I can't say my first year at university was a disappointment, because when I arrived I had no idea what to expect and now that it's over I can't remember half of it.

 

The year officially ended with exams, the completion of which - after the first semester - had already become banal. True, I was interested in my classes and the subject matter. Indian philosophy, in particular, "blew my mind," as the youths say, on a weekly basis. But the actual process of completing the mental obstacle courses necessary for accreditation was a grind for me, a rote task. Maybe it would have been more fun with colourful flashcards or bubbly study partners. But I've always approached studying with grim determination, jaw clenched and belly full of bile, and it's worked this far, so I'm sticking with it.

 

My last month of school was complicated by financial matters brought on by my total inability to handle money and disdain for any notion of shrewdness, foresight or dignity. During that time, I was blessed with the experience of living hand-to-mouth on whatever I could scrounge together on a day-to-day basis. I don't know how it worked out, exactly, but I managed to eat and learn to count change at the same time. My wallet's just as slippery as before, though, and I need to sort out the finer details of managing capital before I'm in a less privileged position than I am now. I may have to consider taking a course in Finance or Common Sense.

 

I'm optimistic about the summer, doing landscaping work for the family business and trying to lay the foundations for the next school year.

 

Working with something I can physically interact with - dirt, for instance - is more satisfying than doing schoolwork. There are downsides, like blisters, and sun, and rain, and sore backs. But as mentally stimulating as fancy book learnin' can be, it doesn't offer the same immediate rewards. Naturally, by the end of the year I'll be worn out and sick of landscaping, ready to crack books and write notes. But for the time being I'm looking forward to the change.

 

Next year will have a different shape from this one. For one, I'll be living off-campus, in a house with people I know ... if I'm lucky. I'll also be doing fewer courses, so I can fill a co-editor position for the Culture section at The Ubyssey. I had a fine time this year working with the paper. In one of my earliest posts here I compared the staff to subterranean dwarves who enticed me with enchanted food stuffs and drew me into their hidden grotto. I stand by that description - more so now that I have joined their numbers. It's a paper with a deep history, a chaotic present, and future ripe and juicy for the plucking. I'm more than happy to be devoting my time and mental health to it next year.

 

After a year at UBC, I've learned to approach my education with a more utilitarian cast of mind than before. Early on I had vague notions of an academic "spirit," a thirst for knowledge or curiosity that, when pursued in earnest, would shower rewards on its devotees. It was this spirit, I figured, that kept me hopping from one obsession to another since I was old enough to own a library card, and kept me motoring through hobbies and art projects till I had enough discarded supplies to stock a summer day-camp program. I realize now that such mental unease could better be attributed to personality flaws or mental restlessness than some elemental enthusiasm for learning. Because if there is such a spirit to be found in the halls of higher education, it's one I've yet to encounter.

 

All of my professors were competent, some of them presented their classes in an engaging way, and a few of them revealed what seemed to be a genuine passion for the subject they were teaching. And there were plenty of outspoken students who were clearly enchanted by the subject matter (and, in some cases, the sound of their own voices). But ultimately, every course I took was a closed path, with an exam or final paper at the endpoint. If you don't stay on the path, you don't reach the final goal. I have a tendency to get lost in the woods, though, and until this year I'd always considered that wandering to be motivated by the "spirit" of enquiry.

 

My original desire was to explore topics that piqued my curiosity, and use those explorations to branch off into other areas. That goal would have been better served by browsing the school's library than sitting in its classes. The primary goal - attending university - should be to acquire the necessary credits for a degree. I would add the caveat that those credits should be come by honestly, because if you haven't learned the correct topics in the defined subject areas, said degree becomes flimsier than the paper it's printed on. There is value to be found at school, but not by freely traipsing down the myriad paths of human knowledge.

 

If someone fresh out of high school wanted to discover what they cared about, what they were truly interested in and willing to devote a large part of their life too, I wouldn't recommend immediately heading for university. That sort of learning is autodidactic by nature. The task can be better undertaken by freely exploring on one's own - whether through books, travel, or other forms of investigation. Before signing up for any courses, it's best to know which direction, specifically, you want your education to take.

