Tag: undergraduate

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Student Life

Great expectations, at what expense?

Feature graphic by @spooky_soda

Cramming to finish your degree isn’t worth the mental exhaustion

Take a step back and look at your life from a different angle. Are you happy? Are you okay?

There’s a significant amount of pressure on students to achieve something in their young adult life, so much so that sometimes people forget that expectations aren’t always great. More often than not, this pressure comes from within. The individual lens that we see life through is tinted with the wants and needs of external factors: parents, society, friends, and the need to ‘become.’ It’s not a simple feat to differentiate between what’s really best for you and what you think is best, because of all these factors.

In 2016, The Charlatan published an article highlighting different factors contributing to university dropout rates. According to the article, most students leave because they’re unsure if their program is right for them.

“In the first year, dropouts were already struggling in terms of meeting deadlines, academic performance and studying patterns,” according to The Youth in Transition Study sourced in The Charlatan. “Compared to graduates and graduate continuers, more dropouts felt they had not found the right program,” the study stated.

Here’s the truth: deciding on your future at 18 is practically impossible. You’re told to make the most important decision of your life at an age when your brain is still evolving. According to the University of Rochester Medical Center, the human brain isn’t fully developed until the age of about 25.

When you wake up one morning and ask yourself if what you’re doing is worth the stress, money, and effort you’re putting into it, remember you’re allowed to change your mind, take a break and refocus your lens.

“Overall, being out of school let me take time to focus on myself,” said Rachel Doyon, a student in Montreal. “It also made me miss school—I think that was the biggest benefit. Being reminded that I was in university because it was something I was passionate about, not just an obligation. I still get little pangs of disappointment when my peers graduate ‘on time,’ but it was the best choice.”

‘On time’ is the key term here: this is exactly the kind of ‘want’ or ‘need’ that we associate with ourselves, but really it’s an outside factor. The concept of graduating on time is not at all an objective conventional setting: the only timeline that matters is your own personal clock. Granted, there are several factors that affect when you graduate: maybe your parents pay for your education and you don’t want to prolong it, or perhaps you have to prolong it because you pay for it yourself.

According to a study on persistence in post-secondary education in Canada done by York University, only 57 per cent of students aged 18 to 20 graduated, or are continuing in post-secondary education, 8 per cent of which were enrolled and dropped out. Students aged 20 to 22 had 14 per cent drop out rate of the 60 per cent enrolled in university.

“Even though my parents wouldn’t have minded, I just would’ve felt weird, like I fell off the train,” said Ali Sabra, a Lebanese student who was offered a year-long internship abroad, but refused because it didn’t feel right to take two semesters off. “Being in Lebanon, it’s virtually unfathomable to ‘take a year off.’ It’s the rush thing for sure.”

Culture played a big role in Sabra’s decision-making, but being in a rush to graduate is rather universal. In all fairness, it’s okay to want to graduate as soon as possible. You might not want to pass up an opportunity that would benefit you more in the future in the name of finishing sooner.

“I went into psychology because my parents got so excited, but I wasn’t sure I liked it,” said Noura Nassreddine, a previous American University of Beirut student. “The next year, I told my parents I didn’t like it and I needed to take a break, so I did.” During her gap semester, Nassreddine found what she really loved, and is now on her way to becoming a Paris-trained baker. Nassreddine’s experience is a reminder that your 18-year-old self doesn’t always know what you want your future to look like.

Choosing a career path is not a light task, and yes, sometimes you aren’t ready to decide where to go straight out of high school. It’s okay to go in blind and try things out, and then decide to change your mind. If you have the means, the patience, and the will, go find what’s best for you. When making decisions, consider which you’d regret more: doing it, or not doing it, whatever ‘it’ is.

All in all, taking time for yourself is as important as finishing your degree. Making sure the degree you’re getting is what you want to continue with and is important, too. Remember that your mental health is a key aspect of your success—take care of yourself so you can have the mental capacity to achieve your goals. Sometimes retreating is important to help put things into perspective. At the end of the day, life will bring you all sorts of problems in the future, so what’s an extra semester or two, anyway?

