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Post 6: Frosh Week II

Here at SMC we started the process of planning for it a bit later than previous years. We have great coordinators who seem to be on top of everything, running around, devoting their time and energy while maintaining an inclusive, open attitude.

This is probably true about every college during frosh, but the coordinators deserve to be commended a lot. They take on a huge range of tasks and work their tails off for frosh to be the best that it can be. You’ll see them scurry about and check up on things during frosh, and you’ll see them multitasking frequently. If you meet one of them they’re also very kind and humble, and I’d encourage all of you to go out of your way and say thanks as well as learn some things from them in case you want to be a coordinator down the line.

With that being said, I’ll try to speak for all the Orientation Leaders whether chosen yet or not (like SMC), we’re all psyched! I can say that I’m as excited for frosh week this year, maybe even more so then I was last year.

It’ll be odd going from following to leading in just one short year, but I’ll speak for myself when I say I can’t wait to meet new faces from new places with aspirations, desires, and goals ready in mind.

I can’t wait to impart my limited wisdom on people and have a lasting bond with froshies like my leaders had on me.

Frosh week is our week where we say welcome to the family, and again speaking for all leaders, and prospective leaders, we’re glad you’re here to ride it out with us and look forward to have one hell of a week that you’ll be nostalgic about for your whole life time!

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Finishing First Year

Well, I guess I might have to change my blog name now, but I’ve learned a lot from this year.

Definitely make friends with upper years and keep lasting memories with your frosh leaders. Without these people nobody would’ve guided me through the peaks and troughs of this year.

I’ll definitely be here to hear either your excitement, anxiety, anything you want whether it’s during the summer or school year next year.

The direction of this blog: I’ll still be answering questions from incoming first-years or first years to the best of my ability, but I’ll also be offering advice for those who seek an opinion. Just shoot me a message and I’ll try to respond as soon as possible. The advice can be about almost anything, and take it with a grain of salt.

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With Finals Season Coming Up...

I’ll try to keep up to date on this. My lack of posting has nothing to do with me not checking it frequently. Instead, it’s hard coming up with ideas to post about.

I’m still answering questions to the quickest of my abilities, and if there are things that you still have questions about that I have the capability to answer, I definitely will respond ASAP or make a post regarding it.

If you’re looking for a wider range of topics to be discussed, there are some other pages like mine that you could google that cover more than I do. Some of them actually know more that I do and get paid to help you out!

Consult many of those websites including this one, and hopefully with the wealth of information, it’ll help you make your university decision, or confirm questions after accepting your offer to the one of the best schools in the world, UofT!

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Another General Note

Refer me to your friends and other prospective UofT students! I’d love to provide help and guidance to others.

Again, take me with a grain of salt and consult google and actual UofT employees who are literally paid to help you out.

That being said, I would love to be able to put this on my resume/earn some money on the side tho so......

Regarding questions, I’ll try my best to be on top of it, but my priorities as corny as it sounds is being a student. I’ve got homework to do, classes to go to, and believe it or not, a social life hahahaha, actually though.

[utorontofroshie]

Post 5: Daily Life of a Humanities Student, I Guess

I haven’t posted for a long time, so my bad, and to say I’ve been “busy” per se is pushing it, but I’ve been occupied let’s just say.

Anyways, although the title is pretty specific, I decided why not espouse all that I know, however specific out to the whole interwebs.

Anyways, this is my day on the days I’m really motivated on being productive.

10:00 AM : My classes start (I chose this during course selection knowing I wouldn’t be able to make 8 or 9 AMs, and even 10 AM classes in the cold winter are hard to wake up for)

12:00 PM: I tried to give myself a two hour buffer for lunch (11-1), but some days it’s unrealistic because I have class which pushes my lunch back a little.

4:00 PM: I’m usually done with classes on my busiest day.

5:00 PM: Ideal me would go to the gym

6:30 PM: Dinner and hanging out with friends

9:00 PM: Head to the library

11:30 PM: Chill a bit more

12:00 PM: Do some more work or chill

2:00 PM: Optimistically I go to sleep at this time.

Take into account that I live on res which makes me more flexible than a commuter would be.

Oh, and all my classes have tutorials (50 minute “classes” discussing material covered in class) so if your schedule looks blank on course selection day, just know it’ll be filled out when the year starts.

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Post 4: Clubs/Sports

So this utorontofroshie isn’t too involved in clubs/sports this year, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two.

During frosh week there’s a Clubs/Sports day in Kings College Circle which is packed to say the least. When they post the map of where each activity is, it would be best to scout it out before you swim in the sea of people.

Lots of clubs give out free swag, which you’ll notice by the crowd of people there, and even sauntering around you’ll find many fascinating clubs that you never knew could exist. It’s best to leave your emails with the clubs you’re interested in so that they can contact you in the future so you can be on top of their events and what not. Also, if they have a facebook page, follow it because lots of clubs post events on there.

