The University Option
Take the Time to Do it Right
Many of you who are giving serious attention to your future will opt for university. Some of you will have made the right decision — for you, university is a great choice, and you are perhaps wondering why we are fussing about it so much. Your path is clear and, barring some misfortune, your success is assured.
For others, though, the decision is wrong. You will be disappointed with university and, in a year or so, you may wish that you had listened to our warnings. You need to focus on planning, and going to university without thinking about what you are doing — treating it as an extension of high school, living at home, and following the high school swarm to the local campus — is not planning. This too-common approach is one of the reasons so many students struggle and fail in their first year. You can make the choice that’s best for you and, if you decide on university, there are things you can do to prepare yourself for it — take the time to do it right.
Invest Time in Your Planning
Going to university is a very big decision — one that can cost you and your family $30,000 or much more, depending on how long it takes you to finish your diploma or degree, and what costs you factor in (more later on costs). Some of your parents have money socked away for you, thanks to the Canadian tax system with its rewards for upper-middle-class people sending their children to university. However, many of you will have to rely on some combination of savings from work, loans (private or government), family support, grants, and scholarships. It’s a long and quite expensive haul. Doing it right is important. Don’t be distracted by the agonies of high school graduates in the United States — desperate to get into the prestigious university of their choice, where only the best apply to Harvard, which turns down more than 90 percent of them. No Canadian university rejects anywhere near that percentage of applicants, and some accept almost anyone who applies. Relax — you will always get in somewhere. The question is whether you really want to, and whether you should.
Shad Valley
Canada has a superb testing ground for students who want to find out more about their potential and their ability. Shad Valley is a highly competitive national program for elite high school students, designed to challenge them intellectually and to help them identify potential areas of study and work. Students, almost 600 of them in 2013, gather on select campuses across Canada for boot-camp-like month-long sessions, provided by the best teachers at the university. The academic sessions are wonderful, the other students excellent, and the instructors and coordinators are among the most inspirational and demanding that you can find anywhere.
If you are in grade ten, eleven, or twelve and think of yourself as bright, talented, curious, creative, motivated, and determined, move heaven and earth to get into a Shad Valley session. You will likely meet Canada’s future leaders, have a terrific time, and learn a great deal about yourself. Shad Valley also offers the best possible introduction to the excitement of the university system. If you cannot be inspired by the promise and the reality of Shad Valley, then the chance of your being an outstanding student at university or a top-notch professional thereafter are pretty small. It’s such an elite option, though, and you have to be so good to become one of the 600, that anyone who is motivated and eligible to participate is probably going to be a winner at university anyway.
There are many ways that you can try to separate yourself from the crowd. Shad Valley is, in our estimation, probably the best.
One of the problems we have in Canada is that it is too easy to make the decision to apply to university, and too easy to get in. Our academic standards, save for a handful of elite programs in elite universities, are not very high. Almost everyone with a high school average over 75 percent as a high school average and the right mix of courses will be able to find a place at one of the country’s universities. We now have decent university campuses not only in major cities but also in almost every town of substantial size in the country — from Corner Brook, Newfoundland, to Orillia, Ontario, and on to Prince George, British Columbia — so you probably do not need to look very far from home. Because the local campuses are so accessible, both physically and academically, you, like most Canadian students, may simply opt for the university closest to you.
It’s also easy to apply to university. Ontario and British Columbia have common application systems. Fill out one form, pay the fees, and the government will send your high school grades directly to the institutions you have selected. Some permit you to submit supplementary material — an explanation for why grades of 65 percent do not really represent your inner genius or a description of the extra-curricular activities that make you a natural leader, suitable for admission to the country’s best undergraduate programs. Then you sit back and wait. Nothing to it! Most students do not even visit the campuses that they have applied to. Reputations are pretty much fixed in Canada: students, counsellors, and parents are much more likely to push Queen’s, Western Ontario (now, for some silly branding reason, Western University), or Alberta than they are to select St. Thomas, Brandon, or Lakehead — even though each of these schools is a better choice for many students.
This, unfortunately, is where many students make a major mistake. Picking the right university is a difficult task that should be taken seriously. There are many factors to take into account. Universities pretend publicly that they are all the same, all great teaching and research institutions, but it isn’t true, and students react differently to them. Some students love the place where they earn their degree, while others forget about it and its faculty as soon as the degree is conferred. It’s important to realize that not every university will suit you.
The American Dream
The American model is influential in this country. In the United States, a combination of media hype about the very top schools (Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Yale, Princeton, and the like) and representations in popular culture of campus life (Animal House, Legally Blonde, Good Will Hunting, Accepted, Old School or, more recently, The Social Network and Admissions), along with college sports (particularly football and basketball), generates endless conversations about college selection.
