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Happy October, friends. Some deem this time the true start of Fall, others Spooky Season, or crazy midterm season. While it is definitely all those things, October is also an exciting time for those interested in sustainable fashion, mainly because of an initiative called Project Trashion.

If you aren’t familiar with the fast fashion industry, I suggest reading this post before diving in to the story of Project Trashion.

Today I am sharing the story of a local organization doing amazing things in the world of fast fashion. Launched in 2018, Project Trashion is an artistic movement created by Yoshi Matsuzaki, a good friend and fellow Environment student at the University of Waterloo. I sat down with Yoshi to learn all about Project Trashion, the design process and the inspiration behind the organization. 

The story of Project Trashion 

“You’re a student, you’re coming to university, and you’re trying to figure out what to do. For me, I still had no idea what I wanted to do.” Yoshi explained when I asked how Project Trashion began. “I didn’t even know that [Project Trashion] could be an option.” 

Yoshi Matsuzaki

Yoshi came to Waterloo three years ago after spending three years in the army and one year as a bartender in Singapore. In his spare time he freelanced as a fashion photographer. He moved to Canada for school and was determined to combine his eye for fashion photography with his degree. “I thought, why don’t I combine these two things: my education and my skill set, and make something out of it.”

While Yoshi was interested in sustainable fashion, at this time running a whole fashion show wasn’t on his radar. He volunteered at Fashion For Change in first year, where he realized the potential that a fashion show had to deliver a message in a unique form.

This is where he first found the connection between his passions; he found the medium of a fashion show an interesting way to educate viewers on the impacts of the fashion industry on the planet. At Fashion For Change, Yoshi also met Michelle Sin, the fashion designer that introduced Yoshi to the concept of “trashion” and how trash could be transformed into beautiful clothing designs.

Partnering with Sin, Yoshi took photos of her designs in what was initially meant to be just an art show to spread awareness. It quickly transformed from there. “People said to me, since you know how a fashion show runs, why don’t you run one yourself?” And it clicked for him. Hence, Project Trashion was born. 

The Union

The first show of Project Trashion, The Union, occurred on September 30, 2018. “The Union described the unionization or joining together of students because I feel that the university is a closed-off bubble. Is it’s own ecosystem…students don’t really interact with outside businesses or initiatives unless is peaks their interest or is convenient for them.” The Union was a way to bring local sustainable businesses directly to the students, showing them the local options they may not have considered before. 

This year, Project Trashion is preparing for their second fashion show. On Sunday, October 6th, Paragon is happening on campus. Paragon seeks to have a lasting effect on its audience. “I don’t want it to be like Cirque du Soleil, where people come, watch it, and then forget about it. I don’t want it to be forgettable.”

A call to action

This year’s fashion show is a call to action, a demonstration of how to make change within one’s own life. The Union revolved around trashion itself, becoming a complicated issue when individuals asked where the trash outfits would go afterward. In that aspect, Yoshi wanted to be more practical and relatable.

“The art portion of the show is still there, but it’s not the main purpose of the show. It’s there as a last piece statement to highlight how we should reduce our consumption in general.” This year’s fashion show is themed around oceanic plastic waste and how we need to reduce our consumption of plastic-containing clothing products.

 Paragon

Paragon represents the greatest example of “something,” or a “role model” as Yoshi describes it. The fashion show will model ways for students to consume clothing and accessories more sustainably and highlights local options available to them. The show is all about relatability, how people of all different backgrounds, ages, sizes and classes can come together to reduce the impact of their clothing choices. Paragon is meant to have viewers look at the runway models and say, “I can imagine myself wearing that outfit.”

How is Project Trashion making their looks more relatable? Sustainable businesses and thrifting are showcased in the show. The thrifting portion shows how reusing, reloving and repurposing clothing can be fashionable; Paragon seeks to inspire students to create outfits from local thrift clothing. “We don’t want to sacrifice individuality at all,” Yoshi said, “and we want to create those images [of individuality] out of the textiles already in the economy.”

Youth Empowerment through clothing

Project Trashion is meant for youth: from high school to graduate students, it is the prime age to make a change in one’s life. “Everyone in that age range has the ability to change their habits. Students…are better sponges. This is the time in their lives that we want to educate them about sustainability, in a very entertaining way. This is the age of social media, and image does matter, reputation does matter, and we want to leverage that.” Relating it to climate action, Yoshi’s initiative is showing today’s youth that there are sustainable alternatives in the fashion industry that do not require you to sacrifice your individuality. 

Challenges to overcome

When I asked Yoshi what one of the greatest challenges in creating Project Trashion was, he said becoming a better manager. “It really teaches me not only about my own time management, but how to work with other people’s time as well.”

With a team of university students, Yoshi understands first-hand the busy lifestyle of the team. That’s why he is trying to make the most impact with the least amount of commitment from his busy volunteers. “I can’t expect people to care as much as I do. I can’t expect them to have the same level of passion…because they legitimately can’t. I knew I was going to have to put in more time, more effort. I knew that going in.”

Especially as a student himself, Yoshi is doing it all. With approximately 50 internal staff and 70 models, the team is spread across the university. With so much going on, Yoshi had to learn balance. “I learned to half my efforts but double my results.” What he learned with sustainable fashion and project management he could apply to his degree in reports or projects. He’s already living what he is writing or learning about. “That reduces a lot of the mental stress around learning these topics. Project Trashion is applicable to all my subjects.” 

Connecting the dots

One of Yoshi’s favourite things about the whole Project Trashion experience has been seeing how two unrelated things work together and can synergize. “Being able to connect the dots and say, oh, that could work, has always been the most exhilarating thing.” 

There is a clear message that Project Trashion is trying to share with the audience: You have a choice. “Anyone can make a choice. I personally don’t care what choice you make because it’s your life. But Project Trahion is trying to showcase that you do have a choice. As long as you know your choices, I’ve done my job.” If making change fits your desires, your social, economic and personal needs and will make you happy, that’s amazing.”

You may be wondering, where’s Yoshi’s favourite place to shop sustainably? Fun fact: he hasn’t shopped much in the last three years, wearing items from the army, gifted items and hand-me-downs. “I like to be a wallflower and blend in.” This demonstrates that fast fashion isn’t needed for a happy life, and change can be accomplished with whatever you choose to put on your body. 

Paragon: Make sure to attend!

The show is happening at Federation Hall at the University of Waterloo on October 6th. There are two shows running approximately two hours, one at 12:30pm and one at 4:30pm. General seating and VIP seating with a lounge are available. To learn more about Project Trashion, ask Yoshi or the team any questions, and to purchase tickets, check out the links below:

For tickets: https://www.ticketfi.com/event/3403/paragon-by-project-trashion

Project Trashion website: https://www.projecttrashion.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectTrashion/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projecttrashion/

Thank you Yoshi, or “your friendly neighbour ENBUS man” for sharing the Project Trashion journey with us. As always, thank you for reading. I strongly encourage you to check out Sunday’s show; it’s going to be like nothing you have ever seen before. I’ll be there sharing the spectacle on Project Trashion’s social media; I hope to see you there!

Until next time!

The post Project Trashion: Sustainable fashion that makes a statement appeared first on Clear the Air.

This post shares 10 tips for living sustainably in university, created through my own experiences.

It’s that time of year again: students are preparing to head back to school. For some of you, you are getting ready for their first year of university, the first time you will live away from home. It can be a scary time, but also very exciting! 

For me, my first year of university was when I really wanted to transform my habits to live more sustainably. Moving to a new city felt like I was pressing the reset button. I was also starting an environmental program, so it only seemed natural for me to step up my sustainability game.

While this is a great time to change your habits, it can also be very overwhelming with moving, meeting new people, starting new courses and everything else accompanying the university transition. To help, I have 10 tips for living sustainably in university that are quick, easy and inexpensive (because student budgets exist). I used all of these tips when I started university three years ago, so I can vouch that they are effective! You can choose one, two or all 10 to try out. No matter what, every little bit helps.

1. Bring your own reusable containers.

You’ll be surprised by how often you order food out. Most of my money is spent on food in university. That said, the number of take-out containers you go through will quickly add up! 

Many universities now have a container program that allow you to bring your own cleaned food containers to campus food shops, and all coffee places (Tims, Starbucks, McDonalds, etc.) allow you to use your own thermos. Some schools even have an eco-container program where you can purchase a school-certified container that you receive discounts from using. In Waterloo we also have many food places off campus that allow you to bring your own containers for leftovers/take-out. Check out what container programs your school offers! 

2. Say no to straws.

Another thing you will be doing a lot of is drinking coffee or other beverages. Some of my friends order iced coffee every day: if you use a straw for each one of those, that’s 365 straws each year being wasted by you alone! An easy fix to this is to ask for no straw when ordering a drink to go or at a restaurant. Many places will gladly comply; some even offer metal straws for you to use! You can also bring your own straw: I have two metal straws, one normal one and one larger one for bubble tea. And no, paper straws are not the “solution” because they are still a single-use product that requires resources and energy to make something you use for a short period of time.

3. Carry a reusable water bottle everywhere.

There are water filling stations all over campus, so there is no excuse for carrying a single-use water bottle. It makes me happy when I’m in a lecture and see my entire class using reusable water bottles. They’re fun to have because you can choose a pretty pattern or insulated one that keeps your water cold for hours. Pro tip: you may want to purchase a clear bottle (universities sell many with their logo/faculty colours) because you must have clear bottles with no label for exams!

4. Learn to cook!

With so many cafeterias and food shops around campus, it can be very tempting to just pick up food rather than make your own. Not only does this get expensive and wasteful, but it also disconnects you from your food’s supply chain. If you have the space in residence to do so, try cooking at least one meal for yourself each week. Choose ingredients you know and can source back to their origin. Arrange a cooking party with friends to build memories over the food. This connects you to your food, makes the experience more enjoyable, and is likely healthier than what you would be purchasing on campus. 

5. Use scrap paper.

When studying for exams, I tend to write and write and write. I practice equations, make brainstorming charts, draw diagrams, over and over until the day of the exam. I go through a lot of paper by doing this, so my solution is to re-use old papers, the inside of cereal boxes, forms and other scraps that I have lying around. Instead of letting those papers go immediately to waste, I give them a second life by doing this. It also saves money on my end by not having to purchase a bunch of notebooks each school term.

6. Join a campus club.

One of the best ways to get motivated to change your lifestyle is to surround yourself with like-minded people. Find a club you can get involved in on campus that promotes sustainable living. You’ll make plenty of new friends, maybe learn a new skill, and be motivated to take action! A few examples from Waterloo include Campus Compost, Sustainable Campus Initiative, Campus Market Garden and the Environment Student Coffee Shop.

7. Join a Facebook group.

This is another great way to get connected with like-minded people, both on and off campus. I am in several groups around the Kitchener-Waterloo area, from vegan/vegetarian recipe ideas, to zero waste living tips, to free environmental events happening around campus. Check out what is being offered around your school! 

8. Take advantage of free public transit.

Most schools offer some sort of public transit deal with enrolment. For me, my student card gets me on the bus and ION train for free. This saves so much money versus using a ride-sharing service, and most developed cities have great public transit systems. You’ll cut down on your greenhouse gas emissions from not driving everywhere, and it is also ensures you can travel responsibly if you are out drinking.

9. Buy products with little/no packaging.

Moving off to university probably means you are buying new bedding, toiletries, decorations, cookware and other highly-packaged items. To cut down on this waste, look for products with minimal or better packaging. If you have to buy an item that is packaging, opt for ones not in plastic, or have a recycling program where you can return packaging. For instance, if you have the option between plastic and cardboard packaging, go with the cardboard one. I also love LUSH’s black pot program where you can return five pots to their stores to get a free face mask.