Feature GIF by @spooky_soda

Categories
Student Life

Slice of Life: Overexpectations

What happened to stopping to smell the roses?

Higher education is a privilege not everyone has access to, and we’re all extremely fortunate for the learning opportunities at Concordia, but crap is it ever tiring. After three full years spent in Montreal either working my butt off at school, or working my butt off to pay for school, I’m just about done (realistically I still have a year or so left, though—whoop-dee-doo). But it’s not the prospect of hard work that leaves me feeling discouraged; it’s the feeling that I’m not doing enough. The feeling that being in school full-time, working for The Concordian part-time (read: full-time), and trying to pick up whatever photography gigs I can still isn’t enough.

Just the other week, I was talking with my roommate about how I want to spend this summer. Working outdoors is something I fell in love with in 2015, before moving to Montreal, when I worked as a canoe trip counselor in Algonquin Park, a provincial park in southeastern Ontario. Getting outside and into nature is something I’ve been itching to do every summer since then, for my own sanity. Yet, when having this conversation with my roommate, I found myself bringing up my degree, the benefit of staying in Montreal for another summer to take extra classes, maybe pick up an internship; all to get ahead. But of what? Of who?

I’m not sure what makes me more upset: the fact that I have this competitive desire to finish my degree quickly and move on, or the fact that I’m probably going to end up taking classes and whatever internship I think will boost my CV the most. There was one semester, one blissful (yes, blissful) few months in fall 2017, when I thoroughly enjoyed all of my classes. Not only that, but I was proud of the work I was accomplishing, both in and outside the lecture hall. But toward the end of post-secondary education, professors start encouraging students to envision how their degrees fit into their career paths. While this isn’t inherently negative, the insane pressure many of us feel to find that career path early on and pursue every available opportunity within that field, to differentiate ourselves and come out on top is kind of negative (cheers, capitalism), no?

What happened to stopping and smelling the roses? Enjoying the journey, and not the destination? I’ve had one-too-many conversations with students already working full-time in their final years of university who only show up to classes on mandatory attendance days or to hand in assignments because they’re simply done with school. Or students who are in school full-time, pursuing a full-time internship, and also trying to work part-time who have absolutely no time for themselves.

The constant pressure to go above and beyond comes from the overexpectations we all feel, and it really friggin’ sucks. It translates to us constantly focusing on the next stage of our lives, as opposed to drawing value from our current place in life and really growing as individuals.

Feature graphic by @spooky_soda

Categories
Opinions

Confessions of a journalism student

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

When will the looming doubts go away?

As an undergraduate student, I often find myself second-guessing the program I chose. Before starting university, a journalism degree seemed to be the route I was destined to take; I have always loved writing, photography and film—it seemed like the perfect fit.

I grew up in Grand Falls-Windsor, a small quaint town in Newfoundland. I was excited to move to the trendy city of Montreal and begin my studies. After the first week, I was immediately overcome with doubts about my decision to enter the program. I felt uneasy about my career as a journalist.

I thought I was overreacting, and I told myself I couldn’t judge the program based on one week. Nonetheless, I called my sisters in a panic, both of whom are in the last year of their arts and science degrees, and asked if they felt the same way when they started their programs. Both my sisters assured me that nobody loves every aspect of their program, and that it’s normal to have conflicting thoughts. Many students experience this.

As the semester progressed, my looming doubts didn’t go away. I feared I had made the wrong choice. I realized I couldn’t envision myself working as a reporter—I questioned what career I would pursue after my degree.

The program focuses on teaching traditional journalistic practices. I am confident I will have the practical skills necessary to work for a mainstream media outlet once I finish my degree. However, I did not expect and continue to be disappointed by the lack of emphasis on unconventional career paths in alternative media.