Indeed, probably more Canadian students fantasize about attending an Ivy League school or getting into UCLA than dream about an acceptance letter from the University of Calgary or Laurentian.
Plan to Visit Several Campuses
For most high school students, universities can be imposing and even intimidating places. Since you may be spending four or more years at the place, there is a lot to gain from a campus visit, even if you avoid one of the promotional university tours and simply wander about with friends and family or on your own. A quick look at one of the huge classrooms — several at the biggest universities hold over a thousand students — can be a real shock. The athletically minded should check out the sports facilities. Some campuses have superb gyms, pools, rinks, and fitness centres. As a legacy of the 1988 Winter Olympics, the University of Calgary has some of the best athletic facilities anywhere.
You should take a good look at the residences too, particularly since we strongly urge you to stay in residence. They vary widely in quality: some are pretty spiffy; others are old and shabby. Pay close attention to student spaces — cafeterias, study rooms, lounges, and social rooms. You will be surprised by the difference between most of the Ontario universities — which have been starved of building funds for years — and the more prosperous institutions in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Heritage buildings add immensely to the ambiance of campus life. The University of Saskatchewan and Toronto’s University College are excellent in this category, to say nothing of the old buildings at McGill. But not all of the impressive buildings are old. Find the Irving Building at Acadia University or the “Ike” Barber Library at UBC if you want to see what generous donations can produce for Canadian universities.
Eating is a big part of the campus experience, and universities work hard to collect your food money. We are not fans of food courts, which typically feature chain restaurants, but there are great cafeteria facilities at many universities. When your parents aren’t looking, check out the student pubs, especially for signs announcing music, comedy, and events other than just boozing. All work and no play and all that.
As physical places, the universities range widely, from barren suburban campuses like York University (architecturally a one-star place) to lovely settings like Acadia University in Nova Scotia. Urban universities often sprawl over many city blocks, while the park-like campuses at Queen’s, University of Saskatchewan, and Western Ontario occupy many hectares. Their sheer size can be fairly intimidating. Wander onto the Orwellian[1] mountaintop campus of Simon Fraser University — not our favourite place, architecturally speaking, though it was designed by the famous Arthur Erickson. Some of the best universities — the University of Toronto and Université de Quebéc à Montréal spring to mind — are visually unimpressive, with major roads dividing the campus and hodge-podge buildings. U of T is known for its beautiful 19th-century residences and lecture halls, but these share space with the concrete monstrosities that passed for urban design in the 1960s and 1970s — not for nothing is its Robarts Library (1973) nicknamed “Fort Book.”
The setting for the University of British Columbia is so stunning that some students undoubtedly decide to attend simply to enjoy what is one of the nicest university settings in the world. (There’s a nude beach just off campus too, for those who are interested.) The University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) is the best-designed campus in Canada — we say as homers, having both worked there, Bill for nearly twenty years — and the attractiveness of the campus really adds to student life. Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo has the loveliest view of any university in Canada, though the buildings are less appealing. Look up the two satellite campuses of the University of Waterloo — the architecture school in Cambridge and the digital media campus in Stratford — if you want two excellent examples of how first-rate design can have a profound and positive impact on campus life. Conversely, a walk around academically impressive Dalhousie University is more than a little depressing, just as the research-intensive University of Alberta is hard to love in an aesthetic way. You are going to spend a lot of time on campus — make sure that the place feels good for you.
From the perspective of their physical space, all universities accomplish their core functions in pretty much the same way. All the universities have libraries, lecture halls, faculty and administrative offices, sports facilities, and the like. Some look like large high schools; others like small cities. Some have invited commerce right onto campus (in the form of fast-food joints and stores); others are as sterile as a Stalinist government office. After the first blush of excitement — or dismay — whichever university you choose simply becomes your home.
Check Everything Out
Your campus visit should be much more comprehensive than a simple tour of the buildings and grounds. It is vital that you find the other services and supports that the university has to offer. Find out about the special programs for first-year students — you need to know what the institution does to help students adjust to the campus. Make sure you locate the writing, math, and study skills centres at the university. While you may think you won’t need such support, the chances are better than even that you will. When you need help, you’ll need it in a hurry. And, since your university career may depend on them, you need the services to be first-rate. There are other things worth checking out: counselling, career advising, co-operative education, health services, and financial assistance. And don’t forget the people in the registrar’s office. They’re the ones who handle all of your administrative work, process your grades, and otherwise monitor your progress through your years of study. Treat them with respect; they’re not your servants, and they can be helpful in times of stress.