10. Be kind to yourself.

Living more sustainably is not always easy, especially when you are adjusting to a whole new life in university. My best advice is to not put pressure or expectations on yourself to be a certain way. No one is ever “perfectly sustainable.” There will be times that you may “slip up” and that’s okay. The important thing is to keep going!

I wrote other helpful posts about making your daily routine more sustainable. Here are just a few you will want to check out:

• Eco-Friendly Swaps to your Daily Life 
• Tips for Travelling Sustainably
• How to Create a Sustainable Daily Routine
• A Guide to Sustainable Pet Care
• My 3 Cheap, Easy and Eco-Friendly Cleaning Secrets
• Ecotourism

By practicing these 10 tips for living sustainably in university, you will become a sustainability pro in no time. Even if you are still in high school they can apply to your daily life, or if you are in the workplace. Every little step counts when striving to create more sustainable habits in your daily life.

What tips are you most excited to try out? Do you have any that aren’t on the list? Let me know in the comments below!

As always, thank you for reading, and until next time!

The post 10 tips for living sustainably in university appeared first on Clear the Air.

Hey there! I want to share the story about the big project I have worked on this term. This post is all about Youth Action on Climate Change Program.

What is YACC?

Youth Action on Climate Change is a program led for youth, by youth. It teaches them the skills needed to take climate action in the local community. We educate youth on the issues facing their community. We teach them how to take tangible action and inspire them to take their future into their own hands. We run workshops, presentations and brainstorming sessions to instigate these actions. The major event that happened this past July was the Youth Climate Leadership Workshop, which is where I’ve been focusing most of my energy since March. 

How did I get involved? 

During my winter co-op I attended the Youth Action on Climate Change Leadership Workshop hosted at the University of Guelph. It was a three hour skill-building seminar inviting youth from local high schools to attend. We taught youth about climate change and helped them develop a youth-oriented climate action plan. The group focused on active transportation and are now working on a research report to present to city councillors.

Attending the event inspired me to reach out to the organizer, Emily. I wanted to say thank you for hosting the event. I also wanted to learn how she started YACC so I could start something similar in Waterloo. We met for coffee, had a great chat, one thing led to another and we became partners. YACC came to Waterloo.

Bringing YACC to Waterloo: the process 

Our first meeting was in March. From there we connected with Tyler, Emily’s brother at Laurier, to make YACC happen in the Waterloo Region. We wanted to make the program more than just a one-time workshop. We wanted interactive workshops, networking opportunities, and a brainstorming session to develop a local climate action plan. We also wanted to engage the broader community, inviting youth from everywhere across the Region. 

Months of planning and organizing went by. We partnered with the Faculty of Environment at UW and Laurier’s Sustainability Office. We were sponsored by local organizations like Reep Green Solutions and Sustainable Waterloo Region. We received thousands of dollars in funding from the schools and the Waterloo Environment Student Endowment Fund. I met amazing people throughout this process, people who are now good friends and mentors to me.

The July conference 

The Waterloo event was a full-day conference at the University of Waterloo. We ran interactive workshops to get youth familiar with the small ways they can take climate action in their own lives. These include beeswax wrap making, a voting simulation and a systems thinking workshop.

While youth attended these workshops, parents, and other adult attendants were asked to take part in a discussion about climate literacy. We wanted to hear their perspectives on the issues and teach them how to meaningfully engage with youth about climate change. We had guest presentations from Master’s of Climate Change student Heather McDiarmid, and Mike Morrice, co-founder of Sustainable Waterloo Region. We held a networking session over a low-waste, mainly plant-based lunch with locally-made baked goods and Fair Trade coffee. 

The bulk of the day was focused on two things. First, we identified the main problem sectors in Waterloo Region. Second, we developed a comprehensive action plan that youth could carry out after the conference. We asked attendants to identify a problem and the key barriers preventing action. We then chose measurable and realistic actions to address those barriers. 

We split the large group into two sections, one focusing on food systems and the other on green infrastructure. I led the green infrastructure section, so I will describe what we did. 

To begin, we defined energy transformations. This term refers to making energy-using buildings or places more efficient. This could be through retrofitting existing buildings with solar panels, rainwater catchment systems and more. It could also mean creating design standards that require renewable energy systems in new buildings.

Energy transitions 

Our group is focusing on transitioning public infrastructure such as malls and schools. We will research current energy consumption habits and the barriers for transitioning to renewable energy. Later, we hope to present this information to decision-makers to shatter the stigma around energy transitions being “cost-inefficient,” “time consuming” and “unreliable.”

Inter-generational collaboration

My favourite thing about the conference was seeing how engaged everyone was. We had individuals as young as 11 and as old as 25 attend and work together to solve the wicked problems associated with climate change. Furthermore, I love hearing their stories, why they are involved and why climate action is important to them. It inspires me and validates the work that we are doing, proving it is contributing to something grander.

Overall, the event was a huge success. It was covered by CBC and CTV News, sharing our story across Canada. The momentum is growing. I am excited to see where Youth Action on Climate Change goes in the future! 

Curious to learn more about YACC?

If you want to learn more about us, check out our website! You can read the CBC story and view the CTV News coverage too. Feel free to send me any questions or comments about the program in the comments below or via social media. I regularly post about YACC on my Instagram as well; be sure to follow me there for more information on our activities! 

As always, thank you for reading. Until next time!

The post Youth Action on Climate Change – Recap appeared first on Clear the Air.

As I write this it is Friday morning, less than twelve hours after I finished my final exam for my first term (2A) of second year. Because of my program, I won’t be doing my second term (2B) until the spring; I’ll be on co-op from January to April. That said, my third full term of university has been sort of a whirlwind. It passed by so quickly…I still feel like it’s September, not December. 

Going into 2A, I was warned that it was going to be a challenge. Upper years in my faculty told me that it may have been one of the most challenging terms to get through. I can definitely understand why they said this now, and despite having prepared myself for hardship I was still caught off guard when things didn’t work out as well as planned. However, I still had a lot of fun throughout the term, and I still live to tell the tale, so that’s a plus! 

Reflecting on the last four months, there are a few experiences/lessons/challenges I had that stand out from the rest. These experiences have really tested my patience, perseverance and who I am as a person. While they were a pain to get through, I am glad that I experienced them because I wouldn’t be the person I am now without having gone through them. Not all are bad, of course, and some had positive outcomes. By sharing these experiences with you, my hope is that I can help you in some way: maybe you are going into your first year of university, or into your second year with your first round of co-op interviews coming up (*cringe*), applying to a job outside of school, looking for an apartment for the first time, or are here out of general curiosity and want to hear what I’ve been up to the past few months (and why I haven’t been posting…I’m sorry!).

Without further ado, here are five lessons I learned from this past term. I hope that you enjoy! 

1. Living off campus is a whole different ballgame. 

This past term I lived off campus with my friend from residence. We rented from a student housing company, one of the big-name ones around Waterloo with a bunch of different buildings. This experience by far has transformed me more into an “adult” than anything. If you know me in person/follow me on social media, you know the woes and struggles that I have gone through this past term with this rental company. I’m not going to put their name on here for privacy sake, but if you would like to know because you are looking for a place off campus then feel free to send me a message. 

Anyway, there have been many struggles with living off campus this term, but it wasn’t always bad. The apartment is located right in the middle of all the necessities: Uptown is a 15 minute walk away, the mall and grocery store is a 5 minute bus ride, campus is a 20 minute walk and there’s a bus stop right outside our door. It was a decent price for the size, too, and a two-bedroom apartment is rare to come by. When our neighbours weren’t partying or moving around all their furniture at 2am, it could be very peaceful to read or eat breakfast by the window.

I started listing all of the issues out in this post, then deleted it because I didn’t want this post to be me just ranting. I go on for days about the issues I’ve faced this term in my apartment. Being a student while living off campus means finding time to pick up groceries every week and hull them home on the bus, clean the apartment regularly, take the extra time to get to campus and make sure that rent was being paid on time every month. Having to chase after my property manager every other day to report an issue or follow up to something they claimed were being fixed added a lot of unnecessary stress. As of right now I’m not sure what my living plans are for the next three years of university; I am applying to be a don for my third year, so if I get that then I will be living on campus. If that doesn’t work out, though, I will definitely be finding a new place to live.

        2.  Finding the right co-op job takes a lot of time, effort and patience. 

If you are not familiar with co-op, it is essentially you working at a job related to your studies for 4-8 months. You apply through the school (although you can use your own connections/other job boards) and have a lot of paperwork/documents to complete. The University of Waterloo is known worldwide for it’s co-op program, so actually being a part of it is an interesting experience. What a lot of people do not understand is that co-op at UWaterloo is not a placement or internship. The school does not find the job for you: you must apply yourself. You also have to pay nearly $800 in tuition for each term of co-op, which seems silly since you’re not even in school at that time. We have a student job board called WaterlooWorks where employers post jobs specifically for UW co-op students. While you are applying for your first co-op, you are also completing something called a “PD,” or personal development, course. This is essentially a full course in its own right, where you watch modules online, complete assignments, etc. but it is catered to helping you through your first co-op application experience. You also do resume critiques and mock interviews which were pretty useful, but otherwise it was another course with deadlines that you have to meet and pass while trying to pass your other five courses. In addition, the resume template you have to use for the assignment is not recommended to be used for your actual job applications (which doesn’t really make sense).

Going into my first co-op application round, I was pretty scared. Upper years told me that I may not get a job, and to only expect one or two interviews (if I was lucky) in the first round. I was really lucky this term because I got 7 interviews, which was way beyond I even imagined for my first term. I think the number of interviews you get really depends on how much effort you put into your applications. In the first round (which runs Oct-Nov) you can apply for up to 50 jobs: I applied for 27 and catered each resume/cover letter to each employer, but I have some friends who applied to all 50 and just sent in general applications (but they did get jobs). I even have friends that applied for less than 15 and got jobs, and some friends who are still searching (fret not, you will find something, I believe in you!) It all depends on how well you sell yourself, and what sort of experiences/skills you highlight. For me the physical application is the hardest part; once I get an interview, I am confident that I can show the employer my passion and interest in an interview. 

When you apply for a co-op job, you can see how many people also apply: one job I applied to had 168 applicants, for instance. That definitely made it more stressful, because knowing the odds of you getting that one position out of 168 people are very slim. If you do manage to get an interview, you can also see the names and emails of the others who got an interview; a lot of times I would find out that I was going against upper years with more experience, which was (surprise) stressful. Also keep in mind that job interviews are happening throughout the regular school term, meaning my friends and I would have to miss class or tutorials to attend them. Usually the TAs and profs were understanding and would make accommodations if you told them you’d be missing a session in advance. Some days were just interviews: I had three interviews in the span of three hours. Your interviews could take the form of phone calls (in this super busy call centre where you are sitting in a cubicle with other people being interviewed on either side of you), a Skype call (mine which crashed twice and resulted in the interview being 1.5 hours instead of 40 minutes) or an in-person interview. You could also be asked to do specific tasks or “tests” – I actually got an interview for the job with 168 applicants, and I had to write 3 essay questions in 30 minutes at the end of the interview. Definitely an interesting (and intense) experience!

Overall I did enjoy the co-op application experience. I feel very confident in writing cover letters, resumes and with my interview skills. Yes, the whole experience was extremely stressful and hard to stay on top of PD assignments, interviews and coursework, but in the end I came out with 4 job offers (one of which was the job with 168 applicants!), all of which interested me and made the decision very tough. Next term I will be working in Guelph as a Waste Programs Assistant at the Waste Resource Innovation Centre, where I will be helping with projects around the city to improve waste diversion strategies and assist with developing an apartment composting project. 

