So you’re thinking about going to university, huh? I’ve been a student at Wilfrid Laurier University for about five years now, and I’m looking at graduating at the end of this term. In that time, I have learned a lot, and want to take a moment to share some of what I know with others out there. This post is aimed primarily at students in their last couple of years of high school, but will also be enlightening reading for parents who never went to university, or who need a refresher on what it’s all about. If you’re a university graduate (or a fellow student) and disagree with anything that I say here, or would like to add your own thoughts to this post, feel free to drop me a line in the comments. So without any more nonsense, here’s a short list of what you should know before applying to university.

1. University isn’t your only option:
   There seems to be a stigma in high school that assumes that the most successful students are university-bound from the start. Courses are partitioned into college and university levels (sometimes called applied and academic), and the ideal of a university education is perpetuated to the students that the school deems have the marks necessary to pursue one.
   While it is true that you’ll need some kind of post-secondary education if you don’t want to work in retail for the rest of your life, it is important to remember that university is not your only option. For those who are more interested in working with their hands and those who don’t really enjoy school, a trade apprenticeship can be a great way to secure an enjoyable job with an enviable pay check. My little brother started his apprenticeship with a co-op program when I was in my second year of university, and now makes far more money than I do, and indeed far more than I will for the foreseeable future.
   For those who don’t have any idea what they want to do with their lives (don’t worry – it isn’t uncommon), I might suggest a college education instead of a general arts degree; the advantage being that a college diploma is immediately applicable to a job in your chosen industry. A general arts degree in history or psychology yields very few job opportunities aside from clerical work unless you plan to follow it up immediately with a college degree.
2. Always have an exit plan – What will your degree do for you?
   In my experience, the biggest mistake that students make when applying to university is to choose a degree that they aren’t interested in or don’t know anything about, either because it seems like the most interesting option available, or because of pressure from a parent or loved one. Unless you happen to be extremely lucky, this is almost always a mistake.
   Take some time to figure out what is involved in the degree that you’re considering before signing up. Check out the website of your chosen school and read course descriptions for classes at all levels of the program to ensure that you’re interested. Call some local companies that you’d like to work for, and ask them what they’re looking for in a recent graduate – they’ll be happy to tell you what’s important to them.
   If you have no idea what you want to do with your life (again, don’t panic – this is normal), consider using your first year of school to take a number of different courses from a wide range of disciplines, and try to figure out what you might enjoy doing for the rest of your life. This may sound like an expensive experiment, but believe me – one year’s worth of tuition is better spent on finding something that you love to do than on dropping out or switching programs in your third year because the courses got tough and you don’t enjoy it any more. Plus, all of the courses that you take during this time can serve as electives towards your actual degree once you choose it.
   Even though it sounds scary, remember that choosing your degree is really the first big choice of your adult life, and that will affect you for the rest of it. If you need to take some time to figure it out, don’t be ashamed of taking a year off to think it over and research your options. Just make sure that you get a crappy job during that period so that you have some incentive to return to school.
3. High school did not prepare you for this:
   Remember all of that crap that they told you in high school about adequately preparing you for university? They lied. If you were lucky, you had one teacher who took the time to actually tell you what university is all about. The truth of the matter is that even if (perhaps especially if) you were really smart in high school and got great grades without even trying, you’re nothing when you get to university.
   Remember when you did really good in track and field in grade school, and then went to the regional meet, only to find out that you absolutely sucked compared to the other kids there? Same thing. Just because you were a great student in your small local high school does not mean that you are going to automatically be one in university.
   University is really hard. In my first year, I managed to fail two math courses, and barely scraped by with a D in one of my physics courses. You see, in high school, I got 80s without even trying, and when I got to university, I didn’t really know how to study or budget my time, or apply myself in any meaningful way. But it wasn’t a big deal. I spent a term on academic probation, got it together, and am getting ready to graduate with a B+ average.
   I’m not trying to scare you (well, not really), but I am trying to make you aware. When you get to university, you’ll be surrounded by a bunch of really smart kids, and taught by a bunch of really smart professors who by and large will not take mediocrity lying down. They know who is capable of more, and they’ll make sure that you figure it out in short order.
4. A minor is good, especially in a technical program:
   The degree that I’m working toward is in Honours Computer Science, which is a pretty great program, and I’m lucky to love what I do. In the last couple of months, I’ve gotten a job with a small local company that finally gives me the opportunity to make some money with all of the knowledge that I’ve gained in the past five years. In addition to computer science, I have been working towards a minor in history, and I consider this to be every bit as important as my primary degree.
