I'm Wendy, and this is my friend Robin. We have both just recently graduated from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and we're going to briefly talk about what it was like to go to school. Neither of us have really had a chance to reflect upon our experiences there, so, let's just start talking. Sounds good!
Okay. So, do you want to tell them what you studied?
Well, at SFU, I studied kinesiology. It was a good four year program which I extended to five years, just like everyone else at SFU.
Yeah, strangely enough.
So, yeah, it was a good program. If you don't know, kinesiology is, like, the study of the human body. Motion, stuff like that. So it was very interesting. Yes. And what did you study, Wendy?
Well, I studied communication, which is branched off into different areas, including public relations, advertising, just the study of how maybe even technology transmits information. I think that's enough about that. So why don't we talk about how we were when we first started university, in contrast to how we are now. So, do you want to talk about how we were first year?
Sure! I'd love to! What do you remember about first year?
I think first year was very, I think, scary, intimidating, versus when you get to fourth or fifth year. First year, you don't really know what to expect. People come to first year you know, still with the, you know, the mood of high school and stuff like that, you know, still very cliquey with their friends and stuff. But once you get to fourth and fifth year, you rarely see your friends.
And you really don't care how you look. You don't care how you look. Yeah.
Like you don't see your friends just because you're now at your own sort of major, so you probably only come to school sort of like once or twice a week and it's probably at a different time than what your friends usually come to, you're stuck in a lab, or you're stuck writing a paper, so you don't really see many people and you don't care what you look like, because you don't care what people think about you. And you're so focused on just meeting that next deadline. It is so deadly stressful.
Yeah, exactly. But, like first year you're more worried about, "Oh, who am I going to meet in this class? Am I going to know anyone?" Things like that. It's like totally different, like, worries and stresses in first year, compared to, like, fourth and fifth year. Yeah, and you remember roaming around in groups, right?
Yeah.
You, me, Larissa, Kelly, Grace, Michelle And you'd all say like, "Oh, well, we'll meet at a certain lunch hour or something," and then you'd just meet everyone together. But now it's like, you can't even get, sort of the same schedule, to meet anyone. And you don't even have time to eat or drink coffee, and you're just so stressed out you're probably not very nice to be around anyway. Yeah, pretty much.
And remember the whole idea, "Oh we can meet a guy in university?" Oh, there are no guys in university! No! There are lots of girls, I must say, but there are no guys in university that you would want to meet.
Well, to make it useful for the listeners, what advice would you give to someone just entering university in Canada?
Don't care about what you look like when you go to school. Just be comfortable, right?
Be comfortable. Wear your runners! You don't need to wear those stiletto heels, or those, you know, nice black shoes that you just bought at Aldo's. Wear your runners! They will help when you're getting from one section of the school to another section. So you will be comfortable and not be like, yeah, in pain.
What kind of advice do you think we've we could give to someone in terms of, like, handling, like, lectures and all the information that they threw at us. 'Cause I know for myself, I used to want to take down every single thing that the teacher said and like copy every single overhead that they stuck on the projector, and really, after, like, a few years, you get the sense, well hopefully earlier than that, but, for me it took like a couple years to get the sense of what was important and what was emphasized and what was testable. Because I know at first it's really overwhelming, like, all the information you get and all the different sources that you have to study from. Um hmm. Yeah definitely. I remember first year, whenever they recommended you to buy a book or whatever, I'd buy every single book that they recommended. Until, like, second or third year, you realize, you don't need these books! They don't ever test you on the material within the book! They're just trying to make you waste the hundreds of dollars just so that you can buy them! And then, third or fourth year, you realize, all I have to do is go to class, take notes, study those notes, and then I'll get an "A". Or at least read the parts in the books that pertained to what they talked about in lecture!
And usually it's only, like, a couple of pages, so you can usually just get that from the library. So it's a lot cheaper. So I would suggest that. Make sure that the books that you're getting, you're actually going to be using in the class a lot. If not, borrow it, or you know, get it from the library.