The ULife page has a whole comprehensive lists of clubs, which “exist”, but not all of them have booths and some are hard to find. The summer before university, I compiled a list of clubs I was somewhat interested in, and explored the ones available and whittled it down. Since I’m focused on studying first, I didn’t really participate in that many.

As for sports, those athletes coming in already that got recruited have it down. For those who are thinking about trying out, get your OHIP/health thing down the summer before so you can be eligible to try out. I couldn’t in time, so I chose not to. Plus, contact the coach the summer before, express interest, and ask questions about practices and things. I know for the sport I’m trying out for that they practiced at Scarborough which is another reason I chose to forgo it due to the hassle of commute and studying and what not.

I live around Varsity athletes and trust me, it’s a commitment balancing school and sports. When I say balancing, I mean balancing, not taking bird courses and only focusing on athletics. These people are some of the nicest (if you get to know them), hardest working people that do what it takes for their sports while trying to chill and maintain their GPA in tough classes. If you’re ready for that commitment, by all means do a Varsity sport. If not, try either tri-campus sports or intramural and club sports and go from there.

Honestly, there’s always something athletic happening at UofT. Oh, and I know for a fact that soccer, even intramural and club soccer is reaaaaaallly competitive and people get cut for that because of the high supply of players.

NEXT POST: TBD

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Post 3: Frosh Week

Again, I’d like to reiterate that this is my own experience during it, and different colleges hold different events, yadda yadda yadda...

St. Mikes frosh week started a day later than everyone else’s so I was at first envious that other colleges got to move in and start a day earlier, however, during the week, I would be glad.

I won’t ruin the fun and surprise by telling you everything, but basically, be prepared to walk a lot, be involved a lot, and bond with your group. Of course it’s all voluntary, and you can go and leave as you please, like a lot of people in my group did, but definitely attend it!

I don’t care if you have 1 friend here (like I did) or 100, Frosh Week is a hella load of fun and you get to meet new, great people in your group. Especially if you live on res, do frosh week! I met my res neighbor who happened to be in my group and we became good friends. I also met with other people and we all formed a group of around 30 that chat and hang together loosely.

On the contrast, my roommate who didn’t go to frosh week enjoyed our air conditioned room by himself, but missed out on making new friends and goes out only once a week (more of a nuisance for me since he’s always in the room). But I’d say because of frosh week, I spend more time outside my dorm and with my friends.

It’s tiring. At St. Mikes, the tradition is to wear your frosh shirt for the whole week, so make sure the B.O. is in check. Also at St. Mikes are college traditions, chants that will be ingrained by force as you’re marching around campus.

All in all, it was a hell of an experience, and if your concern is about the money, trust me, it’s definitely worth it, at least for St. Mikes.

Oh and one extra thing for those who chose or are choosing SMC next year. Don’t skip the Toga Party. I don’t care if you’re “not into that”, just go. I managed to forget about it, and my friends all said that they had an unforgettable night (probably for the wrong reasons), but still! One of our chants to other colleges is “TOGA, TOGA, TOGA!” because of our reputation for being a party college.

Us being a party college is true to some extent, but every college at UofT has parties. We just take pride in it.

Next post: Clubs/Sports perhaps

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Post 2: Choosing Colleges

FWIW here’s my college selection order and perhaps reasons:

1. Victoria College (Very humanities rich, tour guide said it was pretty nice, and I didn’t want to waste my #1 pick on a college that didn’t require it and I thought Trinity would be too hard to get into, and New didn’t fit the humanities vibe)

2. Trinity (I honestly did it honorarily. There’s no way you’d be considered if you placed Trinity second, but I wanted it to be like my preferences no matter if it counted or not)

3. University College (Heart of campus, pretty much literature and humanities, can’t go wrong)

4. St. Mikes (My tour guide was from St. Mikes, and I tried to put this low because of it’s partying rep, but honestly, that’s not an actual factor, and this should’ve been 2nd or third)

I don’t remember the rest, perhaps, New (for the food), Woodsworth (commuter rep discouraged me), Innis (honestly idek much about it and it required you to rank it first if you really wanted it, so I put it last)

Anywho, like I elaborated, if you’re more Humanities driven like I am, you’d want to choose anything mid-campus or past Queen’s Park. Victoria, St. Mikes, and University College are known for Humanities students, however, any student can choose and live in any college if you so choose so and resources from other colleges are open to you as well (you can be a St. Mikes student and attend Vic events maybe for extra money or go to classes at Vic etc.) New is apparantly (according to my tour guide last year) known for kinesiology and science and so is Innis. Woodsworth is known for science, engineering, and Rotman among others. Trinity is known to be a grab bag of very smart people.

About my college: St. Mikes

Like I said earlier, I was kinda turned off from choosing the party college just for studying. It would be fun to go there to just party, but I thought that it would affect my grades a lot. Although we have the reputation, St. Mikes is also very studious. We work very hard and party hard too, so much to the point that Trinity kids and Ryerson kids were coming to our parties for some reason (no h8, just saying).