     3.   Life is expensive.

When you start buying all of your groceries, cleaning supplies and personal care products, you realize just how expensive life really is. Groceries were especially killer, and seeing how food prices changed over the last few months depending on the season really influenced what I purchased and ate. I wrote this post about food insecurity and discussed the affordability of food playing a significant role in malnourishment right here in Ontario; while I am nowhere near this state and am very grateful that I can afford fruit and veggies still, the variety I ate was more limited as we moved away from prime harvesting season. A small cauliflower was 7 dollars, an avocado 3 dollars. Insane, right? 

On the other hand, I enjoyed this experience because it allowed me to eat more seasonally. The last month or so I’ve been eating a lot of root vegetables like carrots, beets, onions, garlic and ginger, as well as mushrooms, sweet potatoes, squash and cabbage. I ate frozen berries that were picked when they were in season. I would buy things like apples and bananas still just to get a different variety of nutrients in my diet, and when cooking I would try to change around the spices/recipes so that I didn’t get bored of the same ingredients. Yes, sometimes I would’ve loved to have fresh strawberries or a mango or other summer-y produce, but it just wasn’t practical economically. By purchasing produce in season and as local as possible (always check where your produce is coming from, and try to buy within Ontario if possible!) I was doing the most good for the planet that I could. If you’re interested in eating more seasonally, or want to know what kinds of produce will be cheapest (because local availability dictates this a lot) check out Ontario’s produce availability guide here.

     4.   Getting yourself involved is a great stress relief. 

I really enjoyed getting involved around campus last year, so I wanted to continue doing so this term. I volunteered at the Environment Student Coffee Shop again, which is always so fun because I get to meet students, profs and other staff from my department. I sat on the Environment Student Society, the faculty’s student council, as Vice President Operations. We hosted some awesome events including our annual Nacho Crawl, Charity Gala, and my personal favourite, Bob Ross Paint Night. We also ran Mental Health Month festivities, had breakfast with the Dean of Environment and ran office hours every week. I really enjoyed getting involved with the faculty in this way because I was able to connect with other students and staff that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. I was the newbie and youngest on the team this term, so it was nice getting to participate in these big decisions made for the faculty and making new friends. I will definitely be applying for ESS when I am back in the Spring term!

I also had a part-time job as a Peer Leader at the residence I stayed at last year. A Peer Leader is similar to a don where they offer support and guidance to a set of students on a specific floor in your faculty (called your “cluster”). Peer Leaders would run weekly study halls where students ask for help on their assignments, course work or get tips for studying; we did review sessions for faculty-wide courses like ENVS 178 (an environmental stats course) and would attend themed community dinners. My floor would also do weekly Tea Time on Thursday nights, where we would chill in the don’s room and just chat about life. For a floor event, I had the floor visit my apartment (which we nicknamed “the box” since it was so small and our tables/counters were made of moving boxes) as I discussed their options for off-campus housing once they were done their first year. The don and I then took them to a board game cafe, which was a lot of fun and a nice way to relax. I also got to volunteer at the Fall Open House, representing the residence at a booth on campus and then giving tours of the residence later in the day. Overall I really enjoyed the Peer Leader experience, and I don’t become a don next year then I will definitely be a Peer Leader again! 🙂 

     5.   It’s okay to take breaks.

I have definitely said this in numerous blog posts, but it is still something I struggle with. Especially with how busy this semester was with courses, co-op applications and dealing with my apartment’s issues, it was easy to get overwhelmed. Nonetheless I knew how important it was to take breaks, even if it was 5 or 10 minutes. When I was feeling very overwhelmed I would stop whatever it was that I was doing and go for a walk or call a friend or my mom. I rarely studied in the apartment because I found the space too confining and for some reason cannot focus when I’m home; I would take myself out to a local coffee shop and spend hours studying away with a latte and sometimes a treat. After I finished a midterm, final or major assignment, I would treat myself to lunch or dinner at my favourite places around town. I attended hot yoga classes throughout the term, which I really enjoyed, and would regularly do stretching in my room. Netflix of course was a good break, and I think I started (and completed…) three different shows. I visited home every few weeks, pet my cat and saw my best friend. Little things like this made the stress more bearable and easier to take on.

Spending time with friends is also extremely important. University can be very isolating, and if you don’t have someone to talk to or just spend time with it can really impact your mental health. Having group sushi coffee dates or just one-on-one adventures with friends were go-tos, and my friends finally convinced me to experience Waterloo’s weekend night life (which is actually a lot of fun). Sometimes I didn’t want to go out because I felt that I had too much to do. Sometimes I wouldn’t go out, but other times I would tell myself that there would always be time to finish things while still enjoying myself, so I would go out and have fun. I tried many new things this semester and stepped outside of my comfort zone and did not regret it at all. In the end, I still had time to finish the tasks I had worried about, while still enjoying my term. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this semester despite how much I had to do. Living off campus was definitely an eye-opening experience and really taught me how to “adult.” Co-op will allow me to try out jobs and make valuable workplace connections that will help me establish a career once I graduate. I’ve discovered that I really enjoy educating others, not just about environmental/social issues (hence the blog) but about anything I am knowledgable of. I loved offering my stories and experiences as a Peer Leader to my first-years, and to high school kids visiting the campus on Open House. For the first time I enjoyed all of my courses this term, and while I am glad to have the Winter Break I am disappointed that the courses are over. I have made so many new friends and relationships with the faculty that will only enhance my experience at the University of Waterloo for the next three years. In my first and second term I was a bit hesitant about whether I had chosen the right school/program, but now I know without a doubt that I am in the right place. Despite all the challenges I’ve faced this semester, I’ve become a stronger individual and have further realized who I am as a person. I am so excited to see what the future holds for me.

Thanks for taking the time to read this life update, and I look forward to getting back into blogging. I hope that something in this post will help you in the future, whether it be with looking for a place to live off-campus for your upper years, starting your first co-op application round or anything else in life. My goal is to post regularly throughout the winter during my co-op, and I am excited to share that experience with all of you. Thank you for your patience with me, and I hope you will continue to read what I have to share.

I hope that you all have a great rest of your week, and enjoy the break! Spend some time with friends and family, eat good food, and remember to relax. 🙂 

Until next time!

The post Lessons learned from my second year (so far) appeared first on Clear the Air.

By the time you’re reading this, I am settling into my new home in Waterloo for second year. The last few weeks of summer were so busy, between working at the camp over 40 hours a week, visiting Waterloo for residence life staff training, shopping and packing for my new apartment off-campus, I haven’t had much time to take a breath. While I love being busy, I know important it is to set time aside for myself to restore my energy. Now that I have that opportunity, I wanted to share my expectations for the new school year, to help those of you attending university for the first time know what to expect in university.

These expectations do not revolve around my academics: I am not saying that I want a certain GPA, or to get enough credits towards my minor. I have found that making particular goals around my academics only adds on stress. A course may be harder than I expected, and the fact that I may learn a lot from it, I’ll only focus on how I finished with a lower-than-expected grade. This type of goal setting (for me, at least) focuses on the negative rather than the positive and has little room for flexibility.

Instead of creating academic expectations, these ten expectations are related to my personal growth. There is plenty of room for them to change as I go through this new school year, but they act as guidance for how I want to live.

By sharing what to expect for the new school year, I want to show you how important it is for us to take care of ourselves mentally while being so busy with school and work. We are often so focused on our performance that we struggle to take care of ourselves, and in the end our performance suffers. By taking care of yourself, being kind to yourself and showing yourself patience, you will find that your outlook on life, school and work changes dramatically.

So, here are my ten expectations for this upcoming school year.

1. Take more time for myself.

One thing I really overlooked in first year was taking more time to do things that I enjoy and help me relax. I talked about the importance of relaxing in this post, and it still rings true. Not only does taking regular breaks help you feel relaxed, it also re-energizes you. There’s nothing worse than getting lost in school/work and feeling totally drained, physically and emotionally.

This happened to me very quickly in first semester, and during the summer when I was working 40 hours a week at the summer camp. I know that it can be hard to take breaks when you have so many assignments, deadlines and exams, but trust me, you can manage some time to relax. Even watching an episode of your favourite show when you get home from work is a way of distressing, as is taking a bath with essential oils or going out to dinner with a loved one. These are little moments in time that we take advantage of. Planning some time for yourself every day will give you the motivation to make it through the day, and leave you refreshed for the next day.

I still struggle to make time for myself. I’ve always been someone who gets very anxious about time; since I knew how to tell time, I was constantly checking the clock (I’m talking ten times in a row), and I was always stressed about being “on time” to everything. Nowadays I get very anxious about not having “enough” time, whatever that means. I can get quite antsy when I have a load of work to do, and feel frustrated when I think that I don’t have time to do something for myself.

My mother has been a big help with overcoming this very real anxiety that I have (thanks, Mom!), and always proves to me that I have even half an hour every day to just chill. Even when I am my busiest, I can have a few minutes in the morning while eating my breakfast to read a book for fun, or blast my favourite tunes while driving home from a long day of work, or putting my diffuser on before I go to bed. It’s the little moments like this that help me feel refreshed and calm. I am trying to find a few of these moments in every day of my life, and I encourage you to do it too.

2. Know when to say “no.”

Similar to the last point, it is very easy to get overwhelmed with work and activities when there is so much around you to do. Especially in university, it can be difficult to find the work-play balance. It can be difficult to turn down the opportunities you are offered because of FOMO (fear of missing out). You don’t want to be the person who missed that awesome party, or didn’t take on that amazing research apprenticeship during your hectic school term. As a result, you’ll find yourself saying yes to your friends that ask you to stay up a few more hours to watch another movie, when you have an 8:30am class the next morning. Or to late-night pub visits when you have a big project due the next day. Or volunteering for too many extra-curricular activities that you are struggling to finish your assignments on time, let alone get a decent amount of sleep.

I didn’t attend many social events in high school until my grade twelve year, so I wanted to make up for it in university. In the first few weeks I tried doing everything: going to as many orientation events possible, staying up until 3am on a Sunday just talking with friends when I had an 8:30am chem lecture, signing up for over a dozen clubs (don’t worry, I ended up only participating in two or three for the year). I was feeding my hunger for social engagement that I had been desiring for years, only to very quickly get overwhelmed with all of the activities I put on myself. I didn’t want to miss out on anything, though, so I found it hard to figure out where my boundaries were.

I soon realized that I had to slow down and recenter myself. I decided that my current habits were unsustainable and I had to be true to myself to be successful during the year. I still enjoyed social events, but I cut back on the amount that I participated in, or used them as rewards for getting through things on my “priority list.” For instance, I could stay up late on the weekend watching RuPaul or random YouTube videos with my friend if I first finished my assignment that was due on Monday.

3. Find a co-op job I will enjoy, not just pays well.

With my first co-op work term coming up in the winter, September and October is all about applying and being interviewed for jobs. There will definitely be some jobs that pay better than others, and they might be tempting to take. However, money does not equal happiness. I’d much rather be happy at my job while earning minimum wage instead of being miserable but earning a few dollars more each hour. I want to look back on my first co-op term and recall all of the great memories I made during it. I want it to be related to my field of study, with plenty of room to learn and exercise my skills.

Student positions do not always provide the best paycheque, but I am okay with that. I am in a fortunate enough place where my tuition is being covered by scholarships/my parents’ help, and I know that many people are not as lucky. For these people, a better paying job may be necessary just to live. I absolutely understand and respect whatever financial status you are in. For myself, I want to make the most of my fortunate state and have a mindfully-enriching experience. As cheesy as it sounds, I want to be rich in experience. I do not want materialistic or monetary wealth if gaining this wealth impedes on my emotional wellbeing.

