few university students would argue for strict, effective steps to be taken to end this practice.
The danger of this drinking culture does not lie in an inability to see one-time excessive drinking as a threat, but in the way its complacency prevents students who regularly drink unhealthy amounts of alcohol to recognize their behaviour as problematic.
The Reality:
McMaster participated in the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) in 2013. The study ultimately concluded that students overestimate the norm for alcohol consumption levels on campus.
When asked about the amount of drinks participants consumed the last time they “partied,” 24 percent said they didn’t drink, 29 percent of students consumed three to five drinks, and 24 percent of students consumed six to ten drinks. When asked what they thought the “typical student at Mac” drank, students estimated that 45 percent of students consumed three to five drinks and 43 percent of students consumed six to ten drinks. This data indicates that most students drink a limited amount, but many believe the majority of McMaster students drink heavier, thus promoting a larger acceptance of binge drinking, and possibly leading to a perceived need to drink more.
The vast majority of students said that they experienced at least one of the negative consequences associated with binge drinking: getting in trouble with police, non-consensual sex, unprotected sex, physically injuring someone else, or contemplating suicide. About 25 percent of students experienced other minor, negative effects associated with drinking, such as feeling some kind of regret about something they did while drinking.
Arrive and Thrive:
Raising awareness about student behaviour, substance-based or otherwise, is an important part of many campus initiatives. Arrive and Thrive is a comprehensive McMaster project that has been funded through the Mental Health Innovation Fund provided by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. The focus of the project is to help students develop approaches to deal with mental health and addiction issues, with a focus on students who are transitioning into university.
The campaign, due for a fall launch, consists of three parts. First, Arrive and Thrive Online will launch as a questionnaire designed to help students identify their current habits and coping strategies, offer immediate feedback about how their habits compare to their peers’, and suggest further resources both online and on campus if they feel that they are experiencing difficulty. The second portion, titled Pause, will allow students to meet with a professional counsellor trained in the area of substance use and addiction on a self-referred basis. The final part of the service will introduce a series of interventions and courses to support healthy habits and coping with problematic ones.
“It’s tough because you have this perception that it’s a rampant problem and if I don’t do it, I’m not conforming to the norm. But then, you don’t want to minimize those people that are in the far side of dangerous drinking,” says Arrive and Thrive Project and Research Coordinator Allan Fein.
“Most people will have a positive and fun experience associated with drinking and alcohol, and it’s the few that we really need to focus on. How do we target those people in a way that’s not demeaning to them and not putting them down and not victimizing them or blaming them, but is helping them?” added Fein.
“It’s really about a harm reduction approach, trying to take the person and say, you know, you’re a whole person, you’re not just an alcoholic, you’re not just someone who is dealing with mental health but you are a whole person and let’s deal with you as a whole person and figure out the best way for you to be most successful.”
Dr. Catherine Munn, who is also heading the project, stresses that “people drink for a reason and the reasons are unique to each individual who drinks … It’s really about educating everyone about what is healthy drinking and what is risky or problematic drinking.”
Problematic drinking habits are linked to the motivations behind the habits. Alternatives for Youth is an organization that provides services for youth with addictions. Their Executive Director, Penny Burley, referred to the 2004 Canadian Campus survey that asked students to identify the reasons they drank.
“Largely the reasons youth identify were to be social and to celebrate … when we look at the youth that we work with, often those are the initial reasons for engaging in drinking or other substance use, but overtime, for some people, it can become about anxiety, mood issues. It can become about various mental health concerns, it can be about stress, about coping. So while in the survey there are fewer people who tend to identify that’s the reason they drink. It often becomes the reason why they continue to drink.”
Burley believes that there is a need for a widespread approach that aims to educate and raise awareness about low-risk drinking guidelines and offers alternatives. “I think there’s a responsibility as a community, as a society, to work on changing that culture somewhat. And so when I look, there are university campuses that have policies and protocols to try and shift that culture — things like having dry frosh weeks. It won’t eliminate alcohol use by any means, but it gives youth an alternative.”
An Alcoholics Anonymous volunteer, who shall remain nameless due to AA policy, shared her story with The Silhouette, and the concerns she has about young people lacking the resources to recognize problematic alcohol consumption. She described what she felt separated her personal experience with alcohol from that of others around her. “If I was partying and drinking, there would be people who come to a point and they’d say ‘I’m going to bed, or I’m going home, or I’ve had enough,’ but not me. I was always looking for that next drink, always thinking about that next drink.”