Some of the stuff you hear on a campus visit won’t be of much importance to you. Guides will tell you about famous alumni, social life, guest lectures, great facilities, major donations to enrich university life, and a great deal of other good news. You need to look more deeply. Try to get a sense of the people on campus. See if you can meet with some faculty members, departmental advisers (the people who guide you through your academic program), and, in particular, the staff. It will surprise you to learn that support staff — departmental secretaries, janitors, cafeteria workers, residence advisers, reference librarians — can have a great influence on your enjoyment of campus life.
Sample Acceptance Rates
Canadian universities:
Queen’s 40%
Western 58%
Manitoba 67%
Cape Breton 88%
Waterloo 20 to 58%*
International universities:
Hong Kong 9%
Duke 11%
Cal State Northridge† 74%
Harvard 6%
Tokyo 20%
Cambridge (U.K.) 22%
Indian Institutes of Technology 2%
*depending on program
†a non-elite US institution
You need to find the campus that suits you, and you alone — not your friends, not your parents, and certainly not your high school teachers or advisers. Academic matters are, in the end, more important than the football stadium. Finding the right degree is much more crucial than having a climbing wall in the gymnasium, a fancy buffeteria, or lap swimming in the university pool. But the people do matter a great deal. Look at the campus carefully — and find the university that fits best with your personality, aspirations, and academic needs.
Don’t Be Too Impressed that You Got In
Your mother’s tears of joy when you open the letter of acceptance from (fill in the name of your university) are a tad over the top. It’s not hard to get into a Canadian university, including some of the very best in the country. Canada has many university spaces that it needs to fill every year. While every institution would love to fill up with straight-A students who carry 92 percent averages, high-level athletic and musical ability, and tons of community service, the reality is that they need to pay the bills. So, each year, each university reviews its cut-off point (the lowest grade average for entry), typically on a faculty-by-faculty basis. If there are lots of applications, the cut-off rate goes up. If the application pool dries up — as happens quite often in western Canada when there is a shortage of workers (people choose high oil patch wages over a university education) — the institution will lower the cut-off point. For several reasons it’s harder to get into the University of Toronto than Brandon, but elite international institutions have a much higher bar than even the best Canadian universities.
Canadians are proud of the fact that this country values accessibility over elitism. But elitism, in the context of universities, means simply that the students on average are smart, or able, or intelligent, whichever word you like. In the United States, elite also means that the university is unusually expensive; in Canada, all universities outside Quebec are fairly equally priced. The fact is that really smart students do better at university and have much higher success rates. The less smart ones have a high dropout rate. The easier it is to get in — the lower the standards, to put it bluntly — the smaller the percentage of students who graduate and, often, the less engaging the classes will be.
Statistics Canada says that the first-year dropout rate at thirteen Canadian universities is 30 percent,[2] but it differs widely from place to place.[3] Getting into a top university and a high-demand academic program is an impressive accomplishment. Acceptance by an institution that accepts almost everyone is like being able to get into a new movie at the local theatre. Show up at the right time, pay the entrance fee, and you are in. Not a major achievement. So, celebrate if you got into the university of your choice, but realize that this is no guarantee of success.
Pick the Campus, Not the City
Two of the strongest influences on university choice are contradictory: the desire to stay home with family and friends and the desire to take the fast track out of town. This is hardly surprising. Seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds respond to the challenges of growing up and their changing relationship with their parents in different ways. It’s not unusual to have one sibling eager to flee the family home and another clinging to his bedroom. (The same holds for parents. Some want the teenagers out of the house and away from town, while others, determined to postpone the empty nest syndrome, dread the idea of their children moving away.) We hope that you will think carefully about your motivations for going to university — and for picking a campus either a longish bus ride away or moving across the country.
Get Out of Toronto
If you are from the Greater Toronto Area, unless you are interested in a program that you can get only at the U of T, York, or Ryerson, go to university somewhere else, preferably as far away as possible.
Do you want to be one of those Toronto people who has never lived anywhere else in Canada, whose interests are limited by the Leafs, the subway system, and the Toronto Star? We hope you are a broader person than that. The same holds true for Vancouverites: get out of Lotus Land and experience your country.
