This is a bad advice column.
Choosing the university to attend next year was a difficult decision for me–and I don’t think there’s a way to make sure you choose the best one. Or perhaps you can, but only for a certain piece of criteria.
Luckily, likely a number of you graduating this year have already made your choice and enrolled. Thank goodness. Now you won’t have to read about my thoughts on this.
Anyways, here is how I made my choice.
For some reason more than the program or university itself, but the location has been hounding me for this past year. When I was younger, I was adamant that I didn’t want to move away. In junior high though, the gradual weight of five t-shirts, a hoodie, a pencil bag and various stationary porting the McGill crest gradually swayed me in the direction of Montreal (from various Montreal relatives and graduating cousins). When my sister settled in Toronto for her residency I started wanting to go there.
I think I might have chosen Toronto if it weren’t for the fact my Toronto relatives warned strongly against it, telling tales of massive classes with thousands of people. Although, my sister’s perspective on the matter was simply that once you get past five hundred or a thousand, it doesn’t really make much difference whether the total number of people in your class is that or tripled. There will be big classes at Toronto or McGill.
I also had to consider people. I think I know someone going everywhere that I applied to but I also wanted to maximize the number of people I knew for an easier transition.
But also, not receiving any major scholarship offers from anywhere also meant that I had little reason to go anywhere else. I was somewhat hopeful as Toronto offered me the greatest amount of money for a single year, but it didn’t even cover residence. Which I might expect as: downtown Toronto? Yes, it was probably a deal.
In the end the final straw for me was inconvenience. I’ve only moved once in my life and that ended up taking around a year—albeit, slowed by renovations and the fact that my parents refused to use anything but our minivan to transport furniture once piece at a time. I didn’t want to compact everything I might need into a suitcase and then buy too many things when I get there. It all felt wasteful and inconvenient and pointless when I could stay at home.
Still, I think I will regret not going elsewhere.
Not living in residence—which is where I hear people make most of their friends—may mean that I’ll be completely disengaged from university’s social life. (Then again, I’m already used to that in high school.)
And not taking this chance to go away means that I’ll be staying in Calgary for the next four years. While a city I certainly appreciate more after starting with YAA, it is where I grew up—a bit on the smaller size and it feels somewhat explored already.
So yes: where have you decided to go and why? Or perhaps this is a where do you want to go and why? Or even a where did you go and why?