“I used to come home and I’d think I was going to the bar on Friday night and even before I got there — I remember one time I was sitting there — and I was thinking about the night and I remember saying, ‘oh, I could just feel the rush of that drink and what it was going to do for me and I could talk to people and you know, be more friendly and open and not be an introvert,’ … it was a high for me even before I got the drink.”
She further stressed the importance of recognizing a problem, “It’s physical, it’s mental, it’s spiritual for us, you know. We don’t have anything left because alcohol takes everything away. And if you’re younger you have to think you’re going to save yourself all those years, all that pain, but you can’t force it on anyone. If they’re not ready, they’re not ready.”
When Arrive and Thrive makes its official launch this fall season, it will come as an invitation for students to be conscious about the choices they make. Its aim isn’t to tell students that the decisions they are making are wrong, or that there is something inherently shameful about these decisions. It will offer online questionnaires, professional help, courses and extended services in an attempt to reach parts of the student population that may be otherwise left without the outlets to ask the right questions, and seek help if they need to.
For additional information and guidelines for safe drinking, this brochure by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse is a good starting point. Additional information about the CSAA is available on their website.
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By: Mitali Chaudhary, Sohana Farhin and Allison Mizzi
Healthy snacks
Raw fruits
Nothing can fill you up (and taste as good!) as a bowl of your favourite fruit. With essentially no preparation required, this is the perfect solution for a sweet tooth, while providing you with vitamins and fibres. It just involves a bit of forward planning – if you sense a stressful week ahead, remember to load up on your fruits at the grocery store.
Greek yogurt
Being a healthier alternative to regular yogurt, with a smooth texture and taste, this is one of the most versatile options as a quick snack. You can top it with (almost) anything, like bits of cereal, almonds, bananas, granola, and honey and it is guaranteed to taste delicious. It’s best to stick with plain Greek yogurt, and toppings without additional sugars, to keep this snack healthy.
Almonds and other nuts
These can sustain you for a surprisingly long time, and are filled to the brim with unsaturated fats, protein, fibre, and minerals. They can be eaten alone, roasted as a substitute for potato chips, or sprinkled over some oatmeal or Greek yogurt (see below).
Veggies with hummus
Make mom proud with this one. Vegetables like carrots, celery, broccoli or cucumbers all deliver the crunch you crave while note taking, and taste great with any kind of hummus dip. The hummus adds a savoury flavour to the veggies, which are packed with essential nutrients, and it’s an excellent source of protein.
Study spaces
SWELL
If you like company and tea, check out the Student Wellness Education Lower Lounge in the basement of MUSC. Open to all, the SWELL is a space for students to relax, learn about wellness education, and take a break from busy university life. The lounge features couches and chairs, perfect for students to work. Its basement location, across from the Underground, makes for a quiet and relaxing space, away from the hustle and bustle of MUSC. The SWELL features daily programming, including Mindfulness Mondays and Wellness Wednesdays, which can be great study break opportunities as well as a microwave, free tea, and free fruit on Fridays to keep your energy up as you cram.
Empty tutorial and lecture rooms
There are lots of empty tutorial and lectures rooms all over campus. Take your pick, whether it is ABB, BSB, the Arts Quad, or Hamilton Hall. These rooms are usually used for tutorials. However, they’re often left open and perfect for student use, particularly after the library closes. If you are looking for a quiet and private space for self-studying, empty classrooms are equipped with white boards or chalk boards that are begging for flow charts and diagrams. As such, they also work well for group studying. Bring some snacks and your books, and you’ll be set to study in your own private space.
Hospital cafeteria
If you like cafes, try studying in the hospital cafeteria, found on the main lobby in the second floor of the McMaster Children’s Hospital. There are lots of seats that are usually left empty at night. It is a great place for quiet studying, without the atmosphere of a library. There is also the “Corner Café” near the hospital entrance that is open 24 hours, seven days a week. With healthy meal options, as well as baked goods, coffee, and tea, the hospital cafeteria is the way to go if you need an energizing late night snack for your studying.
MDCL atrium
If you are looking for a calm and relaxing location, the waterfall room in the atrium of the Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery is ideal. Its floor-to-ceiling windows let in natural light, a nice change from the fluorescence of most buildings on campus. If you enjoy studying outside, this is the next best thing, allowing you to appreciate natural greenery, rain or shine. With ample benches, the waterfall room is an excellent space for catching up on your reading, or listening to a lecture podcast.
Whatever kind of space you need to succeed, McMaster has it. Sometimes, one just needs to do a bit of searching. The above four places are some of our favourites. What are yours?