In the United States, there are many colleges and universities in towns of under 20,000 people — often called simply college towns. This is not the Canadian pattern. Canada’s biggest and arguably best universities are in the major cities (UBC, Calgary, Alberta, Manitoba, Toronto, Ottawa, McGill, Laval) or large centres (Saskatchewan, Western Ontario, Victoria, Dalhousie, Queen’s). There are no universities with more than 15,000 students in cities of under 50,000 people. Compared to the United States, Canada has only a small number of universities in old-fashioned college towns where the students make up a significant part of the population: Bishop’s (Lennoxville, Quebec), Mount Allison (Sackville, New Brunswick), St. Francis Xavier (Antigonish, Nova Scotia), Acadia (Wolfville, Nova Scotia). Most of the so-called small-town universities in Canada are in sizeable cities such as Peterborough (120,000 people), Sudbury (160,000), Brandon (56,000), and Prince George (71,000).
Many students, particularly from smaller towns and rural areas, are attracted by the lure of the big city, coupled with the chance to get away from home. Size is not the only determinant. While large, sophisticated Montreal is a student favourite, Halifax is also a major attraction, much more so than larger cities such as Calgary or Hamilton. Sudbury (Laurentian), Sault St. Marie (Algoma), Prince George (UNBC), and other blue-collar towns are not drawing cards for their universities. While we understand the appeal, of both small towns and big cities, we urge you to emphasize the campus rather than the surrounding community. Pick Simon Fraser University, not Vancouver. Don’t be deterred by the size of Wolfville (which is a lovely town anyway) but rather focus on the appeal of Acadia, one of the country’s most attractive institutions. For the right student, Brandon is an ideal fit, while for others the University of Winnipeg is the perfect place. You study on the campus, not in the town or city. Don’t make it a major criterion for your university choice.
Think Small (University)
The international reputation of a university is set by its faculty members and graduate programs, save for the American premium liberal arts and science colleges. As an entering university student, you need not be overly impressed by sky-high research rankings and the sterling reputations of leading faculty members. In fact, star academics only rarely teach undergraduate courses, so don’t be too excited about being on the same campus as a Nobel Prize winner. Focus instead on the quality of the undergraduate experience. In one of the best books written on American colleges, Colleges That Change Lives, author Loren Pope argued that the best educational opportunities in the United States were to be found in small, specialized colleges, not in the big-name universities.
The same is true, to a degree, in Canada, even though we do not have a deep tradition of small liberal arts colleges. There are no Canadian equivalents of Swarthmore, Middlebury, Harvey Mudd College, Lewis and Clark, Colorado College, and Reed. There is one attempt underway, at Quest University in Squamish, British Columbia, to import the model of the high-quality, high-cost private university into Canada, but it remains experimental at this early stage in its history.
The biggest universities — Toronto, UBC, Alberta, Ottawa, York — typically cram first-year students into large lecture classes, often taught by graduate students and part-time instructors. You won’t have much contact with your prof in one of these places; you’ll just be a number. You don’t want that, do you? While great things can happen on large campuses, many students will find the experience lonely and alienating.
We want Canadian students to think very carefully about small-campus alternatives. Brandon University and the University of New Brunswick at Saint John offer excellent student support and are good starting points for those who are anxious about the transition to academic work or who have weak high school records. Bishop’s has perhaps the best campus life in the country and great student-oriented facilities, and its location in the Eastern Townships in Quebec makes it a very special place. Acadia, St. Francis Xavier, and Mount Allison offer first-rate educational and social experiences. UNBC is high-energy, entrepreneurial, and strongly connected to its northern setting. What small institutions lack in star appeal and magnificent buildings, they often make up in accessibility, friendliness, and support for students. Students at small universities usually speak warmly about the experience, making friends and developing a strong bond to the institution.
Look for Special First-Year Programs
A number of Canadian universities offer dynamic first-year programs for elite students. These programs offer the best of the university experience: small classes, high-quality students, top-notch instructors, and an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to learning. Students thoroughly enjoy these programs, which would appeal to any high school graduate with strong academic skills, a high level of intellectual curiosity, a willingness to test personal limits, and an impressive work ethic. These are not for the faint of heart. The workloads can be ferocious — but the personal, intellectual, and professional outcomes are superb. If you want to work with the best, want to be driven to be the best, and believe you have what it takes to sit with the elite students at top universities, then look at these programs. Here are some examples:
• Arts One — UBC: Arts One is a special program, covering eighteen of the thirty credits required in the first year of Arts study at UBC. The competitive-entry program attracts high-energy students, who apply themselves to an integrated multi-disciplinary study of history, English literature, and philosophy. The demanding program produces excellent results, and many of the students go on to great undergraduate careers. What is best about the program is its unabashed enthusiasm for the liberal arts and its conviction that demanding, high-energy, small-enrollment seminars — what used to be the foundation of the undergraduate experience — are still important in Canadian universities.