Over the past two semesters, I have considered switching programs many times. I never went through with this decision because I’m afraid I will immediately regret it. Realistically, I will have “problems” with whatever program I’m in—every university student does. As I am only in my first year, I still have a lot to learn and will ride the university wave in the journalism program until I eventually figure out what I’m doing.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Categories
Opinions

Confessions of a journalism student

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

The boredom of traditional news reporting

Whenever someone asks me why I chose journalism, my answer is comparable to those perfectly iced sugar cookies everyone picks up at the grocery store but puts back before the check-out line—sweet, yet very processed.

I say, “I’ve always loved writing stories, but could never come up with any of my own. With journalism I can still tell stories, they’re just not mine.” While this reasoning remains partly true, I have come to a few crucial realizations since I began studying journalism.

I do love telling stories, just not all of them. Quite frankly, politics and traditional news do not interest me. And if you know the journalism program, you know the first year focuses on establishing the fundamentals through traditional news reporting, which bores me to death. By the end of the first semester, my breathing had slowed significantly. I told my mother that if she chose a solid mahogany casket, I would rise from the dead to make the switch to solid bronze myself.

Also, there’s my gripe with multimedia classes and renting equipment from the depot. I’m technologically inept, so that’s the main struggle. There’s also the fact that I live about an hour away from the Loyola campus via public transit, and I travel all that way for the three minutes it takes to pick up my equipement. It’s a huge inconvenience. I live in Laval, so that’s equivalent to when Kim Kardashian flew to New Orleans for the evening for beignets. Except, I don’t leave with anything that delicious.

But to blame my struggles entirely on my program would be a lie. Truth be told, I’m an insecure writer, constantly invalidating and comparing my work to that of my peers. No matter how many times someone assures me I’m meant to be in journalism or that the talent I don’t think I have is real, I’m always doubtful.

I still love journalism and writing, but more so on my own terms. I’ll have to push through until that’s my reality and I can work on what interests me. Because, honestly, I don’t see myself doing anything else.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Categories
Arts

It’s a matter of time and place

What do impressionist-inspired paintings, sculptural pieces about political language and a film exploring cultural identity have in common? They’re all featured at the FOFA Gallery’s ongoing exhibition, Matter of Place.

Matter of Place is this year’s edition of an annual undergraduate exhibition which aims to represent the diverse art practices and research interests of students in Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts. This year, the mediums used in the exhibition vary greatly, from paintings, photography and ceramics to videos, textiles and audio art.

In addition—as is the case every year—students from several other departments contributed their talents to the exhibition. Concordia professor Angélique Willkie’s contemporary dance class was invited to participate by choreographing performances inspired by the exhibition’s artworks, and a number of art history students were tasked with writing essays about each piece in  Matter of Place. These essays have been published in a catalogue created by Concordia design students, which is available to view and purchase at the gallery. The exhibition’s interdisciplinary approach welcomes the viewer into an immersive and multifaceted experience.

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Florence Yee studies painting and drawing, which she described as more traditional fields of art. Her installation at the exhibition, This is Not Photorealism, is a collection of seven paintings hung together salon-style in the vitrine of the FOFA. Most of her paintings reference Claude Monet, a 19th century French impressionist artist who painted water lilies he imported from Japan. Monet even bought land in the French countryside so he could build a large, Japanese-style garden and paint the flowers in their quasi-natural habitat.

“I always liked Monet’s paintings as a child,” Yee said. “As I grew older, I realized that many people associated me with water lilies because I’m an Asian woman and I’m sweet like a lotus flower. Sometimes, it can be a good association, and other times, it can feel like a stereotype.” Yee said she was interested in how these Japanese symbols came to represent French nationalism. She reproduced original Monet paintings to look like blurry photos taken by tourists, including a timestamp at the bottom to indicate when she made each piece.

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Chris Mendoza is a third-year studio arts major with a minor in art education. His sculpture and performance pieces were inspired by the 2016 American presidential election. Mendoza said he finds political language fascinating.

“I was just really interested in language and how it affects the way we perceive the world around us,” he said. “The performance that I submitted was a bit of an exploration of that.”