4. Experience living in my own (partially) apartment.

Yes, I did technically live away from home last year. However, I was living on residence, which is not like living in your own apartment. You don’t pay rent on residence (technically, you pay a large sum of money when you enrol); at my residence, your meal plan was covered in your housing fee. There were community events, floor meetings and communal dinners to get you involved with the other residents. You saw your friends practically every day (unless they slept the whole day) and could have big hangouts in the evening. There were dons that enforced the rules of the residence, and acted as mentors for when you needed guidance or support.

Living in an apartment off campus is going to be a very different experience. Now I must make all of my own meals (which isn’t a problem for me because I love cooking), pay rent every month, and I will not be seeing my friends every day if we don’t have classes together. Although there are rules enforced by the property manager, living in an apartment is a much more independent experience. There are no “quiet hours,” no set meal times. While I do have a roommate (shoutout to my anana, Alessia!) it can be a lonely experience if I make it one. I won’t, of course. It will be nice to have our own space where we can have friends over. While I did enjoy living on residence, not having to cook, living right on campus, I think living in an apartment with one of my best friends is going to be even better.

5. Attend more events on campus, within reason.

While I did attend many of the orientation events last year, the number of UWaterloo events that I attended began to dwindle after this point. I did do things around the city, but this year I want to be more involved with my student body. I specifically want to attend more events held by my faculty. That should be easy, though, because as the Vice President of Operations for Environment Student Society (the student committee for the faculty) I will already be engaged in the planning and execution process for all of these events. However, like I mentioned previously I will make sure to remember my boundaries so I don’t get overwhelmed like last year.

6. Be a great Peer Leader and role model to incoming first-years.

For at least the first semester (and most likely the winter semester, if I am in Waterloo for my co-op), I will be working part-time as a Peer Leader at my old residence. A Peer Leader is someone who offers both academic and personal support to incoming first-years; for me, I will be working with the students from the Faculty of Environment on my floor. I’m really happy because I will also be working with the students on the floor I lived on last year! It’s going to be weird seeing someone else living in my old room…

As a Peer Leader, I will attend floor meetings, plan my own floor events, host study hall a few times each term, and attend other events like community dinners throughout the term. I’ll also get to work with some of my friends from first year on the Peer Leader/Don team, which will be great. Next year I may even apply to be a don. Being a Peer Leader will help me feel out the responsibilities I have as a residence life staff, while testing my abilities to manage this job on top of six courses this semester. I’m confident that I can do it, though!

7. Visit home more often.

I started doing this more towards the end of my first year, but it definitely would have helped me if I’d been doing it since the beginning. Going home just for a weekend helps deal with homesickness, and is a way to mentally refresh yourself. Visiting familiar places, maybe going to a movie or just staying home and ordering a pizza, any weekend home from school was always something to look forward to. You realize how much you value being with family and getting to cuddle with your cat when you are away for awhile.

8. Reduce my time on social media.

Social media is an easy, easy way to waste time. Not to mention the fact that scrolling through your feed, seeing all of the fun your friends are having at their university, just puts unnecessary stress on you. You may not realize how much it stresses you out, but this mental comparison game we play when we spend time on social media is not healthy in any way. On mornings when I’m not spending time scrolling through Instagram or worrying about my Snapchat streaks, I feel more refreshed and focused. I try not to be on my phone at least an hour before I go to sleep, and I find that I sleep better when I don’t have that sort of mental stimulation so close to bed.

I’ve heard about apps that dissuade you from using social media, like one where you grow a forest and as soon as you open the app or unlock your phone the forest is destroyed. For an environmentalist like myself, this app is a great idea. I also put my phone on airplane mode during times that I really do not want to be disturbed, such as when I’m reading or going to the spa. I encourage you to reduce the time that you are aimlessly scrolling on social media, or even try a 24-hour cleanse and see how you feel after. I promise you that it will not be the end of the world if you unplug for just one day.

9. Treat myself regularly.

I have a plan to treat myself at least once a week. This “treat” will come in different forms: going to a coffee shop to just relax, not to do work. Going for a massage at least once a month, or a manicure. Take myself out to breakfast or lunch. Visit the library and just spend one day on the weekend reading for fun. Something for my own mental wellbeing, because I know how stressed I can be during the school year and how little I take care of myself. I already booked a massage to have within the first few weeks of school; I’ll need it after the stress of moving in, getting back into the school-routine, and starting new courses.

10. Go on a solo trip.

Something that I’ve really been inspired to do is to take a solo trip. I really want to visit British Columbia and see all of the beautiful sites that the province has to offer. I want to reconnect with my surroundings and escape the smog of the city, while having some time to reflect on where my life is taking me. I also would like to go by myself because then I have full control over what I do; if I want to climb a mountain, I can do that; if I want to just chill in a coffee shop all day, I can do that too. I don’t have to worry about what anyone else wants to do and I can be in a place where no one knows me or my story. Total freedom.

I saved enough money over the summer to go on this trip, so now it is a matter of figuring out when I will go. Most likely it will be next year, towards the end of summer when I am in between my spring and fall term of school. I am still looking into the details of the trip, but I’m making myself a promise to do it before life gets too busy.

Final thoughts

With a new school year comes new expectations. These ten expectations, or rather goals, are what I hope to achieve over the next year. I am not putting too much pressure on myself to achieve every single one of them; they are meant to reduce stress, not create it.

Perhaps reading through my expectations will inspire you to create some for yourself. What do you really hope to achieve this year? What is something that you struggled with last year, not from an academic standpoint but from a personal standpoint? How can you improve on this? Understanding our strengths and weaknesses can help us grow as individuals, so I think that reflecting on these points often and assessing how you can move forward will make for a better year.

I hope that you all enjoy your first week of school. For those attending university for the first time, all the best to you! I hope you now know what to expect in university, and how to take care of yourself through the process. For my high school friends, good luck with this new and exciting year. For returning university students or those not attending school, I hope that this year is the best one yet for you.

If you enjoyed this post, check out these helpful ones for starting your university journey:

• 10 tips for living sustainably in university
• Why daily goals are essential for success
• What to remember when saying goodbye (to high school)
• How to be “successful”
• Lessons learned from first year
• Lessons learned from second year
• Expectations for the school year

Until next time!

The post What to expect in university appeared first on Clear the Air.

Hello hi hey there, how’s it going? I hope that you had a fantastic weekend! Today we are going to chat about how to be successful. As I prepare for my second year of university, work at camp, write for the blog, and collaborate with other organizations online (more exciting news coming soon!), I’ve found myself thinking more and more about one particular thing: what does it mean to be successful? 

What is success?

In our society, I think it’s fair to say that “success” has one acceptable definition. If you have a lot of money because of your highfalutin job, which you go to every day on the top floor of a skyscraper in your fancy car, then come home to see your perfect family and your university degree hanging on your wall, then go to nice restaurants and exotic trips and to the spa, you are successful. And if you don’t have these things? Looks like you’re a failure.

This sucks. I’ll say that quite plainly because I dislike how we have one way of defining success. We define how successful we are through materialistic objectives, deeming our self-worth and happiness based on how much “stuff” we have. The question is, why do we do this?

If I were to answer this question, my guess is that rapid urbanization and industrialization across the planet is the main if not the sole culprit. Humans are competitive by nature, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to survive for thousands, fighting for resources, food and shelter. The more advanced society becomes, the more jobs we can have, the more places we can travel, the more things we can buy; the more room there is for comparison. When humans lived in small tribes or communities, everyone had a job to do. There were the hunters and gatherers, the communicator, the chief and other important roles. Everyone had something specific to do and they weren’t comparing their worth to one another because they knew that all of their roles were valuable and irreplaceable within the community.

The stress of today’s world

Nowadays, there are so many jobs out there and so many people who can fill that job at once. If our job performance isn’t so hot, we are threatened with probation and could possibly get fired. We are told that we are replaceable, and at the snap of a finger our employers could find someone to fill our position. We are under constant stress to do well, to work as much as we can, wearing ourselves down because of how hard we work. We come home exhausted, still feeling the stress and worrying how we’re going to move up in the world let alone keep our position. We eat, sleep, and repeat this cycle. There’s hardly any room for fun or relaxation when you’re working so hard. And the people who do make time for friends, for themselves? The people who don’t have it all figured out right after university, or the people who feel that post-secondary school isn’t the right path for them? They’re called lazy, a mooch, directionless. Friends and family are constantly pressuring these individuals to do something with their lives, to go to school or get a “real” job, without even considering how that individual feels. What if they don’t want to go to school, or aren’t sure just yet where they belong? Why is this seen as a bad thing?

It’s 2018, and competition is at its greatest intensity in all aspects of life. Maybe there used to be only a few restaurants in your home town, all of which had different specialities so everyone did fine. Today there are dozens, if not hundreds, of restaurants that offer the same specialities, so each restaurant has to work desperately hard to be the best of their kind, offer the best prices, the best food, the best atmosphere. If they’re not the best? They’ll close almost as soon as they open. I’ve seen this happen so many times, and I know I’ll continue to see it.

Competition in school: who is the most successful?

School is horrible for competition. Everyone is competing to be the “best” and have the highest grade in each subject, to have the highest average of their class. Friends talk behind each other’s backs about marks, saying they’re happy when one of the “better” students in the class does poorly on the trigonometry test (I’m speaking from experience here, being the one who almost flunked it and finding out how happy others were to hear this). People are getting caught cheating on tests and exams, but for what reason? University students are abusing Adderall to improve their studying so they can get better grades.

Mental disorders like anxiety, depression and others are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s youth. Students are killing themselves because they can’t deal with the pressure from friends, family and even themselves to be successful. This past March, for weeks I had to look out my dorm room window in residence to see the boarded-up window of the poor student who jumped from the twelfth floor of another residence building and killed themselves. In the past year alone, my school has seen three student suicides. The stress to do well and be the best is overwhelming for everyone. This all needs to stop.

This post is titled “How to be successful” so of course I need to offer my advice for being “successful.” I really only have one tip, but it’s a big one. Ready to hear it? Make sure you’re paying attention.

We. Need. To. Stop. Comparing. Ourselves. To. Each. Other.

Did you get that? No? I’ll repeat it. We need to STOP comparing ourselves to each other. Did you get it that time?

So what if you don’t have the best grades in school? So what if you don’t know what you want to do in your life just yet and are working at a fast food place in the meantime? So what if you want to continue working there because it’s fun and social? So what if you’re a thirty-something-year-old woman, aren’t married nor are currently in a relationship? Are you happy with where you are? Do you at least feel content with what you are doing? So then why does your life and what you’re doing matter to other people more than yourself? If you’re happy and have time for friends, family and relaxation, that is what I think a “successful” life is really about.

A pair of leggings = success?

If you’re not a big CEO at Google, why does your neighbour’s friend’s cousin’s opinion of you matter? Why do we need to post a photo of our brand new designer purse on Instagram? Is it so our “friends” feel jealous or envious? I remember when I was in eighth grade, TNA leggings were a huge deal. I didn’t have any designer clothes; I mostly shopped at Bluenotes, Walmart, places that had clothes for a decent price without any fancy logos. In eighth grade, I was super self-conscious of this fact, so one Saturday I asked my mom if we could go to Scarborough Town Centre so I could buy a pair of the leggings. When we got there I realized just how expensive these flimsy pieces of fabric were, so I opted for the cheapest pair, which were eighteen dollars at the time (now almost thirty dollars) and were also so thin and see-through. Nonetheless, I wore them to school the following Monday, and you can imagine how good I felt when my peers took notice. Then came Lululemon leggings, and my god that was a nightmare. I still wear them today because this time I actually like the products, but at the time it was all for the brand name.