• King’s College First Year: King’s College, co-located with Dalhousie University, is one of Canada’s academic gems, noted for its student-friendly atmosphere and collegial environment. The King’s first-year program focuses on the “Great Books,” the top intellectual achievements of humanity. Students work their way through dozens of works by the world’s great thinkers, developing both a profound sense of culture and civilization and a deep analytical ability in the process. This program is a brain accelerator, designed for the top students and providing an excellent intellectual and personal return.
• Vic One — Victoria College, University of Toronto: Vic One was established to address the challenges of attracting top students to a large, impersonal campus. This program offers the best of the University of Toronto: elite students, superb professors, intellectually rigorous programming. Vic One is not a full academic program, but rather a sequence of elite and challenging courses that offer exceptional learning opportunities with other top students. It accepts a total of 200 students per year into six streams: the Northrop Frye Stream, the Norman Jewison Stream, the Lester B. Pearson Stream, the Egerton Ryerson Stream, the Arthur Schawlow Stream, and the Augusta Stowe-Gullen Stream. Find out what courses are on offer. If this stuff does not stir your intellectual juices, give careful thought as to whether university is really for you.
• UC One — University College, University of Toronto: This is a smaller version of Vic One, offering a single first-year course that focuses on Toronto’s multicultural reality. The course is dynamic and exciting, and likely will stand in sharp contrast to the rest of your first-year academic experience on campus. This is precisely the kind of class that all Canadian first-year students should have available to them. Few do.
Canadian universities offer some spectacular undergraduate programs, though your guidance counsellors often do not know much about them. They are hard to get into, often requiring evidence of a lot of extra-curricular activity as well as top grades — which is one reason we recommend volunteering and work experience. These programs, however, can be life-altering. They tend to have smaller classes, intelligent classmates, top instructors, strong focus on life-long learning, excellent career potential, and true intellectual excitement. If you are a good student, highly motivated, and with a strong desire to get the most out of your undergraduate degree, give these elite programs careful attention.
Curiosity Test
Chances are pretty good that you do not know all of the names of the people identified with the Vic One streams. Did you stop and check them out or did you just skim over them?
Go to the Vic One website — each of the streams is identified with a prominent Victoria College graduate or faculty member: the inventor of the laser, a pioneering female medical doctor, a director of numerous Oscar-winning films, a Nobel Prize–winning diplomat and prime minister, the educator who designed Ontario’s school system, and a ground-breaking literary theorist.
Students who get into these programs rave about the educational opportunities and are impressed with the career possibilities that follow. This list is not complete, but it provides an indication of what is available for exceptional students. You will also note a pattern here. The best programs are exclusive, creating opportunities for highly skilled and hard-working students. Average and below average students, in contrast, have few such opportunities and are effectively blocked from the most interesting opportunities on campus. Some examples:
• Arts and Science, University of New Brunswick: The opportunity for students to complete both an arts and a science degree, typically in five years, is a real treasure. The students in this program get the best of both worlds, and leave the university with a valuable set of skills and, even better, a demonstrated capacity for wide-ranging thinking, hard work and deep curiosity.
• Renaissance College, University of New Brunswick: This remarkable program focuses on leadership training, giving students both a strong academic foundation and excellent opportunities to develop teamwork and leadership skills. The extra-curricular opportunities are outstanding, as is the blend of physical and intellectual activity. The program is academically rigorous, but its real strength lies in personal and professional development. (Full disclosure: Ken Coates was involved at the early stages of the planning for this program.)
• Arts and Science, McMaster University: This subset of the regular arts and science program is one of the best undergraduate programs in the country, drawing a great deal of interest from students, because McMaster accepts top students from this program into medical school. This is a rigorous, exciting, and wide-ranging program that attracts the best students and challenges them from beginning to end. The career outcomes of graduates have long been really impressive.
• Knowledge Integration, University of Waterloo: Knowledge Integration focuses on giving students the capacity to work across standard disciplinary boundaries. The work is project-based, the students and instructors are noted for their curiosity and inventiveness, and the educational experiences are first-rate. Do not let the unusual name deter you. This program provides an opportunity to broaden your academic and professional horizons. That it is connected to Canada’s most entrepreneurial and career-oriented university is an added bonus.
• Global Business and Digital Arts, University of Waterloo: The University of Waterloo’s campus in Stratford offers a unique approach to arts-based undergraduate education. There are other institutions doing digital media — Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto and the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver are also impressive — but the GBDA is quite different. It is housed in a purpose-built facility in one of Canada’s most intriguing and dynamic small cities. The program has strong international connections, a prominent work-place orientation, and an emphasis on project-based learning. The connection to Canada’s best-known career-preparation university is a real advantage. (More full disclosure: Ken Coates was involved in setting up this program as well.)