And more often than not, I find that professors will hint at what will be on the test, whether like, explicitly, or if they just, like, slyly slip it in, "Oh, well for all you people who are in class today, you'll have an advantage, because I'm telling you what's on the test" you know like, and they'll actually like, tell you. Talk to your TA's and your professors. That is so important. Don't be intimidated. Very important, 'cause they do give you hints! You can directly ask them: "Do I need to know this information?" And they usually will hint at "no" or "yes", which will save a lot of time in the studying process 'cause you know, "Oh, I don't need to know this. I can just study something else." And then there is the issue of procrastinating. Now, most people will admit to procrastinating and the rest of them are lying.
Lying through their teeth.
And that's like an intimidation. Like, that's like how they kind of get into your brain like, "Oh, I've already studied this." They haven't. They're just saying that because it looks good. Right.
They haven't studied it - yet. Right.
Procrastination is definitely a part of university.
And you shouldn't feel guilty about it, but I, I find that as we kind of got along in our years at school, that just like the sheer terror that you've experienced in the past will kind of make you less likely to procrastinate, like you'll actually think, "Well, I don't want to, by any means, be doing this at the last minute." And you kind of get better.
I think also time management skills get better as you get to like, further along in university. You know when your deadline is. You know how much time you need for that. So you can work it out each day, you know. I can put in a little bit of work here, and then you're not as pressured the day before doing those all-nighters or whatever. And time management is a really good skill to list on your resume. And for people who don't know what time management is, like we know it really well, it's a matter of being able to block off a reasonable amount of time that, you know, you can accomplish, like, to take like a big huge long goal, like a big huge assignment, and break it up into small, manageable parts, and to kind of do it in steps. Because I know first year, you have these big huge projects and you're dreading them the whole time and you think you're just going to get it off all in one shot. But realistically, by the time that you're in last year you realize that you do it in parts. Like you do the research early, because by, like, the week before, all the stuff that you need is going to be taken out of the library, and then, and then, you know, maybe not 'till like a few days before you create it, like an outline and you write it, but research is so important to not do at the last minute 'cause the last thing you want is to be in the library scrounging up information trying to make it somehow relate to your topic when in fact, it really doesn't have anything to do with what you're talking about. Yeah.
That's the very scary part, when you have a topic and you can't find any material for it, so you try to fudge it! You get that material and you twist it around so that it fits your topic! Have you done that?
And that in itself is a skill!
I think so!
It's not exactly a great skill, that you want to be bragging about, but it gets you through! It's a very important skill in university, definitely. Well, what else is kind of funny, is that, I think, like, the last year of university I, like, never once stepped into the library, because I learned to use the online resources that they had in our library system, like you can access online databases to get your articles and I would just read them off the screen and like pull off quotes from there and like, copy and paste them directly into my paper. And that's something you kind of learn as you go too, to kind of be more efficient at what you do. It's not really being lazy, but being smart about what you spend time on and what you know, you know, an easier way of doing it? Um hmm. Oh definitely. I think the Internet in just using that just as a resource, and also the online resources you were talking about, to get articles and stuff like that is so much easier to do than to go, you know, go to the library and fiddle through all the books and the journals and stuff like that. And I think you don't really realize that until the fifth year. I think first year, you're sort of thinking, "I have to go through this experience of going to the library and doing all of this." But in reality you don't. You can go right to the Internet instead of going through for all those first year people: You don't have to go to the library! And it's tiring! It's hot in the library, it's stuffy, you have to carry all these big, heavy books, you have to photocopy and like fight for a photo-copier. You spend a ton of money photocopying, like 50 page articles and it's just insane! Yes. It does cost a lot. I mean, sometimes, for just one, like one paper that you're writing or whatever, it can get up to like $15 just worth of copying, just for a paper. And, are you really going to get that great a mark? Say you get a "B". Is it worth the $15 that you spent?
One good paper writing tip that I can give people is to, if you find one article that relates really well to what you're writing about, to look at the bibliography in that article and pick up those sources and kind of contrast what that person has done with the people that they used to do their research on, and that's such a great way Yeah. to kind of cut down on time.
'Cause then you have all the list of their resources, or their all their bibliographies and all the journals that they used. You can go directly to them, get that journal, and then you can look at their references and it goes on and on, instead of going through like, the computer, or whatever, and trying to find out all these journals.
So, now that we've graduated and kind of conquered school and, you know, managed our way through all the muck that we had to get through, we now have to look for jobs Yay! and start some sort of career.