According to Mendoza, the sculpture is elevated by his accompanying performance. The objects of his sculpture are arranged in a certain configuration, and his performance adds meaning or use to the objects.

Given that such a small number of students are chosen to participate in this exhibition, Mendoza said he feels it is definitely an accomplishment to have his work included.

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Although one of Kevin Jung-Hoo Park’s latest films was selected for the exhibition, the piece, titled Letter(s) from a Gapping Zone, is unfinished.

“It started out with following my father’s oldest memory—when he went up to the mountain with his father to bury his one-year-old sister,” the film production student explained. The film has since evolved into “an autobiographical fiction of a filmmaker who fails to find home.”

For the purpose of the film, Park tried to pinpoint the exact location in South Korea where his aunt was buried. This search was also done in the hopes of reconnecting with his roots, because Park said he has always struggled with his Canadian identity.

While editing the footage, Park said he realized he was just hurting himself by delving into his family’s past. The film takes place in the village where his grandmother lives and where his father was born, yet Park said he felt like an intruder. Since the villagers aren’t used to being filmed or photographed, they were constantly staring at Park while he worked.

Eventually, Park said, he hopes to develop Letter(s) from a Gapping Zone into a longer documentary piece by adding voice-over narration about his experience making the film.

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Camille Lescarbeau’s piece, titled Doux Labeur (2017), is comprised of a hand-typed book and a tape recording. Photo by Kirubel Mehari.

Born in Gatineau, Camille Lescarbeau moved to Montreal five years ago. She studies art history and studio arts at Concordia, but is currently travelling in Iceland. Her contribution to the Matter of Place exhibition is a hand-typed book on a shelf with a tape recording. The piece, tiled Doux Labeur, was created last year in her Art X class, a course that emphasizes “critical and conceptual thinking over medium-specific creation,” according to the university website.

When asked what inspires her to make art, Lescarbeau said it is often her creative friends. “I was a dance teacher in high school, so I have been surrounded by people who dance and do music. Many of my friends write poetry, so their writing also inspires me.”

Matter of Place runs until Feb. 23 at the FOFA Gallery in Concordia’s EV building. The gallery is open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The performance evenings run until Feb. 8, each starting at 5 p.m. Entry is free. More information can be found in the event section of the Concordia website.

Feature photo by Kirubel Mehari

Categories
Opinions

The hidden value of the ‘useless’ undergrad degree

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin.

Universities aren’t supposed to find us jobs—they’re supposed to teach us how to learn

The discussion about whether an undergraduate degree is useless or not is somewhat redundant. Just like many other points of societal disagreement, this is a systemic issue as well as an individual one. Speaking as a millennial, which Time magazine defines as someone born between 1980 and 2000, I think talking about the “point” or “usefulness” of an undergrad is elitist.

Imagine posing this question to someone who never had the opportunity to go to university. Attending university, or any other post-secondary institution, is a very important and privileged opportunity. In 2017, however, I believe our focus is on making sure we aren’t “behind,” especially when we compare ourselves to our peers and where they are career-wise. We seem to be constantly striving to be more successful than our neighbours.

I believe a fear of inadequacy is what leads to money being wasted and university degrees feeling useless. A person might end up completing a degree they are not passionate about or that doesn’t really interest them. Yet some may feel that if they don’t have a bachelor’s degree, then they are not as smart or as important as others.

According to a feature on millennials in Time, “millennials have come of age in the era of the quantified self, recording their daily steps on FitBit, their whereabouts every hour of every day on PlaceMe and their genetic data on 23andMe.” Comparing your career fulfillment and career success is no exception to this trend. Speaking from my experience in a Canadian individualist society, the norm has been to look for a career that fulfils you. It’s a privilege to find a job that brings you fulfillment. But I wonder: are there really less jobs available or are university graduates just soul-searching for a job and labeling it as “failure” when they can’t find one?

Being able to study something that interests you is a privilege in itself as well. In many areas of the world, one might not have a chance to pursue something they excel at and find interesting.