• Bachelor of Humanities, College of Humanities, Carleton University: Not all of the elite undergraduate programs focus on professional and career preparation; this program is one of the last stands of the traditional arts disciplines. The College of Humanities draws on the best in history, literature, religion, language, and cultural studies, providing a degree experience that is unabashedly enthusiastic about the intellectual traditions of the academy. This is an example of a program that is not for everyone, but that provides excellent academic opportunities for students interested in a classical approach to university education.
• Quest University: This is Canada’s most recent attempt to create an elite liberal arts and science undergraduate institution. The university, located in Squamish, B.C., is exciting, though expensive — more than four times the average for Canada, but there are scholarships. The combination of small class size, a beautiful campus setting, the proximity to world-class skiing at Whistler, and the block program (students study one class at a time, for three and a half weeks) provide an outstanding educational experience. What’s more, the university’s focus on experiential learning and international participation gives the whole campus a level of creativity and engagement that is unmatched in Canada. (Still more full disclosure: Ken Coates played a minor role at the early stages of the establishment of this program.)
Search Out First-Year Transition Programs
Unless you are a top-ten (as in the number 10, not 10 percent) student at your high school, the elite first-year programs are probably not going to work for you. If you are in the bottom 50 percent, and you still end up at university despite our warnings, there are transition programs for you. Most students turn to these programs after a semester or two of academic disaster. We urgently advise you to seek them out in the first instance, especially the pre-university classes, which offer a week or so of introduction to campus life. Take the study skills seminar, the exam preparation course, and the lectures on money management.
There are special programs for English as a Second Language students, international students, students with disabilities, Aboriginal students, and even rural/small-town students. Find the programs on offer before you settle on a specific university, and take them. Ironically, many of the students who sign up for these programs are the keeners, the ones who are already set up for academic success. Students at risk, many of whom are not really sure why they are at university in the first place, generally stay away until ordered to go on threat of expulsion.
The people behind these transition and support programs really know their stuff. They have seen students at risk for many years. They know where students get tripped up, and none of your experiences will be very new to them. Dropping from A grades to D grades? Seen it many times. Struggling with your sexuality? Welcome to adulthood. Having trouble completing assignments? Join the crowd. Can’t follow the lectures, and your notes don’t make sense? Nothing new here. Social life on campus overwhelming your classroom work? A common experience. The academics- and support-people behind the transition programs are career-savers. They are helpful, devoted to student success, and eager to get you on the right track. The best thing you can do, if you are at risk in any way, is to meet these folks early on and follow their advice to the letter.
Once classes start, any student who is struggling should go immediately to the academic support offices. (Make sure you find them before classes start. Searching for help when you’re in academic free-fall is simply too late.) If you start failing midterms, get bad grades (C or lower) on your assignments, or are not performing to your expectations (getting 75 percent when you are used to getting 90 percent is both normal in first year and extremely unnerving), seek out help. Do not wait until you have fallen behind or, worse, failed a course or, worse still, failed a whole semester. Most students at risk wait far too long. Students know if they are in trouble by the end of the first month, but most are too shy, too embarrassed, or too upset to seek help until the academic hammer descends on them, usually at the end of the semester. That is much too late.
What’s at stake is not just whether or not you will be able to stay in university. It’s also a matter of doing well on campus, enjoying the experience, and developing the skills you need. Cruising through to a mediocre degree is no great accomplishment. A transcript littered with failures and withdrawals is not an impressive start to your adult life.
Get help! Right away! Visit the academic support centres as soon as you get on campus. Sign up for the transition programs and learning skills classes. Attend faithfully. Pay attention! If you really apply yourself — and it’s sad to think how few students take this advice and seek help only when they have already encountered serious failure — you can make up for the limitations of your high school career. Wait too long and you could well be back stocking shelves in the local supermarket before Christmas of your first year.
Pick the Right Degree
All of the work that has gone into picking a university can be undone by the hasty selection of the wrong academic program. This is actually the hardest part of the university selection process to get right. You have ideas about what you might like to study. Your parents are, most likely, fixated on a professional program — they love engineering, accounting, nursing, and anything that promises to be pre-med or pre-law. You could call it the “my child the doctor” syndrome.