The fact that we call ourselves worthy because we own a pair of leggings is ridiculous and speaks nothing about the person we are inside. Some of the most creative, thoughtful and considerate people aren’t worried about what brand of clothes they wear, what company they work for, or who’s seeing their social media pages. We try to appear happy all the time, try to act like life is great. We hide the fact that the forty-hour work weeks are wearing us down. We hide that when we get home from work, we sit on our couch and feel bad for ourselves because we’re not doing as well as our coworker, friend or family member.

We hide that we’re relying on three cups of coffee every morning to have enough energy to keep going, that we have to take anti-depressants and a whole slew of other medications because our self-image has plummeted since we stopped being kids and got punched in the face by the real world. Despite all of our efforts to be great, to try and figure out who we are before we are actually ready for it, we only find ourselves in a worse place. Every time we make even one tiny mistake, we beat ourselves up so, so hard over it. We are the bully on the schoolyard that everyone fears. We are also the victim of the bully’s taunting. We are our own worst enemy.

Success is: having fun, living life and working hard (but not too hard)

You know what I think about myself? I think I’m pretty successful. Not because of how I’m doing in school, or because of my blog, or my jobs. I think I am successful because I am able to get up every day and say to myself, “you are worthy.” I don’t compare myself to what I see on social media; if I see something triggering in the slightest way, I move past it. I don’t spend my time idolizing celebrities, dreaming I had a life like theirs. They have their own problems, too. I don’t spend my time beating myself up, feeling so sorry for myself and wallowing in self pity. I live my life. I have fun. I work hard, but I do it because I like to be busy and enjoy making a difference in the lives of others. 

This summer I was offered two amazing jobs, one with the City of Toronto and one with a professor at Waterloo to work on a research project with her. Both jobs were in my field of study, would provide me with so much experience and allow me to make great connections for the future. But I turned both of them down, and now I’m a camp counsellor at Life Time Fitness. True, I had already accepted my job at the camp before receiving the offer for either of these positions, but I could have very easily turned around and changed my mind. I didn’t, though, because I believed that I made the right choice.

This is my last summer until I graduate in 2022 because of the way my co-op program runs, so I wanted to have as much fun as possible. This means spending time with friends, getting enough sleep, relaxing, and just enjoying my time. The job with the city would have required me to commute more than two hours every day, doing a job that involved tasks that I wasn’t excited about. The research assistant job would require me to stay in Waterloo, and was offered to me just days before moving back home. I wouldn’t get to see any of my friends or family if I stayed there, and would probably find it quite lonely being there for the whole summer and then not coming back until 2022. Yes, I am working between thirty to forty hours every week with the camp, but working with the kids is so much fun. Tiring, I will admit, but I am paid to goof around and be a role model for the kids. I work with an amazing team in an awesome place. I get to go on trips to places I haven’t been before for free. I get to play games, dance, swim, make crafts, tell stories and more. It is my job, but aside from constantly watching the kids make sure they don’t get hit in the face with a basketball or don’t escape the activity studio, I feel so privileged to be working in a place where I can actually have fun.

I know that the other jobs are “real world jobs” which I will likely face during my co-op, but I wanted to have my freedom for this last summer. I had so many people telling me to take the “real” jobs, but I did what I felt was right for me, and I am so glad that I made this decision. I gave up jobs that paid up to nineteen dollars an hour for a minimum wage job (fourteen dollars an hour), but I am happy with this because success is not about the money for me. I think I am successful because I feel good about myself, not because I am making a lot of money.

Success is different for everyone

My success looks different from yours. Maybe you would have taken the job with the city or the professor. Our values are different, and that’s cool. If you’d taken one of the other jobs, I wouldn’t judge you. I would congratulate you and wish you the best. Then I would get on with my own life.

So, when figuring out what success means to you, ask yourself a few things:

• Does this genuinely make me happy?
• Am I doing this for myself, or is there some external force driving me to do this?
• Am I hard on myself when something doesn’t go as I thought it would, or I don’t do as well as I’d hoped?
• Do I look forward to my job/classes every day?
• When was the last time I had some “me” time?

The answers to these questions should give you a good indication of where you stand in terms of your personal definition of success. I have a feeling that most of us are being too critical of ourselves and are expecting too much. We are all human. We all live, we all die. Life goes on. Make the most of your life, and that does not mean make as much money as possible or make all of your friends wish they were you. That means have fun, get outside and play, take on a new hobby, find out what is truly important to you!

It’s not easy

I know it isn’t easy to live pressure-free. Family can be a big pressure, and with family being so ingrained in our cultural roots it’s hard to say no to them. But remember, you are doing it for your own wellbeing. If your parents want you to be a doctor, are they saying you have to do it for your own happiness, while you have countless mental breakdowns as you struggle through school? If you become a doctor, is it for your own good? Are you going to be happy, or are your parents going to use you to brag to their friends and other relatives? You figure that out and then re-evaluate your values.

At the end of the day, you are your biggest supporter or enemy, whichever you choose to be. There are so many external factors that impact how we feel about ourselves and behave in the world around us. I am not perfect; I went through many, many years of criticizing myself for every little thing, to the point that my physical and mental health suffered severely It took a lot of effort and patience to get to the place I am at now, and that place is called content.

I am content with where I am. I am content with the fact that I am unsure of my future (as we all are), and I will figure things out as I go through life. I am content with not being in a relationship right now, with being exhausted from work because I am having fun and inspiring the kids, with still having some time to myself and to hang out with friends. Life isn’t perfect, I am not perfect, and I am learning to accept my mistakes and move on from them. I encourage you to start thinking this way, too. Spend less time on social media, go out for a walk, do yoga, meet up with an old friend, read a book. Do something that you enjoy that relies less on self-comparison and focuses purely on yourself and how you feel in your body. Just be. Only then can we expect ourselves to enjoy the experience that is life.

Final thoughts

I hope you enjoyed today’s post and will stop to evaluate what you define as success. You can even do it right now if you want. I actually encourage it so that this post is fresh in your mind. Knowing how you define “success” and how you measure up to this definition is the first step to actually being successful, but in a way that is measured by how you feel about you, not how others feel about you.

If you enjoyed this post on how to be successful, make sure to check out these ones as well:

• Why daily goals are essential for success
• How to stay motivated
• Lessons learned from first year
• Lessons learned from second year
• Expectations for the school year
• What to expect in university

Have a great rest of your week, and remember to just be yourself. Everything else will fall into place.

Until next time 🙂

The post How to be successful appeared first on Clear the Air.

Hello, friends! Today I am going to share my fail-proof study tips for university. Before that, a little update! I hope you all had a wonderful week. Has anything exciting happened for you recently, or is there something coming up that you’re really excited about? I was stressing the past few weeks about my road test to get my G license. I had the test Tuesday morning, and I’m happy to announce that I passed! Despite the fact that the car I was supposed to take for the test got a flat tire the night before the test and we couldn’t replace in time (it happened on Victoria Day so everything was closed). On top of that, it was raining, which makes me nervous while I’m driving. Nonetheless, I still managed to do it and I’m so glad!

Life news aside, today’s post was requested by a good friend that will be attending post-secondary in the fall. I thought that this post would help a lot of you out there who are concerned about your current study habits and how to take them to the post-secondary level. I am pretty confident in my study habits, which have been paying off for me since I started taking tests in grade one or two (thanks mom for instilling good study habits in me from a young age!). Yes, I had a 4.0 GPA for my first year. But I’m not saying this to brag; I’m not one of those people who just get things in class, and I really have to work hard to get to where I am.

The importance of studying

My study habits were successful in high school, but probably like many of you, I was afraid that they wouldn’t be good enough for university. Honestly, you don’t have to worry if you already have good studying habits. If you really feel that your study habits aren’t going to get you through this new stage of your life (and if you’re constantly pulling off the night-before cram session) you might want to think about changing these habits.

Below I share eight fail-proof study tips for university that I used to get through my first year. For those of you still in high school, you could try out some of these habits now (especially with ISUs and exams coming up!). That way you will be ready to kick butt when the new school year starts. For those of you already in post-secondary who have already realized that school is harder to tackle than you thought, you might want to try out some of these habits, too. Without further ado, let’s get on to my fail-proof study tips for university!

Don’t just copy the prof’s PowerPoints

I saw this happen a lot throughout my first year and I think this is one of the worst habits you can have. In my courses, the prof would usually post their lecture slides online before/after class. Some people would use this as an excuse not to attend class. This is not a good idea! The profs usually leave out key points from the slides and only include them in class! I had some profs who would only include about 50% of the material they discussed on their slides, so those who didn’t come to class didn’t actually get half of the course’s material! They might not even put them on the slides, instead of saying a point that they really stress by repeating it, saying it slowly, or outright saying “this will be on your exam.” If you skip class because “you have the slides,” you will miss out on these hints.

Okay, so what if your prof doesn’t post the slides online so you have to attend class? When those slides go up on the screen during the lecture, you’re frantically copying down the notes without actively listening. There’s a difference between listening to copy something down and listening to actually learn and comprehend. 

Some profs would post their lecture slides exactly when the class started, or after class. The first twenty minutes of the class would be spent copying the notes out, then the last half an hour to two hours are spent completely zoned out. Not going to lie here, I’m guilty of this, especially with those rough three hour lectures with material I didn’t care for. I would copy down the notes, then spend the rest of the time on Amazon, messaging my friend sitting right beside me in class (hey girl hey), looking for an apartment, or buying makeup on Sephora…yeah.

Time passed faster while doing this, but it’s not all that beneficial. When I looked back at the notes I took I thought “what the heck?! When did we learn this?!” I’d have to set aside more time to reteach myself the information that I absent-mindedly copied down. If I had actively listened during lecture, I would only need to take a few minutes to review the material later on. I didn’t practice this bad habit of zoning out in every class, and the ones that I actively listened during proved to be much easier for me to review later on (super tip: NEVER ZONE OUT DURING BIOLOGY COURSES, YOU’RE SCREWED! Sorry, carrying on…).

My best tip to overcome course boredom and actually make the most of your courses? Listen. Take in the lecture content. Engage yourself in learning. For myself, I have a system that optimizes my learning, and I’ll share it with you here:

Before class

A few days before class (or whenever you have time), look at your course guide for the semester to find out what you’ll be learning that week in lecture. Even if you don’t have the slides available to you, there will likely be some external information source (like a textbook) you can get some basic theory in. Take notes (handwritten notes, because of the kinaesthetic motion of actually taking them, are best for remembering the information!) for that week’s content. Highlight key terms or points. Do any extra readings recommended for your course, taking notes of the key points of those too. If anything confuses you, write it down as a question on the paper or on a sticky note so you can get it answered later on.

During class

Take the notes you made before to your lecture and have them in front of you. As your prof goes through their lecture slides, supplement your notes with points they highlight that may not have been included in the textbook/readings. As you’re listening, try recalling the information you read before class and make connections to it. Remember the questions you wrote down before class? See if the prof answers any of those questions during the lecture. If they say anything funny or make up some weird analogy to remember the content, write it down (they help a lot, trust me). If you’re using a laptop or other device, try to stay focused on your notes. Have your note document on full-screen mode and turn off notifications for any social networking sites so you don’t get off track.

After class

Many professionals and profs suggest reviewing the content you learned that day in the evening or whenever you have time that day. I tried doing this every day, but quite frankly I just didn’t have time. There’s a lot of work, a lot of lectures that move on very quickly, so it’s hard to stay on top of things if you’re going back all the time when you need to be working on assignments or studying for tests/quizzes.