A 2016 Ottawa Citizen article reported that “only 58.3 per cent of high school graduates land a job without any additional qualifications, while nearly three-quarters of all university graduates find work after completing their degree, according to Statistics Canada.” Personally, I think there is a misconception for a lot of people studying at university. University is not necessarily a place that will lead you directly to a job.

According to Todd Hirsch, a reporter for The Globe and Mail, “your university education, at least at the bachelor of arts level, was never intended to land you a job. It was intended to make you a more complete thinker. It was intended to teach you how to absorb complex information and make reasoned arguments. It was, quite simply, intended to teach you how to learn. Those are skills that you’ll use in any field of work.”

It is important for me to understand that, when I speak about my degree, I am speaking from a position of privilege. For those living in Canada, education is more accessible than many other areas of the world. Furthermore, being able to afford university and access resources to help finance your time at university is also a privilege. During my time in university, I think I have developed skills that have increased my ability to be objective, critical, ethical and analytical. These things are not specific to my degree, and I think this is important to note.

I am a journalism student, and I am not sure where my degree will take me. I have switched programs and universities a lot, and through these opportunities, I have been lucky enough to find an undergrad program that interests me. With my degree, I hope to improve my writing, professional and social skills, while learning about interesting and diverse stories and how to write about them.

I’ve come to learn that, whether you are in sociology or nursing, your undergraduate degree can teach you to be organized and methodological. We are entering a changing workforce. Due to this transitional time, I think that, while it may be harder to get a job with just an undergraduate degree, this degree is still valuable.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

Categories
News

A new, well cooked-up biology class

Photo by Nelly Serandour-Amar.

Teacher Catherine Calogeropoulos invites students to learn basic science and fundamental cooking skills

Catherine Calogeropoulos, a part-time professor in Concordia’s biology department, has full confidence in her newly online-adaptedclass, “BIOL 203 – Fundamental Nutrition.”

After four years of teaching the subject in the classroom, Calogeropoulos wanted to perfect it to her taste for the online section. “I thought it would be a great opportunity to mix my knowledge of biology and food together,” she said.

The class is designed to use science to teach the basics of daily nutrition. Calogeropoulos said she had to find a way to get non-science students to understand complicated scientific concepts, to pique their interest in the course.

The first time she taught the class, she said the students had to cook for their term project. Their homework consisted of following any recipe they wanted, while noting all of the nutritional facts of the meal, such as the amount of carbs and fats.  “When they came back with the results, I realized that a lot of them didn’t know what to do in a kitchen,” said Calogeropoulos.

In a slideshow she presented during her first class, she included a Meryl Streep interview. “During an interview for her movie, Julie and Julia, Streep said her mother’s motto was ‘If it’s not done in 20 minutes, it’s not dinner’,” said Calogeropoulos. “When she was a kid, the actress found herself at her friend’s house where her mother was carving up what she thought were tennis balls, which were in fact were potatoes.”

Calogeropoulos said she realized it would be a good idea to include cookbooks in all of her classes. It would show students basic cooking techniques, such as how to clean garlic, and would teach them how to use basic cooking tools.

“In lecture one, I tell students to go home and clean their kitchens and get, if possible, a few basic tools,” said Calogeropoulos, about the class. “For some students, the science is quite heavy, so I attempt to level the playing field by including cooking assignments, and more recently, reading assignments that discuss some current topics in nutrition,” she continued.

Calgeropoulos’ online version of the course will feature a professional chef showcasing the recipes. Each lesson will have a video segment of the chef preparing a meal to support the lesson of the week. “It will be easier for the students to understand how, for example, lipids work by seeing how mayonnaise is made,” she said.

Calogeropoulos believes that the course is about more than just understanding science and learning how to cook. “It’s about learning vital life skills—cooking is a discipline, and this discipline can be applied in your life,” she said.

The online class, “BIOL 203 – Fundamental Nutrition” will be offered during the winter semester.

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