   The problem with a lot of technical programs like computer science (at least at Laurier) is that they don’t push important skills like research and essay writing on their students. Throughout my entire program, I only had one computer science professor who forced her students to write papers on a regular basis. As much as writing essays sucks (I’ve come to hate the thought of another evening in the campus library), it’s an incredibly important life skill. It teaches you the basics of finding and vetting information for accuracy and importance, and the skills that are required to be taken seriously in written form.
   I can virtually guarantee that your future job will require you to write something, be it a report or a recommendation, a letter to a client, or a business plan to pitch to a bank -  you need to know how to research, write, and edit your own work so that you can impress people when your winning personality isn’t in the room. Want to stand out from the pack when you start to look for jobs? Get yourself some skills that the other candidates don’t have. If you’re going into a technical field, this means that minoring in an arts program is the way to go.
5. Keep your loans in check:
   For some reason it seems like many of my friends have run up tens of thousands of dollars in personal debt during their university careers. This is no way to start the rest of your life. Granted, I’ve been lucky because my parents saved up a bunch of money and were able to help me out with my books and tuition, but I probably could have made it on my own if I had been forced to.
   Coming out debt-free requires a combination of hard work and sacrifice. I have a friend who was able to fund most of his first couple of years of tuition solely on bursaries and scholarships. It took him most of his grade 12 year to research the available options and to apply for them all, but the end result was a significant amount of money in his pocket that he would have had to otherwise borrow.
   Too many kids don’t work during school. Sure, it was stressful, but even though my tuition was paid for, I worked twenty hours a week at a part time job in order to take care of my living expenses. Working as a waiter, I pulled in just under $18K a year, which would have easily covered my tuition if I had lived at home. Taking care of these costs yourself teaches you valuable lessons about hard work and budgeting, and sets you up to enter the next part of your life without a huge debt (that all of the sudden has a hefty interest rate) hanging over your head. OSAP is great if you have nowhere else to turn, but remember that it’s designed for kids who actually don’t have anywhere else to get their money from. If you can get out of school without a hefty debt, do so at all costs.
   If you’re a parent reading this, start saving up some money for your kids’ educations now. The reality of university is that tuition and books will run you close to $7000 a year before living expenses. Even if you can only manage a little bit of money, it’s better than nothing, and is the most important gift that you can give to your child.
6. Friends are your most important asset:
   You probably won’t have the good luck to graduate with a core group of friends who are interested in studying the same thing as you and are applying to the same schools that you are. I was exceptionally lucky in this regard, and ended up going to school with two of the best friends that a guy could ask for, and living with two more who have become some of the most important people in my life.
   Remember that your friends are your support structure and your home away from home. Your mom won’t be there to hug you when you fail a test or get dumped by the love of your life, but your buddies will be there to take you out for a beer and cheer you up. They’ll also be there to make you some toast and a coffee when you’re too sick to get out of bed the next morning.
   If you’re leaving home for school, making some good friends early on in your university career is especially important. You can’t be studious all the time, and everybody needs to go out and let off some steam now and again. Get yourself some good pals that can be counted on to support you when times are tough, and who will go out and get crazy with you when they aren’t.
7. Grades aren’t all that matters:
   After years of dragging yourself to early morning classes and pulling all-nighters in the library working on that paper that’s due tomorrow at 8am, you’ll be ready to go looking for a job that lets you move out of the stinking hovel that is student housing and prioritize both beer and food on each week’s budget. At that point, you may find out the hard way that a lot of companies out there are looking for something more than just good grades.
   I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the people who will be interviewing you for that great job with a company car and an office with a door on it are probably interviewing about 100 other people for the same position. You need to be able to win them over without being in the same room, and this requires you to stand out from the crowd of other applicants who probably got the same education and the same grades from the same school that you did.
   The best way to circumvent this problem is to take up some extracurricular activities that will help to make your resume jump off of the paper that it’s printed on. In your struggle to complete the requirements of your degree, remember to take some time for electives that you actually enjoy, and to complete at least one major project on your own time that you aren’t required to do in order to pass a class (Check out this post for a great discussion of this).
   In computer science? Write some kick-ass software and grow a user base that you can boast about. Studying political science? Maintain a blog that puts your personal spin on what your government is up to, and get yourself some loyal readers. Love music? Start a rock band, play some gigs, and maybe record an album that you can be proud of later on. If your school offers a co-op program, jump in with both feet and work for some impressive companies. The idea here is to show potential employers that you had a life outside of school and that you aren’t just another cookie-cutter graduate with no individual aspirations or point of view.

So there you have it, the seven things that I think that all kids considering a university career ought to know before getting started. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments if you think otherwise, or have something to add to this list.

Cheers,

Jon