A Brief Self-Review

I got a phone call randomly on Thursday from the First-Year office at McGill, asking me how my first year was going and if I was adjusting well to university life. I was amused, but gratified. From what I can remember, U of T never called me except to ask for my contribution as an alumnus, because as an alumnus of the illustrious U of T, you must be wallowing in money only months after graduating, right? And from what I can remember, I also told it to go fuck itself (not exactly in those words).

Ahem.

So I told the person that it wasn't actually my first year of university life but that I still appreciated the call anyway. After I hung up, I started thinking about why I was so bitter about U of T. Was there something incredibly wrong about the whole system or was I foisting the blame for my less than stellar academic career on it?

I will be the first to admit that I goofed off a lot in my first year. Everyone knows first year is when they make sure everyone is up to speed in the basics of whatever program they're in. I was arrogant from my years at Westmount. I skipped classes, slept through lectures, barely did readings and all that good stuff. Still, I did a little better than average.

At the end of the first year, I went to my registrar (academic advisor) who basically informed me that I had screwed up the rest of my life and that med school was now out of my reach forever and ever. Surprisingly, the med school thing didn't bother me as much as her attitude that my marks, which were just average and not terrible, weren't good for anything to which I might aspire. That no matter how hard I tried from here on in, it wouldn't count for anything, because of this one screw-up. I was so bitter that I later wrote a sarcastic letter mocking registrars, which was accepted by one of the campus papers. I don't consider it my best piece, but it must have been a common enough opinion to be published in all its vociferous glory.

Second year is a blur. I did better in some aspects, I suppose. Actually enjoyed some of the courses, but I still slept through Physiology, because quite frankly, if the profs can't be bothered to at least pretend that they're not aching to go rushing back to their labs at Med Sci, then I can't pretend to show any interest in their half-hearted lectures. I simply refuse. So second year was also a bit of a bust.

Before third year started, I said to myself, this can't be what university is about. I'm supposed to be learning new things and expanding my mind and everything else that education is supposed to do for you. So fuck it, I said, and after making sure I had enough courses to get my Life Sciences major and Math and Botany minors, I signed up for whatever sounded interesting. Classical mythology, Latin and Greek roots in Science terminology, history of math, history of bio, etc. History of Espionage was an unusual treat. Thanks to this new outlook, I enjoyed my third and fourth year quite a bit. I did all the readings that I was supposed to do and went to most lectures. Sure, I didn't take physics or more than one anatomy course. I don't regret it, even if it means I have to take them now for nursing. I don't care if I can't exactly remember how RNA viruses work. I know what works for me now. I know what I want to learn and I know I'm not a failure.

In your face, U of T.