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 - the voice of Fervidus Humanus

As an undergraduate student about to complete my final costly year of school ($8400/yr tuition alone), I have one goal for this new year: to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life.

The possibilities are limited, as far as I can see, but I can't see very far. The new economy will be one of changes, and I'm supposed to change careers 7 times in my life, right? That's not comforting unless the changes are for the better. And a recent supervisor told me that to progress, you need to excel at your current duties, take skills from those dreaded jobs and apply them to future opportunities.

As a banana, I have a bonus talent which would aid me in finding a job in Asia. On my resume, it's known as: Mandarin proficiency. But do I want to work in Asia? If I did, I might make more money and/or find the style of living there preferable. But that would feel like betraying Canada. I’m a very proud Canadian; I'd die with O Canada on my lips, not my girlfriend's name (note: I have no girlfriend currently = I'm available!) or anything. My long-term goal is to work in Canada and help Canadians as much as I can afford to. I love this country too much to spend much time away from it. But even if it impedes my happiness? Maybe so.

This final year of school will be a year of decisions. My attitude towards classes will be minimal, just like last year. Unfortunately, many authorities still insist that marks are important, so I might need to keep my marks up after all. I'm happy to still have 1 year left. I feel like I've learned so little, and I'm unprepared to move outside of the bubble. Perhaps another year will give me some more insight. Fat chance. So the solution would appear to be: to enjoy my last year to its fullest, since I'll never have any more school afterwards. Why do we have to decide our lives so early? And the incoming young Frosh this year will be 1 year less mature than previous years (an Ontario thing). The powers that be should emphasize that school is as more about learning transferable skills and learning how to think than about learning technical skills.

A recent development - I made the badminton varsity team! Congratulate me! Being a top 25% student in an engineering program at arguably the toughest engineering school in Canada (seriously folks, even non-Waterlooites tend to agree), and being an old-timer, and making a varsity team is an achievement to me, even if it's ONLY BADMINTON (see the Banana Board mini-discussion)! My ego just went up a notch, so deal with it. At least until I make it through the entire season without being worthy enough to play a single important game. Badminton has suddenly become a new, refreshing, and tiring priority for this final year of school.

My education is becoming a disappointing experience. The longer I stay here, the more I believe that people achieve with their own efforts and their own talents. School hardly helps us. We help ourselves. So bring on 4th year, and please prove me wrong!

 - the voice of 14_of_Spades

In my last term at Waterloo, I wonder what's in store for TWSA, the club I have taken a part of for all my years here at this school.

As a proud member (and as either VP or Prez for each of the last 4 terms) of the Taiwanese Student's Association, I know the end of my involvement will mark the end of an era of sorts. After I leave, I wonder when will be the next time a CBC takes part in the club.

Back in first year, there were a small handful of us. That number dwindled to three in 2nd year, then to two last year when I was VP for the Fall term and Prez for the winter term. But last April, a long-time member graduated, leaving me as the last remaining CBC in the organization.

I like TWSA. I like being in an environment of mandarin speaking Taiwanese people. After spending a year in Taiwan during undergrad, I feel comfortable and enjoy being in such situations. I just find it unfortunate that there must be many Taiwanese CBCs on campus who would otherwise join a Taiwanese club - if they only felt they could fit in, who don't. As it is, there is admittedly a big cultural and linguistic divide - which prevents CBCs from feeling they fit in at TWSA, or at their university TSAs in general.

10-15 years ago, TSAs existed, but they were comprised almost entirely of CBC-Taiwanese, and all events were in English. Over the years, the change in demographics has been remarkable. The change isn't good or bad, it's just change. But I do find it unfortunate that there must be some CBC-Taiwanese individuals who feel there's no club for them.

As VP, and for one term, President, I've always wondered if I could use my influence to make TWSA more accessible and inviting to CBC-Taiwanese. Such a goal, however, has proven very difficult since I am ultimately, a minority. More importantly perhaps, is that in practice, CBCs and Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese DON'T hang out anyways - so it's hard to find a reason for them to hang out together in a club situation.

I have taken great pride in being able to superficially cross the cultural divide and "fit-in" with Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese. But even with the efforts I've made, I do know underneath, that I will never be as close to them, as they are to each other. There will always be a sense of difference, of being apart, no matter how much I try to fit in. But in being different to them, I may have also been seen as unique.

Perhaps it's been a sense of uniqueness that has been the driving force behind my desire to join my TSA and be a part of them. Even if that IS the case, when I graduate next year as the last remaining CBC, I will nonetheless be very willing to put my uniqueness on hold, as I hope for the next CBC who has the courage to get involved.

First things first

 - the voice of angeline

First things first. "The possibilities are limited" - err Ferv, you are a well-educated citizen of the First World who's going to be graduating from the best all-round engineering school in Canada (I also have great respect for Queen's Eng Phys program and U of T's Eng Sci program) and your possibilities are limited. You're killing me. Not only that, very objectively, you are a good-looking guy, articulate, etc. School gives you a piece of paper which gives you an foot into many doors - while worthless for many things, it's not a bad place to bide your time. Also, university is a great place to make friends and later on, make more friends through your uni friends network. The only person that I've not known this to work for is an EXTREMELY bitter friend of mine who thinks that he would have preferred to have made friends that were more urbane, sophisticated, attractive and female than those he made at Waterloo. It is true that Waterloo is not a good milieu for a Frenchman who does not have an asian-chick fetish. But one digresses. Maybe you just have the fourth-year blues. Well, maybe you should embark on a month-long backpacking trip or something to cheer yourself up after your last exam.