A better way I found to have the content stick in your brain is to discuss it with your friends or family. Was there a cool point that your prof made? If your friend has a question about the content, try answering it. Maybe share the content you learned with a family member. If you really liked something that the prof said, shoot them a quick email to tell them how much you enjoyed it! And if you do have time, at the end of the week I like to review what I learned that week in my courses and get any remaining questions I have answered.

Actually do the course’s readings

This connects with the last point, which shows how important I think it is. If your course has supplementary readings, do them. I know they can be a pain (they really, really are sometimes…) and some of them are just. So. LONG. Most courses have several readings to be completed every week. It’s tiring, it’s painful, but it’s worth it. Usually, there will be questions on midterms and finals about the readings, especially in social science courses (economics, politics, psychology, etc.).

In addition, if you have to write finals with crazy long essays on them (I had several of those…ugh), referring to the readings in your answers will win you serious points because it shows your prof that you can connect the material learned in lecture to the outside world. I always feel proud of myself when I can refer to a point or comment made in a paper to something discussed in class, or when I sit in a lecture and think “oh yeah, I remember reading about this topic!” Additional readings are really just a way to get a well-rounded learning experience.

Pay attention to where you struggle

Sticky notes are your best friend in university. If there’s a part in your textbook that you don’t understand, or something in the lecture that makes absolutely no sense, put a sticky on that section. Write your specific question on that note so that when you get to answering the question, you’ll know exactly what it is you were struggling with. If you go to the prof or TA with questions, they will really appreciate it if you show up well organized, knowing exactly what you’re going to ask. It shows them that you value their time and genuinely want to improve your understanding.

If you get back a poor assignment grade or midterm, see where your biggest areas of difficulty are. Unless your exam is non-cumulative (which does happen sometimes) you will be facing this content again in the near future; if you don’t understand it by the final, you may be in serious trouble. Just use your mistakes as a learning tool! They essentially provide you with a roadmap for your learning. And when you finally do understand the areas you struggled with, you will feel so accomplished.

Don’t let a bad mark ruin your motivation for the rest of the semester

This point continues on from the last point. Unless you are a super machine, you will get a bad, if not failing, grade in post-secondary. I don’t say this to scare you, but to make you aware that a bad grade won’t ruin you. Case and point, I still finished with a 4.0 GPA despite getting a close to failing mark on a paper I wrote. Actually, the course I received that mark in ended up being one of my best final grades for the semester. This just goes to show that if you get a bad mark, don’t wallow in your own sadness. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep moving forward. My courses had so many assignments that this bad mark was essentially ignored when my final grade was calculated.

So, what happens if you mess up on a big assignment or final and fail or are close to failing the course? You may be surprised, but most people fail or almost fail a course in post-secondary school. It’s the time to try out new things, and maybe you end up taking a really difficult course that you discover you have no interest in pursuing further. Maybe you do enjoy the course, despite its difficulty. In the end, you’ve still learned a lot, whether those skills you learn are related to the course or to your own personal growth. In the end, every experience you have will only benefit you for the future, no matter how bad or hard a situation is. I can’t stress this enough.

Make cue cards with study questions as you learn the content

This is my favourite way of studying! As I’m going along with the course curriculum, making my own notes, I start coming up with study questions at the same time. Usually how this works is I have my textbook or lecture notes beside me, and then next to them I have a set of cue cards and two different coloured pens. As I read through the content, I come up with study questions based on the material that could pop up on an exam. They focus on the core concepts, certain examples that were stressed during lecture (prof code for “you will be tested on this”), or specific diagrams/graphs and the information on them that is relevant to the material being learned. Using one colour pen to write these, I then write the answer to the question in the other coloured pen to the right of it.

I make sure to do this throughout the semester. That way, when it comes close to midterm or exam time, I already have a review made for the entire course! This is way faster and much, much less stressful than trying to review everything the week (or for some, the day) before the midterm/exam.

Form a study group

When you’re stressed about an upcoming final, the last thing you want to do is be inside your own head (where negative thoughts tend to form). Sometimes when I’m studying on my own for a long period of time, I start getting thoughts like “I’m going to fail, I don’t know what I’m doing,” and other unhelpful things. Ironically, I usually do this to myself when I’ve reviewed a considerable amount and actually subconsciously feel ready for the exam. Crazy, right?

If you are one that gets nervous and stressed for exams, a way of overcoming this is to work in a group. By working with others, you get out of your own head and can study in a more relaxed environment. You can quiz each other on the course’s content, ask questions to clear up any final concerns you have, and also have some fun! My friends and I would usually make a study group in the last few days before a final, when we’ve all already reviewed most/all of the content. We had a small dry-erase board that we would brainstorm concepts on, and then we would quiz each other. After a bit of hard work and when we’re all feeling good, we’d usually take a YouTube/Netflix break as a reward. This made preparing for our finals way more relaxing. In addition, sometimes my friends would ask questions or make a comment about something that I hadn’t even considered (and it would end up appearing on the exam!)

This method of studying isn’t for everyone, but I do think that everyone can benefit from trying it. I am the type of person who has to study alone to truly absorb the concepts. That’s why I join the study group at the end of my studying, when I’ve covered everything and can use the group time for relaxation or brushing up on a few concepts I don’t feel 100% confident in. If you don’t have a group of friends that are in your courses, do a little bit of research on your campus. I can guarantee that if you do a search on Facebook you will find a study group for that course. All of my courses had a page on Facebook that was formed by the students where you could ask questions, post pictures of mind maps you’ve made to help others with studying or to plan a meet-up with some of your peers. There will always be someone there to help you succeed in your courses.

If in doubt, ask your prof/TA (just not during class!)

Sometimes no amount of practice, Google searches or pestering your friends will make you understand a concept. That’s when you know it is time to ask the prof or TA for the course. I can personally vouch that this can be very intimidating. Here you are, a newbie to the academic world, asking questions to the most esteemed and experienced people in the field. What if you sound stupid or immature to them? What if they laugh at your question?! What if they laugh at you, refuse to answer such a junior question, and fail you in the course?!?

Pause. Breathe. It’s okay, I’ve been in this exact situation. The first time I went to ask my prof a question I thought that they would laugh at me and think I was stupid. It didn’t help that it was in chemistry and I had the solution manual outlining how to do the question I wanted to ask about. But I just didn’t get it. Here’s what I did: I took a deep breath, told myself that it would be okay, and I went to their office hours.

So I walked into the office, introduced myself, and showed my prof the question I was struggling with. I showed him the entire question in the textbook, the papers I had tried working it out on myself, and then I showed him the solution manual (I would like to point out that the textbook and solution manual were at least 800 pages each). He said that we were going to solve the question together. I replied, “but the solution manual has already solved the question, so I know the steps, I just don’t get why it’s done this way.” He then proceeded to close the manual, shove it to the side of his desk, and tell me to start writing out the equation on the whiteboard on his wall across from his desk. He said we were going to do this the “right” way, not how the textbook described.

I was so scared as I started writing out the equation. He’s going to think I suck because I have no idea what I’m doing, oh god this is horrible. Those were the thoughts that kept running through my mind as he kept asking me what came next. I would warily say the next step; if I was right he would watch as I wrote it down; if not, he would actually very kindly suggest a different way of approaching it.

By the end, not only had I solved the question in a way I understood, but I felt completely comfortable. I couldn’t believe how nervous I had been to talk to my prof! They are regular people, just like you and I. My prof was so cool, and after we solved the question we ended up chatting for a bit. Turns out, his daughter was in competitive dance, so we talked about that for a while. He said that it’s a shame that students are so afraid to approach the prof’s: they’re there to help! He appreciated that I wanted to really understand the question, and said he wouldn’t forget me, “Jenna the Dancer.”

This experience applies with TA’s, too. They are all there to help you succeed and will not laugh or judge you for asking a question. They will appreciate it, because you will be one of the few that actually took the time to come see them and are showing an interest in their course. Going to office hours is also a great way to get to know some influential people around the school and get inspired. Introducing yourself to your prof one-on-one is the first step towards potential research opportunities that may come up. These opportunities are usually paying jobs and give you real experience in the field.

Your TA’s may have heard of some opportunities for work or research that you would be perfect for; if they know you, they may reach out and suggest you apply for the opportunity. So remember, no matter how intimidating it may seem to approach your prof or TA, it will help you in both the short term (to do well in your course) and long term (future job opportunities!).

All this being said, do not be that kid who raises their hand in lecture to ask a very specific question. No one will blame the prof for scoffing at you if you do this, not to mention your peers. Everyone is there to learn, not wait around while you ask your question. Unless your prof specifically says it’s going to be a review lecture (usually close to midterms or exams) when you can ask questions, keep them for office hours or after lecture. Sometimes your prof will be happy to answer a quick question once the lecture is over, but not a long equation or major concept. Chances are, there’s a class going on in the lecture hall your class was in right after you, so there just isn’t the time to answer your question. And do not ask a question when your prof first arrives and is unpacking their things at the front of the class; let them do their thing to prepare speaking in front of hundreds of students.

Do NOT leave studying to the last minute

I’ve kind of hinted at this throughout the post, but I will gladly keep saying it. Do. Not. Leave. Studying. To. The. Last. Minute. Clear enough yet? DO NOT LEAVE STUDYING TO THE LAST MINUTE! How about now?

Being very blunt here, you are screwing yourself over if you do this. Post-secondary isn’t like high school, largely due to the fact that there is just so much content to cover in a very condensed period of time. You will most likely be learning new things in lecture basically until the last class before exams, leaving no time for review. If you try to cram everything into a night or two of studying, there is just no way for your brain to grasp everything. Not to mention, you will overwhelm yourself to the point that you will burn out very quickly. If you are trying to cram last minute, you’ll also probably pull several all-nighters just to cover everything you need to. Being sleep deprived in the days leading up to your exam is a bad, bad idea. You want to be as well-rested and stress-free as possible. You do have time during the year to review; the tips I’ve mentioned previously will help you do so and avoid unnecessary stress. Don’t make this harder for yourself than it has to be.

Final thoughts

Well, I have given you all of my best tips for staying on top of studying and succeeding in the adventure that is your post-secondary experience. I hope that even just one of these tips resonate with you (*cough* especially the last one: DON’T PROCRASTINATE, PEOPLE).

When you are off at college or university, it is entirely up to you to decide what kind of student you are going to be. You no longer have people reminding you to hand in assignments or study in advance for tests; you are responsible for all of your actions from now on. Also remember: you’re now paying for your schooling (unless you went to a private school before and you had to pay then, but now you’re paying even more for school), so if you waste your time, you’re also wasting tens of thousands of dollars…just saying.

Some say that college/university is the time to have the greatest fun of your life. Others say it’s all about hitting the books. Why can’t it be both? When you manage your time efficiently, there will be plenty of room for work and play in your life. You’ll be so much less stressed going into finals season, but you’ll still be performing to the best of your abilities in all of your courses. Doesn’t that sound great?

If you work hard, apply yourself, and start practising good study habits, you will succeed. I believe in you! I hope that you’ve been inspired to take your learning into your own hands and now feel confident going into post-secondary school. If you have any questions, or perhaps even your own study habits that you think work really well for you, feel free to share them in the comments!

If you liked this post, I encourage you to check out these ones that will help you through the post-secondary journey:

• 10 tips for living sustainably in university
• What to remember when saying goodbye (to high school)
• How to be “successful”
• Lessons learned from first year
• Lessons learned from second year
• Expectations for the school year

Thank you all so much for reading. I hope these eight fail-proof study tips for university come in handy for you. I’m happy to share my thoughts with all of you on my blog, and it makes me even happier to know that my posts are actually helping people. If you have an idea for a post, if there’s something you really want me to talk about, let me know in the comments or send me a private message! I will gladly accept any request you have 🙂

Until next time!