Let’s see. The Canada Room, our cafeteria is supposed to be pretty good, historically, although this year it has had some issues that have been addressed from time to time. It’s a meal plan thing: 5 days or 7 days, or you can pay for individual meals (very expensive, do not recommend), and like almost any other cafeteria at UofT 3 meals with specific hot food hours. For St. Mikes you can go in and out of the cafeteria as many times as you want a day, and it’s buffet style, but the options are pretty limited, and common food include: potatoes in any way, small slider patties, perhaps rice, and Fish Fridays.

The place where we chill is in the same building, Brennan Hall, where there’s areas to study, sit and talk, some TVs, tables, and a pool table (which is very crowded at times).

In terms of residences, we have Elmsley Hall (the traditional college experience), Sorbara (more upper years), Historic Houses (feels more like home and is more spirited), the Queen’s Park Residences (Fisher - all female and More - all male), and Loretto College (all female). Our floors are gender separated, and in Sorbara, there are more single rooms and sinks in every room. If you’re a freshman at Sorbara, you’re most likely going to be put in a double room in the basement. If not, count your blessings because although you pay the same amount, the size of room are different. Plus, take into account that everyone has access to the basement for laundry, a small cardio room, and a music room consisting of one piano. Those who live in the basement (all guys), don’t have access to any floor besides by elevator.

If I had to choose a residence, I would either choose Historic Houses because of the atmosphere of it being like home and the spirit or Sorbara with a single room or a big double room.

NEXT POST: Frosh Week

[utorontofroshie]

Post 1: The Application Process, How I got In

This might be too late considering all of y’all prospective students are either done or almost done applications, but here goes it anyways.

Four letters. OUAC. Make sure all the stuff you put in there is correct to the best of your knowledge. Besides that, I can’t really help you.

I applied under the 105 application as Humanities for every university, and ranked UofT as number 1. While OUAC is a unified application gatherer, some schools may make you fill out additional things. This is all foggy to me since it was about a year ago, but each university has a website where you can check your application status. Make sure you’re on top of that.

Regardless of where you’re from, find your local UofT counselor and chat them up. Not only will this build great rapport, but you’ll also get valuable information as well as a friend who will guide you through the process, and through lots of correspondence, make you an expert at applying not only to UofT but other places as well.

Anyways, after the applying, it’s the waiting game. UofT, at least for me came a few weeks after my anxieties kicked in. For perspective, Queen’s was the first to accept me and they made it clear by e-mail and had a representative (student and counselor) call me and get me psyched for it (it worked, but ultimately didn’t change my mind), UBC was next with the notification on the application tracker and mail coming swiftly, then it was Ryerson, York... yadda yadda yadda... UofT (St. George, Missisauga, and Scarborough - three “separate” applications) that e-mailed me. The mail came a couple weeks later to make it official.

On the point of the St. George application, it has you rank colleges. There is no “best college”, it’s all personal preference. Do some research on to each college and then choose your favorite from there. Victoria College, Trinity College, and Innis College, all mandate that you place them number 1 to even be considered (how conceited, jk jk).

NEXT POST: Choosing the Right College

[utorontofroshie]

The Opening Post

About me

I’m a first year UofT (St. George) student who studies Humanities and who applied from a U.S. High School as a Canadian citizen. I live on res at St. Mikes.

If you have questions, I’ll try to answer them to the best ability I deem fit.  Besides being a tuition paying student, I’m not affiliated with the University of Toronto. My opinions are my own and I’m doing this out of fun, not for money or volunteering (it’s negotiable though tuition’s expensive!) So, it would be better if you consulted Google or various University websites or employees who are paid to answer your questions definitively!

My Scores (DON’T TAKE IT AS A BENCHMARK, I BARELY GOT IN):

Un-weighted (all scores are the same regardless of toughness of class): 3.0

Weighted (toughness of class being considered ex. AP, Honors): 3.5

ACT: 32

Accepted (Canada and U.S.) [all under Humanities/History except Miami was under Business]: University of Toronto (St. George, Missisauga, and Scarborough), University of Western Ontario, Queen’s University, Ryerson, York, MacMaster, UBC, McGill (waitlist, then got in), Indiana University, Tulane, University of Illinois, Miami University (Ohio)

My Objective

Shine light on my own experiences to reflect back upon, while sharing my experience with fellow students or prospective students

Why did I start this now?

Because after 1st semester, I thought it would be cool to instead of gradually forget memories, write them down and share as I’m going through them.

Feel free to ask me questions at any time (either private or if you want them shared to help others out), because by no means will this just be me talking about my experience only.

Frequency of my uploading of posts may vary due to: workload, a job, or having a life besides staying on my computer. I’ll try to respond to things ASAP. Share this with other students or prospective students or those who are interested!

NEXT POST: The Application Process, How I Got In