If you look at a university calendar, the range of offerings will baffle you. Is there life after university for someone with a BA in German? What are the benefits of environmental studies? Is there more to a kinesiology degree than being a high school gym teacher? What is biotechnology? Which one of ten majors in business makes the most sense? Should you go into a direct entry program — one you enter straight out of high school, like engineering — or a more generic bachelor of arts and bachelor of science programs that delays the choice of major (your main field of study) for a year or two?
Universities offer a great deal of advising help for students struggling to decide what they want to study. Despite this, you are pretty much on your own with this one. Advisers, parents, and others can give you endless amounts of data about job opportunities, earning potential, academic and professional requirements — find out what it really takes to become a clinical psychologist before you blithely head off down that fascinating but complex and long path — but they cannot really answer the three most important questions:
• What am I really good at?
• What do I like to study?
• How can I convert this into a career at the end of my degree?
No one can really get inside your head and figure out what you enjoy doing and, even less, what you want to do as a career. Remember that, in your first year, you probably know about only a few of the jobs that might be available for you after graduation. Making a firm decision at age seventeen or eighteen, when your view of your own potential is as uninformed as is your understanding of the world of work, is absolutely not a good idea.
Consider Bible College
Bible colleges, an under-appreciated part of the Canadian post-secondary system, are the private medical clinics of the Canadian university network: they exist, but many faculty and administrators in the public system pretend that they don’t. They are freestanding institutions, different from the church-based colleges on the campuses of many Canadian institutions or former church-run and now public universities that retain some of their religious character (St. FX, St. Thomas, Mount Saint Vincent, McMaster, and others started as church-controlled institutions).
For obvious reasons, Bible colleges are not for everyone. Most are based in a specific faith tradition (some being much more flexible than others in accepting people of other religious backgrounds) and expect their students to adhere to the conventions and rules of the denomination. Their programs are actually quite broad academically, but understandably have a deep connection to the study of specific religions and spiritual value systems. Some, most notably Trinity Western University in British Columbia, have extensive moral and behavioural codes that students must sign before they can be admitted.
Look at Briarcrest College in tiny Caronport, Saskatchewan, a high-quality institution that is enthusiastically embraced by its students. Look, too, at places like Crandall University (formerly Atlantic Bible College) in Moncton, New Brunswick, Redeemer University College in Hamilton, Ontario, or Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba. These are but a few of the large number of religious colleges available to you. Some offer full degrees and, in most cases (check this before you register), some of the courses you take can transfer to other universities. The Bible colleges have some of the most supportive and engaged social environments in Canadian post-secondary education. They offer a fine alternative to public institutions and are ideal for religiously active students who are not fixed on a particularly academic goal, want to enrich their religious understanding, are considering the ministry, or are looking for a comfortable, encouraging environment in which to ponder their future.
Consider Military College
For those interested in a military career, Canada’s military colleges are the perfect option. There are two campuses: Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Saint-Jean, Quebec. In both places you will be trained in our two official languages. There used to be a third, Royal Roads in Victoria, B.C., but it was converted to civilian purposes a number of years ago.
We probably don’t need to sell you on the military life, because most people who choose it already know about its advantages (see the world, serve your country, a totally secure career) and its disadvantages (periodic separation from family, the possibility of dangerous service in places like Afghanistan). It’s not a soft option. You have to be physically fit, and long runs and a boot-camp atmosphere are features of RMC. You won’t get much sleep, particularly in your first year. Before deciding, it would be wise to talk to someone who’s been through the process. You’d be smart to do some serious working out before going.
Although there is a tuition charge, it’s usually waived, and officer cadets are paid a monthly salary. The RMC campuses have fairly high admission standards, and are not that easy to get into. Summer work is not only guaranteed but compulsory, and you have a firm career in the military after graduation (you have to serve for a number of years, and then you can leave if you want to). You get a first-class education in arts, science, or engineering, and your future is secure. Canada’s military officers are quite well paid too: majors (eventually almost all officers will rise at least to this rank) top out at over $100,000 a year. Perhaps you will get to be a lieutenant-general, at the top of the heap. The current one makes $250,000, and everyone salutes him.
If you don’t want to go to university but still find a military career attractive, you can go right into the services after high school. Here, too, the pay can be attractive: you start off at a low level, but if you have a good career you can do quite well. Warrant officers top out at around $90,000. As with RMC, there’s a boot camp to go through, and you have to be fit. If the life appeals to you, you should give the military option serious consideration.