On the mark

 - the voice of pi

School for me has always been about the socializing. It was about meeting friends, playing on sports teams, and hanging out. I never really learned much from school. Or rather, I thought the pace of teaching was painfully slow. As I used to say, school just gets in the way of education. This was especially true in elementary school, and mostly true in high school. But when I started university, the pace was about just right. Unfortunately in university, I had started doing less work which is a bad thing, sort of. I still I tried too hard in my first few years of university. I went to all of my 8:30AM classes and would stay up until the wee hours of the night to finish assignments. My marks were decent, but not quite in the 90s like they were in high school. I tried really hard in my 3A term (my fifth term) and got an 88% average, but was still miles away from the Dean's honour list. Dean's honour list is calculated by taking your mark and subtracting your rank. If this value is 80 or greater, you are on the list. Unfortunately, I was ranked 18, so my score was 70, still ten full points away. That's when I gave up and decided to pursue more leisurely activities. And my marks slipped -- by a whole 2%. I worked way less in remaining terms and ended up getting about 86%. My marks were not considerably lower, yet I was having much more fun outside of school. This was definitely the optimum amount of work to put in. I was playing badminto regularly, I was doing quiz bowl, going out for bubble tea and drinks, it was great.

Now I find myself in grad school. After a year of working, it's great to be back in the student life with all this free time. My first year, I hardly did any work and I went out all the time. But it's catching up to me. My supervisor has had two talks with me in the past month about the lack of work I've been doing. At this point of my thesis, I should be putting in way more work than I am. Pretty soon, I'll be putting in 40 hours a week and coming in on weekends. It'll be like a full-time job again. But I have to make sure that I still go out and have fun to enjoy life and keep myself sane.

 - the voice of banana_appeal

Well since my birthday is in September, I always find it more as a time of renewal. And also because September is the start of a new school year. This is the time that I'm usually at my most reflective. Not necessarily at Christmas.

I've been a student non stop for the last 20 years so this academic rhythm has been drilled into me. Even though I've slowly adjusted to the semester system, where every 4 months is a new term (I basically segment my life in 4 month chunks now), no other new term hits me the same way as that of September.

School was always a refuge for me, so I loved going back to school. It meant new school supplies. New things to learn. And since I used to move every year when I was younger, it also meant a new school and new friends. (Might explain some of my commitment issues.) So September has always been associated with a new chance to prove myself.

Not to mention that autumn is one of my favorite seasons (along with Spring). Crisp air, lots of sunshine left, beautiful panorama of leaves changing colors on trees, and of course perfect weather for wearing some of my favorite clothes. Not too hot and not too cold.

But on a final note, I was slated to graduate and start work and the path to my career this September. Unfortunately I didn't graduate. Didn't pass GO. Didn't collect $200 - LITERALLY - (I had to take out a student loan and got approved for less than...) So instead of a brand new start, I get to re-experience September in school. Maybe it was a subconscious decision, because now I am more than ready to move on. I'm no longer scared. In fact I feel so ready for the real world. I feel invincible, on top of the world, just like I did when I graduated from high school. Now I'm ready. And hopefully I will be closing this chapter of my life and opening a new chapter in January (or February... after my celebratory trip to Las Vegas).

 - the voice of Hot Soup

One thing that’s always bothered me about liberal arts majors is their pride in their Critical Thinking Skills. Virtually all of them claim that, more than the actual facts or arguments they learned, this was what they valued most out of their education. That and Learning How To Think. Yet, this vaunted concept has always been a poorly defined one, and, I suspect, an almost meaningless one. After all, if it’s so important, why don’t we teach a course in what it is and how to use it? Are those who don’t go to university incapable of critical thought? I challenge the liberal arts students out there to define Critical Thinking Skills.

Another thing that bothers me is ... Waterloo. With its co-op program, their students would always steal summer jobs from the rest of us Ontario university students. Just because they’d had a smattering of previous job skills, they’d be fawned over by employers. How is it that the average student from that damn university could easily get summer jobs in their technical fields while the rest of us had to be the cream of the crop at our universities simply to get the same lousy summer job?

Unfortunately, the other universities seem to have surrendered in this fight, because more and more are offering co-op programs and work experience options. Canadian schools emphasize finding a job and training for professions more and more these days, and students judge schools by their ability to provide jobs afterwards. What happened to training the mind and a broad education? While I earlier criticized the chimera of Critical Thinking, I do think that the liberal arts education is a valuable one. Learning about the philosophies of the ages, the grand arguments, and historical context are all valuable – and all too often thrown away in our pursuit of work. You can learn how to operate a potentiostat on the job, but on the job you won’t have time to learn what Nietzsche thought about work, or the history of France, or the fundamentals of fluid mechanics.

Stepping backwards in time:

One thing I’ve realized about high school is how important it was to have friends there. I was a total nerd back then: I got stratospheric grades, I had giant aviator eyeglasses, my haircuts were weird, and my parents dressed me funny (These days, I have contacts and, alas, only myself to blame for my unfortunate haircuts and clothes). But, social loser that I was, I was very lucky because I had a group of friends who shared similar values: they cared about getting excellent grades, were smart enough to achieve it, and weren’t obsessed with sex and drinking and smoking. Not that the latter are bad things, mind you, but at fifteen you don’t need to spend your life focused on those goals. Interestingly, we were mainly the sons and daughters of immigrants.

Without a supportive group of friends who reinforced these aspects, I would have been forced to conform closer to the norm and become (somewhat) more adapted to typical teenager life, and would have lost the intellectual bent that helped later on in life. Either that, or I would have in rejection turned even further from the mainstream, becoming some kind of hunch-backed warped nerd king computer programmer today. It’s important to have friends to fit in with, even if you have already rejected the mainstream and the concept of fitting in.

So, class: Critical Thinking Skills are useless things to praise if you can’t define them. Nerds need friends too. And too much focus on jobs is ruining our universities by turning out graduates who are “skilled” but not educated.