Yes. That's very hard. There are no careers out there at the moment. I would have to say that looking for a job is much harder than, I think, going to school and university. I think, stress-wise, it's a lot more on a person, just because you don't know what to expect. You know, you wake up in the morning and you don't' know if there's going to be a job for you to apply to and stuff like that. Well, a lot of it is learning to how to promote yourself, and that's not something that we're taught in maybe in business you are, but in our faculty, like kinesiology and communication even, we're not really taught that. We've been told that networking and getting out there and meeting people is really important. But at the same time, it's a whole other thing trying to do it. And when you've been in school, which consumes all of your time, basically, for the time that you're there, it's really hard to make that switch and impose a structure on your day. 'Cause really, days slip by really easily, you know Yeah. and procrastination sets in again. So actually, like, creating a schedule like, from this time to this time every day, I'm going to wake up early, I'm going to maybe go to the gym, I'm going to come back, have lunch, then I'm going to sit in front of the computer and look for jobs or I'm going to get out there and have lunch with my friend and her manager or, you know, you have to like, get out there and really go for it, because it's not going to come to you. Well, I found the most frustrating thing is that after university, you want to find a job. You have no money 'cause you just spent all your money paying for university. You have student loans, you have debts, you want a job right away. And it's frustrating when you go and you have to go through the different routes of getting a job. You have to go network, you have to go apply, you got to get the resume written and a cover letter and all you want to do is just get a job right away. So, I found that the most frustrating thing about, you know, graduating and trying to find employment.
And it's really difficult because we have the skills that are transferable, but in the economy and the way that things are now, it's hard to get someone to give you that chance to prove, "Well, I have these skills that I could use to do this", and I have the potential to be really great at this, even though I haven't done exactly this yet. If you just give me the chance, 'cause this is really what I want to do. You know. And like most people like, they're very sympathetic, because they've been there before. Like, they know what it's like to not have all the experience under your belt and to be like eager and wanting to jump in there and find, like, your niche, you know. But, at the same time, if aren't jobs out there, they can't fire people to give you a job. Like, it's hard to create jobs in the way that things are now with the economy. Yeah.
Well there's only a certain amount of jobs that can exist. I mean, if there's if companies aren't making that much money and if things are, you know, low for many companies, they can't just create a job for someone. And I find that frustrating.
Well both of us have managed to scrounge up some jobs. So, you want to tell them what you've been doing? Okay. I found a job as an orthopaedic brace-fitter. So, as exciting as it sounds, it's not that exciting. But it somewhat relates to what you studied.
Yes. It does relate to what I studied, too. Basically, I fit people for knee braces, ankle braces, and I help them with their injuries. So, if they have sort of a sprained ankle or osteoarthritis in their knee, I can fit a brace which will help them and prevent them from either having surgery or prevent them from just sitting and doing nothing. Now they can continue to walk and continue to do exercise. So, it is rewarding in the fact that you're helping someone and they're able to, you know, go play a sport that they haven't played for so long, but they couldn't because of their injury. So So what are your plans? Like I know you're studying for MCAT Um hum. So Well, I'm studying for the Medical College Admissions Test, which is the MCAT, which I will hopefully become a doctor with! If not, I will have spent a lot of money and time invested in this goal! But I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever I get. Yeah.
So I'm taking the MCAT and then applying for med schools in the Fall. That's really exciting! Yeah, it can be. It can be very scary too.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm not looking forward to the whole process of interviews, applying, getting rejected, etc. Well, we're only what doesn't kill us will only make us stronger, really. Yeah, that's what they say! It's painful, and it's ugly, but it builds character. All these, kind of great sayings spring to mind. Do you buy into it?
No, I don't. Alright, I don't either. But for some people, they can be comforting Well but for other people, they understand that it's just words. Well, you know it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and if it's not the right time, kind of being prepared for when that opportunity strikes us, I think. Um hum.
Yeah we can look back at our school years and think that it was horrible at first, but we got through okay, and hopefully this transition between school and work will be the same way and five years from now we will be in nice, safe positions where we can help other people who've just got out of school! Five years from now? I'll still be in school! What are you talking about?
Right.
Sorry. Sorry. And you'll have this monster student debt to pay Yes! Anyway, well, thanks for talking with me.
No problem, it was a pleasure.
Bye now!