And Don’t Forget These Words of Advice
If you choose to attend university — and you’ll only know if it’s the right choice for you if you do the research and are completely honest with yourself and those who care about you — then you can expect to be in for a challenging, rewarding, and life-changing experience. To make the most of this experience, we offer you this final advice (which will be applicable to the vast majority of university students):
• Study what you love. If you have a true passion for something, whether it is engineering or fine arts, you should seriously consider entering the field. If your parents want you to do something else, prepare yourself for difficult and lengthy talks. Arm yourself with details about work opportunities in your chosen area of study. Your naive assumption that your parents will be thrilled with your choice of Antarctic Studies will be quickly dashed, but their reaction can be offset when you demonstrate long-term and realistic thinking about the career opportunities.
• Love what you study. While it is valuable, at the point of entering university, to focus on long-term employability, this only works if you actually graduate with a degree in the high-employment field. Studying something like accounting, which has high academic and professional standards, is worth the effort only if you end up enjoying the work and pass the courses. There is a simple test to help you here. When you visit university campuses, stop by the bookstore. Check the textbooks assigned for the courses you would be taking in your favourite subjects. If the textbooks interest you and if you find the material fascinating, you are likely heading if the right direction. If flipping through the pages gives you a headache or makes your eyes spin, you are likely on the verge of making a bad choice.
• Keep your options open. While a few of the professional programs require first-year entry — where you make the selection right out of high school — most delay the final choice for a year or two. This is particularly the case in the arts and sciences, but also in most non-accredited business programs. (Accredited programs develop their curricula with advice from professional organizations and they are much more fixed and formal than most undergraduate fields.) Take advantage of the flexibility in these programs. Select your courses so that you keep your options open — this means that arts students should give serious thought to taking math and science classes in first year — and plan on spending a fair bit of time in first and second year reviewing options around the campus, and not just in the faculty or college that you entered first.
• Prepare to work outside your field. In most areas of study, your career options will be defined and shaped by the things you do outside of class, including volunteer activities, extra-curricular engagements, part-time work, and summer/co-op jobs. A degree in history or chemistry can be made much more powerful through the careful cultivation of your résumé and the accumulation of meaningful experiences. Do not fixate on your academic program as being the foundation for your career options. Many students who graduate with degrees in English, chemistry, environmental studies, or sociology end up with jobs outside their field of study.
• Don’t be afraid to change your major. Students have a tendency to double down on bad program choices. Faced with overwhelming evidence that they either dislike a field of study or lack the basic aptitude for it, they will nonetheless persist, failing courses, falling behind, and, in many instances, dropping out of university. Switching programs is part of university life, and can often result in the complete transformation of your university experience. Before you jump from one degree program to another, spend some time checking out the other fields. Sit in on a few lectures in the other classes, speak to a professor or an adviser, and do some research on the subject and the career possibilities. In the end, however, you have to take the classes, complete the assignments, and sit through the examinations. Find something you like and are good at.
• If university is not for you, leave. We do not advise you to make quick and spontaneous decisions in this regard. Failing an assignment or a couple of midterms is not the end of the world. The transition to university is tough. Speak to an advisor or a favourite professor and talk to your parents before you jump. You might just be in the wrong program (see above). But if you find yourself skipping classes (the number-one worrying sign of intellectual disengagement), hating your assignments, panicking over examinations (pretty normal, actually), and getting terrible grades, there is a pretty good chance that you made the wrong choice when you came to university. You can wait a few months, until the university gives you a Dean’s Vacation — a “go home for a semester or two” card — or you can make the choice for yourself. If the fit is really bad, and it is for close to one-third of all of the Canadian students who enroll in university, cut your costly losses early, explore other educational, training, or work options, and get on with life. University is not for everyone and, contrary to what you have been told, there are wonderful career options and high-income jobs available for people without university degrees.
We repeat: University is not for everyone, and you are not a bad person if you don’t go to university, or decide to drop out if it isn’t for you. The fact is, most things are not for everyone. Of your two avuncular authors, one is bored by classical music, and the other is bored by hockey — and we are both worthy people and fine citizens! Recently, a friend sent us a note about his daughter. Ponder this story (details have been changed or omitted to protect the identity of the student). She did well in high school, is smart and literate, and was pointed toward university by her extremely supportive parents, both of whom are professionals with several university degrees. They thought they had launched her on the right career path. Then a surprise:
My daughter is in the process of switching from university (she was in Arts) to college. She was immensely unhappy at university although she didn’t say much and was prepared to soldier on until we finally brought it up. She intends to get into gaming development — she wants to have a career in the digital gaming industry so she’s looking for something more applied and less theoretical. She didn’t enjoy many of the rhetoric/professional writing courses. Now that this decision has been made, she is a different person. She’s applied to Sheridan, George Brown and Centennial.
Smart young woman. Smart parents. Good decision. It is all about the match!