The post Fail-proof study tips for university appeared first on Clear the Air.

Hi again everyone! Today I will be sharing my lessons learned from my first year of university. I can’t believe we’re already halfway through May. That means I’ve been finished my first year of university for almost a month now…wow. So many people have told me that time goes by so fast once you hit university, yet I still can’t believe how quickly it went and when I look back at the past eight months it feels like orientation was only last week.

With time going by so quickly, I think it’s important to reflect on the experiences I’ve had in my first year and how they’ll benefit me in the future. I also think that it would be important for those going into university this Fall to hear first-hand what the experience was like, and for my fellow undergraduates to compare our experiences. It’s been requested that I write this post for a while, and I am very excited to finally be posting it!

You grow in university. A lot.

I want to start by saying that I think I’ve learned more about myself as a person in the past eight months than I have ever before. University is the first time (for most, at least) that you are truly on your own, making important decisions that will affect your day-to-day life, without the help of others. Of course you consult with your family and friends when making tough decisions, but in the end the final decision comes down to you. You decide to pull the all-nighters; you decide when you’re going to eat, do laundry, clean your room, book doctor and dentist appointments; you will be making a lot of “adult” decisions. I still don’t feel like an adult, though, but definitely more mature and experienced after having this time to grow on my own.

When I look back on the time I spent at the University of Waterloo from September 2017 to April 2018, I can think of five lessons I learned that I know will benefit me in the future. I’d like to share these lessons with you now.

1. It’s okay to struggle and be disappointed.

This lesson doesn’t just pertain to struggling in your classes, but since it is something you will face during your courses it is worth discussing. Thankfully, my program doesn’t require me to take courses in subjects I genuinely hate (cough physics cough calculus cough) and I overall feel pretty proud of how I did in all of my courses. Of course there were times that I didn’t do as well as I expected, when I felt that I did really well on a paper or midterm and then I would get the mark back and yikes…not so good. Here’s the deal: everyone has those moments. When you have so many different people marking your assignments (especially long written pieces subject to opinion) you’re bound to get a tough TA that doesn’t agree with your argument. You can follow up with them regarding your mark to understand where you went wrong, but this can take a lot of time and effort and quite frankly the TA’s aren’t always persuadable if you really think you deserve a better mark.

For instance, I wrote a final paper worth 40% of my overall grade for a course this past term. I worked so hard on this paper and was very passionate about the topic. I did not get the mark I thought I deserved, and the comments explaining why I got were very vague. I spent several weeks emailing back and forth with the TA trying to understand why they graded me the way they did; in the end, the TA ended up seeing things in my paper that they hadn’t seen originally, so they wanted to raise my mark, but my professor said that the grades had already been submitted so nothing could change.

Of course I was upset, but I didn’t let it ruin me; I moved on and used this as a learning experience. It’s okay to face disappointment. I still did well in the course, and the paper is one of many I will write in the future; I’ll probably forget I even wrote by next year. In other words, it’s really not something to dwell on. I can put my energy towards bigger, better things that will come my way soon enough.

As I said, you also will face many disappointments outside of your courses. Maybe you got in a fight with someone you are close to. Maybe you haven’t made as many good friends as you thought you would in the first few months of school. Maybe you didn’t get the summer job you wanted because you weren’t qualified enough, or maybe your program isn’t turning out to be what you thought it would be. All of these little disappointments seem catastrophic at the time, and we beat ourselves up over such small things that, in the grand scheme of things, only make up a small blip in our life! If you truly value your relationship with someone, you will find a resolution to whatever fight you had with them. You will make more friends. You will find a better opportunity in the future, and you will know the right thing to do when the time comes regarding your future. And if you don’t do one of these things? Oh well. With time passing so fast, more opportunities will arise very soon.

My point: a little disappointment is okay. When disappointment comes you need to take a deep breath and tell yourself that you will get through the moment. If you need to, reach out to someone you are close to; having a strong support system is so important. At the beginning of the year when I was adjusting to the course load, building my relationships and facing new challenges associated with being a university student for the first time, I found it hard to call home often and just talk with my mother.

My mother has been my biggest support system since day one: she will always listen to me, offer her advice, and lend me a shoulder to cry on (if you’re reading this, which I know you are, thank you for everything, mom!) Those weeks where I only called home maybe once or twice a week was when I would feel really, really down. I was struggling internally and I didn’t have the support I needed to talk to (she was always there for me, of course; it was me who wasn’t able to reach out to her). At one point I just felt so low that I promised myself I would try to call home every day or every other day. I know this isn’t ideal for some people, but my relationship with my mother is very strong and I didn’t want things to change between us.

As soon as I started calling more often, I felt stronger and lighter when approaching new challenges. My mother knew what I was going through and acted as my biggest fan; she’d tell me that I could get through anything, and that I will only grow as a person through the challenges that I face. I needed to hear those words from someone else to get through those first few months. I encourage you to find a support system if you don’t already have one so you are prepared to take on those challenges, too. Even if you aren’t struggling, being in touch with someone close to you and keeping up to date on each other’s lives is a way of staying grounded and feeling strong for when you do face those tough moments.

2. Make time for fun. 

This. Is. SO. Important! Something I overlooked for most of high school was making time to do things I enjoyed just for fun. I was so focused on doing homework and studying all of the time that I hardly made time for friends or for my hobbies (I was also a competitive dancer, so that also ate up a significant amount of my time too…). I had the opportunities to hang out with friends, see movies or just relax, but I rarely took them because I thought if I didn’t study for this long or do this much work that I would fail. I regret this a lot, but I was so paranoid about receiving a certain scholarship that I didn’t allow myself to have fun. So, yes, I did do very well in high school, but I was miserable for a lot of it because I didn’t take enough breaks (I really didn’t take any, to be honest).

I made a vow to myself in university to take breaks regularly. And I am SO thankful that I have stuck to this vow. Movie nights with my friends, shopping trips, Starbucks dates with my girls. It’s therapy in a way, allowing me to blow off steam and relax. The great thing about university is that you’re not stuck in one place for the entire day like in high school. Even if you have a jam-packed schedule in terms of classes, during your lunch break you could go to a coffee shop near your next class with a friend for a quick catch-up. Even meeting with some friends in the evening to do your work together is great: my friends and I would all sit in our lounge, do work for our different classes, play some good music and eat snacks, then usually watch a show or two on Netflix. Despite the fast-paced, high-intensity courses, having these small regular breaks really made the work manageable and much less stressful.

3. Be true to yourself

University is a time where you get to start all over. You know very few of your peers (if any, in my case) when you start, so no one knows your story, your personality, or what you really consider the defining characteristics of who “you” are. This is exciting and even a bit nerve-wracking. How do you want to come across to your peers? For myself, I wanted to be more open when I came to university. Like I mentioned, I rarely made time for fun in high school and so I was seen as a very studious, serious person.

Quite honestly, I feel like some people were afraid to approach me (actually, a friend told me that this was in fact the case…)! I was studious, but I didn’t want people to think that I didn’t want to hang out with them, because I did want to! I was sad that I wasn’t out having fun like my peers and was stuck at home working, but looking back now I definitely know that I came off as unapproachable a lot of the time. I didn’t know how to go about changing this perception that people had of me, because of the image that had been created of me during high school. So in university I said yes to hanging out with friends more, I suggested we explore Waterloo, and I stepped out of my comfort zone more often. I still was very studious, of course, but I tried to make myself much more approachable and wasn’t as hard on myself to get top marks.

Keep in mind, although university is a fresh start, I wasn’t pretending to be something I’m not. I am a very sociable person, I just have to get myself out there. Some people go to university and try becoming someone completely opposite of who they really are, all because of the desire to fit in. Here’s the great thing about university: no one cares. No one cares if you don’t follow certain social rules, if you want to stay in and watch a movie instead of going out to the bar, or if you don’t want to do drugs or drink with everyone else. You do you, and I promise you that you will find some very like-minded people that will make great friends.

I’m not a big drinker, and my friends respect that. They don’t pressure me to drink with them, which I really appreciate. If I felt obligated to drink, do drugs or some other activity that made me uncomfortable, I would know that I’d need to find some new friends. I don’t have to worry about this because I know who I am and feel comfortable being myself around my friends. So, if you really want to do something, like go out with friends more often, then do it! I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone a little bit just to do what you really want to do, but not so much that you actually start feeling wrong or extremely uncomfortable with the decisions you are making.

4. Don’t overload yourself. 

University is so exciting, I’ll admit it. Every day I wake up still feels so different than when I would wake up for high school. University has a very different atmosphere, I think because you’re actually working towards a goal you have for the future and are (hopefully) taking courses you enjoy or at least see the benefit in taking. And there are so. Many. Clubs! UWaterloo has more than 300 clubs all around campus, from Acapella to Pet Lovers Club, religious/social/gender/political clubs, Drag Club, Coffee Lovers Club, Gamers Club and so much more. It’s overwhelming. Some clubs I would have liked to have joined but I didn’t even know that they existed until February.

Most universities have a club info day where the offered clubs will set up booths in one place so you can learn more about them and sign up. There’s usually music, free food and stickers/swag too! With all of the clubs available to you, it is very easy to take on too much. I remember on my club info day in September I signed up for something like ten clubs, but when I got back to my room later that evening I knew for sure that I wasn’t even going to attend the first meeting of at least half of those (actually, I didn’t officially join any of the clubs I signed up for…whoops).

To avoid taking on too much, ensuring I would have time for fun/relaxation as well as extracurricular activities and courses, I asked myself what sort of experiences I hoped to have this year. I knew that I wanted to get involved in some of the environmental initiatives on campus. I wanted to take on some sort of leadership position, too. I wanted to get involved with the student-run Environment Coffee Shop, because I’ve always wanted to work in a café (don’t ask why because I don’t know). I sat on the student activity council and food committee for my residence, was the secretary for the Society of Ecological Restoration, volunteered at the coffee shop and campus garden for a few hours each week, and sat on the Board of Governors for my residence.

I have always been a busybody, so I love having something on my plate to do all the time; for someone else, this may have been too much to take on at once (and at times it was for me, too) so don’t feel obligated to join all these different clubs or groups right away. I encourage you to try maybe just one or two things so you can get involved in your university’s community, but only do what you can manage. I really, really wanted to join the competitive dance team at the school, but when I saw their hours of training I knew I wouldn’t be able to balance that commitment with everything else. I still really miss dance every day, but I know that I made the right decision.

If you’re having trouble deciding what to do or how much to do, draw yourself a pie chart. This is a helpful way to truly understand what you value and where you want to delegate your time. For the pie chart, think of all of the different things you will be doing during your school term. Some important things to think of: being in class, studying/doing assignments outside of classes, sleeping, eating, having “fun” time with friends, chores (cleaning, laundry) and extra-curricular activities. I bet you have more to do than you realized, right?

Now, decide what is going to take up most of your time. From experience, my time was mostly spent outside of class, studying and working on assignments. Class time is considerably less than what you do in high school. With about 15-20 hours of in-class time per week, I had about 2-8 hours of work each day outside of class (more/less depending on any assignments/exams coming up). So studying/working will likely take up most of your time, then ideally sleep (more on this later). Eating is essential for a properly functioning brain and body; always make time for your meals. Chores will probably take a few hours of your week. Time with friends will hopefully be at least a few hours each week. Then there’s time for yourself. Do you work out at the gym? Do you need to go grocery shopping? Don’t forget all of the little things that you do, because they often take up more time than you realize. After all of this, how much time do you have for clubs or group activities? Also, I’d suggest leaving a bit of wiggle room for when days/weeks don’t go as planned: maybe you’re sick and need more sleep, or get stuck in traffic, or have a spontaneous trip somewhere. Based on this, you can realistically understand how much time you will have. Here’s a rough diagram I made just now, based on how my time was divided in my first year. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s how I would roughly describe my year in one graph.

