University: It’s sink or swim

By: Megan Kates

Just four weeks in, first year is a perpetual struggle to stay afloat amid the wave of coursework that keep trying to sweep us out to open sea. The transition from high school to university so far feels like a leap from a small pond to the ocean where there is nary a barrier to slow our path. Yet try as everyone might to let us step slowly into the deep end, there is no way to get us ready for the shock of the cold water.

For most, one of the largest struggles in the switch is the sudden number of people in class. Professors become distant personas at the front of the lecture hall. I am quite fortunate to be a class of 64 in the Integrated Science program. That is not to say that the transition is easy. We are still bombarded by the countless pages of reading, the highly recommended practice problems, the inexorable approaching of due dates, group projects, quizzes, tests and midterms. Did I mention that sleep, laundry, exercise and remembering to eat are also important?

For years, professors and other members of the university have been making concerted efforts towards easing first year panic and studying how we learn. Unfortunately, they can never be fully successful. Change is terrifying. Sometimes, it makes my palms sweat, and my heart pound irregularly in my chest. Each and every single one of us has to find our own way to adapt.

Every day is a learning experience, whether the knowledge acquired is the proper method to do laundry without staining all of your clothes pink or the fact that it is beneficial to read the textbook before lecture. Those are skills that can never be taught in a classroom. Each course is something new and I have to learn how I want to take notes, how to study for unfamiliar tests and how to adapt to new teaching methods. Learning has become an individual accomplishment where everyone supplements the material learned in new ways that can change as the years progress. It is an experience that is unique for everyone and therefore no blanket solution will be one size fits all.

That is not to say that help shouldn’t be welcomed. Although first-year anxiety is impossible to eliminate, McMaster has taken many important steps along the way in supporting our journey to success.

Even those professors who feel like the very definition of perfection have gone through their own failures. It does not do to hold ourselves up to this unrealistic ideal of getting everything right. Instead we must take the challenges, poor grades and pitfalls as they come but use the support systems available to us in order to help us grow from the failures we suffer.

Help centres, the older year buddy program that many of the smaller programs have, tutors, tutorials and office hours can help to prop first years up when we feel like we are falling down. When the waves of work are pulling us underwater and we can’t break free, there are counsellors, phone lines and a whole array of mental health resources to help pull us out of a spiral. The best possible community is aware of the unique problems associated with every person’s mental health and actively strives towards helping everyone.

So although I may still feel my legs getting tired from treading water, I still recognize the fact that we must jump quickly into the pool and adjust to the temperature and conditions as we move forwards. I’m looking forward to swimming into the sea that is McMaster and discovering all it has to offer.