5. SLEEP.

Being brutally honest here, you don’t know what tired is until you’re in university. Maybe you could pull all-nighters in high school constantly and feel totally fine (or somewhat fine) but this will most likely not be the case in university. I don’t even know how to describe how tired I was, all the time. Like I said, I’ve been out of university for almost a month and I’m just now starting to feel recovered and well-rested. Since university is so intellectually challenging, and because you have to balance work with all these new responsibilities and expectations in your life, you will face a kind of mental exhaustion you probably haven’t experienced before.

Before university I never really was a napper, but by the first few weeks of class it became my saving grace for the rest of the year. Napping in between class, after breakfast (no joke), in the evenings…whenever I could get more sleep, I would. At the beginning of the semester when I was so excited and overwhelmed with the newness of everything and wanted to do everything (so many clubs! Movie night at 11pm on a Sunday? Sure! Class until 9:30pm? Guess I’ll do my online quiz when I get back later!). I’ve always been an early to bed, early to rise kind of person, but I soon found myself staying awake until 3am on weekdays watching movies with friends in someone’s room when I had 8:30am class (regretsssss). You think you’re invincible, that you don’t need sleep, but you need it. So much. No amount of makeup can hide the racoon eyes of a person sleeping 2-3 hours every night. Friends waking up at 3pm on weekends was totally normal. Is it healthy? Not at all.

Sleep is when your body goes into its main anabolic state. This means it is repairing damaged tissues, growing new cells, healing you from the inside out. You know when you go to sleep with sore muscles and wake up the next morning feeling so much better? That’s your body hard at work while you sleep! When you deprive yourself of the essential restorative time that is sleep, not only will your mental functioning decrease but physically your body will not repair the damages it faces on a daily basis, also preventing you from physically functioning optimally.

8-10 hours of undisturbed sleep every night is the ideal time for your body to be optimally rejuvenated. If you think you can fully function on 5 hours or less every night, this is very likely not true. Maybe you feel fine, but over time you will get worn down. I find that when I regularly get 8-10 hours of undisturbed sleep I feel so amazing. By the first month of having a wonky sleep schedule, I could already feel that I was physically and emotionally drained. Getting those extra hours of sleeping in and taking naps whenever I could have really helped me stay on top of my work and have energy for the entire day.

Final thoughts

I’ve learned so much this year, more than I could ever write about in one post. I think that the five lessons that I’ve highlighted in this post are important for anyone to remember when entering university, regardless of your age, program or whatever else sets you apart. Everyone wants to be successful in university, whatever that means. These tips I’ve provided you with will not only help you be successful as a student but as a person who will be learning so much about themselves in the next few years.

If you’re heading off to university for the first time in the fall, what are you most worried about? If you’ve already been through your first year (or more), are there any significant lessons you learned that you wish others would know before starting university? Let me know in the comments!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out these other ones that will prepare you for university:

• 10 tips for living sustainably in university
• Why daily goals are essential for success
• What to remember when saying goodbye (to high school)
• How to be “successful”
• Lessons learned from second year
• Expectations for the school year
• What to expect in university

Overall, enjoy the experience that is your first year, because it goes by so fast. Be smart, have fun, and just be yourself. Everything else will fall into place.

Until next time!

The post Lessons learned from my first year of university appeared first on Clear the Air.

It’s been a crazy week: moving in to residence at starting orientation at the University of Waterloo, meeting so many of my peers, taking part in orientation activities, the list is endless. In this post I summarize each day from the past week, not only for your enjoyment but so I can remember the events, too (honestly, so much has happened that it will likely get jumbled in my brain soon enough). Without further ado, here is what orientation at the University of Waterloo is like!

**Note: I never wrote part two of this post because life got super busy. Also, the photos unfortunately were lost from this post when I transfered the blog to a new host…sadness –  Jenna, December 2019**

Sunday, September 3rd

Move in day! My move in time was 12pm-2pm, so I didn’t have to leave my house until around 10am. The car was loaded up the night before and yikes there was a lot of stuff. I was packed in like a sardine on the two hour ride to Waterloo. There were many heartfelt goodbyes on this day, which includes many tears (especially when saying goodbye to my cat). 

The actual move-in was quite challenging because there was one elevator for everyone on my wing of the residence. I decided taking the stairs would be the easiest way to move my things, but by the last load my arms dead and all my energy was sucked out of me. My parents and I had to quickly unpack as much as we could because the parents were supposed to be out of the rooms by 2:30pm (not really much time to move, I know).

Welcome to residence life

When they left, we had an all-residence welcome meeting and then went back to our floors to meet our neighbours and Don. I really enjoyed meeting everyone and I am surrounded by some awesome people. My Don is also super chill and knows how get us to connect (Cards Against Humanity, anyone?). After having dinner in our residence’s cafeteria, all of the first years headed over to the gym for a big Warrior Welcome. We heard some amazing speeches and learned great things about the school, and by the time the welcome finished we were all pumped to begin this new chapter of our lives.

In the evening there was a residence bonfire. I went with a few of my floor mates to the event. There was a big fire with marshmallows to roast, some students playing guitar, and the event took place right by the river on campus so the atmosphere was amazing. It ran late into the evening, and I was pretty tired, so as soon as I got back to my room I fell asleep.

Monday, September 4th

Today was the first full day of orientation at the University of Waterloo and boy was it busy! Orientation at the University of Waterloo is structured so you have residence orientation the first day or two, then Faculty orientation the rest of the week. Today was all about residence! 

I had breakfast with some friends in the cafeteria, but was disappointed about the oatmeal (my favourite breakfast choice; they only had instant oats). The morning was titled “Wellness Morning,” where we could choose from a variety of activities to take part in. I first chose succulent plant making, so I got to plant mint leaves in a little pot and paint it gold. It’s now a nice addition to my room!

I then went on a hike with my Don and other students from my residence up to Columbia Lake. It was so beautiful there, and I met more people that are a part of my program. After we returned to residence I ventured over to the campus bookstore to get some batteries for the fairy lights I set up in my room. I was surprised that the place was open, considering it was a holiday and nothing else (not even Tim Hortons! Gasp!) was open. I also went in search of the classrooms where my courses are being held, but was kicked out of one building because I was a first year (?? This is where my class is being held, though??) After a bit of scouting (and mainly failing) I returned to my residence.

Afternoon adventures

After a delicious lunch it was time for Floor Competitions. We played various games like Huckle Buckle, Amoeba tag, and Sardines with our floor against the other floors in our residence. I only stayed for a few hours and then met up with my parents to go to Starbucks. They stayed in a hotel in St. Jacobs for a few nights, so it made me happy to see them before they went home. After Starbucks they came back to my dorm to help me set up a few things like my printer, and then they were off (more tears occurred during this parting, of course). 

Dinner came and unfortunately the “Goose Chase” event that was meant to take place after was canceled. There was a ridiculous amount of rain, so running around outdoors taking pictures wasn’t the best idea. Instead, I met up with a few friends I’d made on the floors above me. I went on a walk into town with one girl to get some supplies from a (surprisingly) open supermarket, and I enjoyed getting to know her more and just chat.

Worried about making friends?

One of the things I was worried about coming to university was not being able to make friends. In my high school it took quite awhile to build friendships, and that was what I was expecting here. This was not the case, though! Everyone is in the same boat, and everyone is feeling homesick. Being there for each other during this new part of our lives really makes for a supportive community.

If you are a student coming to university next year, do not worry about making friends; it will happen almost immediately! Just be friendly and say hello to your floor mates, and if they ask you to hang out, go for it! These will be your friends for the next four/five years of your life, and quite possibly longer.

We returned and I went back to my floor to find everyone playing Cards Against Humanity (I joined, of course). A crazy thunder storm passed us during the game and the view from our floor was amazing. After cards there was a concert performed by a St. Paul’s alumni who took requests from the students. Overall it was a very relaxed evening, but I was exhausted from the full day and passed out pretty much when I plopped into bed that night.

Tuesday, September 5th

Up bright and early this morning! I learned from yesterday’s breakfast mistake and made my own oats, which I brought in a container down to the cafeteria to eat with my friends. After breakfast I explored campus with a floor mate to find one of our classrooms (the one in the building I was kicked out of, yay!) and then we went for our faculty’s official welcome. We got to know others in our program and meet upper year students, as well as break off into teams to create cheers. We were given orientation t-shirts the day before, each person getting a different colour that corresponded to their team. I was on the pink team, and there was also a blue, orange, purple, green and red team.

We then entered EV3, the newest and most innovative environmental building on campus, to hear from a lead member of the Environment faculty and also have questions answered from an experienced co-op student. They fed us (which is very important, as you’ve already learned from me) and we then had a bit of freedom in our schedule.

Learning about the Faculty and university life

There was an info session called FYI, where several small lectures detailing various important things like time management, finances, co-op, etc. were run. You could attend up to three in the time span that they ran. I only attended the one about time management because I wanted to go get groceries in town, and I had to meet someone at 4:30pm to pick up my used textbook I bought from them (UW students: check out the Facebook Textbook Exchange group!) The lecture was very informative, and although I feel I manage my time efficiently already I did come away from it with some new techniques to better balance my workload. 

The woes of public transit

I left the lecture and began my first adventure off campus: public transit. There are so many different bus routes that pass through the campus and I had no clue where to get the one I needed. I asked a helper at the Banana Stand (Environment’s help booth) and they weren’t sure of the location either. They searched for the station online and found that it was actually at the other end of campus and the next bus was leaving in eleven minutes. If I was going to make it back in time for 4:30pm, I basically had to walk-run to get there, hoping I didn’t look like a total pyscho.

I missed the bus anyway and had to wait twenty minutes for the next. When I finally arrived where I needed (at Sobeys, even though I meant to get to Zehrs…yet another fail on my part), I grabbed some groceries and took the bus back to campus (this time I knew where I was going). 

More fun and adventures

Groceries unpacked, I joined my friends for dinner. We decided to go to the Choose Your Own Adventure event taking place all across campus. There was an inflatable maze, Nerf gun battle, a haunted house, Humans vs. Zombies and so much more. We took to the maze first (which only lasted like thirty seconds) and then split into two groups: one group went to the Nerf gun battle, while the other went to the haunted house. I went to the haunted house. Both lines took about an hour and a half to get through, and once the sun went down it was painfully cold waiting outside, but it was worth it (plus, there was free food like Beavertails and popcorn all over campus, so everyone had full bellies going to the events). The haunted house was already scary enough, considering it took place in the physics building *screams in horror*.

Evening shenanigans

By the time we got out of the haunted house there was only half and hour left of the event. There was a block party going on for all of the university college residences at 10pm, so we decided we’d all meet up and go to that. It was pretty crowded in the one little section they designated for the party, but at least it was warm with all the bodies nearby. There was some crazy dancing at the party; two first years were battling it out, every doing the worm on the pavement.

Oh, and there was free food there, too. Always a necessity.

I bailed around 11:30pm because I was dead tired, absentmindedly going through my nightly rituals while trying not to fall asleep doing them. The great thing about the dorms in my wing is that we all got a double bed, and it is so comfortable. I fell asleep almost instantly. 

I hope you enjoyed this pos about orientation at the University of Waterloo! For those in grade 12 looking to start university next fall, hopefully this gives you some insight to some of the crazy shenanigans that go on during orientation at the University of Waterloo, and likely what will happen during orientation at other schools.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time.

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