 

I didn't choose post-secondary education due to economic considerations. If I wanted to fit a pre-defined niche in the marketplace and finish university for the security of a career path, I would have gone about things differently. Stories about the hard knocks grads face finding jobs after university are depressing, at first. But these worries seem to fall primarily on the heads of those seeking a comfortable urban lifestyle and a clear trajectory through the ranks of employment, goals which are foreign to me. Barring any global catastrophes, I'm confident in my abilities to remain alive and happy well into the future - whatever that future brings. If fame and fortune rear their heads in the times to come, it will be a freak accident, and not something brought on by my efforts.

 

This is my last post here and I wish I could end it with something profound and absurd, like a Zen koan or a tiny bit of factual information which, on deeper reflection, reveals the inner workings of the universe and the nature of the human condition. The best I can come up with is a tremendous "Thanks," to the universe, for the good fortune I've had to experience my first year at school, and to have had to opportunity to interpret some of it here. At the moment I am drinking mango iced tea on the patio and smoking a pipe full of Prince Albert tobacco. When I am done writing this I will use one of the most important skills I learned this year, and make an enormous pot of chicken curry. I feel like I am the luckiest person ever. Thank you for reading.

 

 

 

 

I was thinking about the abundance of women in my classes and the growing alarmist discussions about whether boys are falling behind.

 

A Vancouver father filed a formal complaint against the public school board because he claims they aren't doing enough for male students. In March, a (sensationalist) story in the Daily Telegraph claimed that male students as young as five are falling behind their female counterparts in the classroom. Nicholas D. Kristof recently addressed the problem of underachieving males in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, and Richard Whitmire's book Why Boys Fail is recruiting more people to the cause of boys in the classroom. Ontario's new education director is pushing for a "boy-friendly" school.

 

If it's true that such a gender gap exists - and the issue is contentious - its ramifications should be visible at the post-secondary level. While rates of college enrolment have been increasing for both sexes, women still outnumber men on most campuses; in some cases, the ratio approaches 70 - 30, but most are pushing 60 - 40. I had no luck finding statistics for UBC, but within the Arts program, at least, I can say that the girls visibly outnumber the guys, especially in English classes.

 

But what is the reason for this?

 

In the early '90s, the roles were reversed. Concerns were raised about girls trailing boys in school - math and science especially. It's been argued that attempts to rectify this matter have overshot their mark, creating an imbalanced approach to education that favours females - especially with increased reliance on verbal skills and reading comprehension, areas with which boys traditionally have more trouble. Still others argue for new disciplinary approaches that allow greater physical freedom in the classroom, the idea being that young males learn better when they are able to move around. Kristof, for his part, suggests that reading material appealing to the boyish mindset - more explosions, more guts - may be part of the answer. (Given my personal experience as a kid with Goosebumps, Animorphs and the Hardy Boys, I can see the practical value of this approach.)

 

But it's hard for me to be as concerned with this trend as others appear to be.

 

Females excelling males in academic fields constitutes the natural order as far as I understand it. Since my first day of elementary school, I've noticed that the part of the class with XX chromosome has always been the one to take the lead - at least, in a general sense. In twelve years of public education, I remember few girls who had trouble keeping up with the teacher, or who disrupted class; while I can recall many males - me included - who could not focus, or else chose not to. It hadn't occurred to me until recently that this might be due to an incongruity in the school's teaching methods. But maybe the academy is more of a natural home for females.

 

I didn't know many girls who intended to go into construction work after high school. But I knew plenty of guys who saw that kind of work - and the money it offered - as a great opportunity to get away from what bored them (school) and start living independently as adults. Maybe the problem is that these careers are less welcoming to women, or that there's a stigma attached; maybe parents are pressuring their daughters more strongly to pursue post-secondary education; or maybe the academy is just more pleasant overall for females than it is for males, so that an additional four to six years of school doesn't seem like such a struggle.

 

Cultural attitudes toward the value of education for each sex, what constitutes an acceptable career path or lifestyle after college, and the life goals of young men and women today all play important roles in who decides to get a post-secondary education. So, too, do the careers that demand degrees and the ones that don't.

 

Besides, it was only recently that reforms were made to ensure that girls and boys had equal opportunities for learning. Whether those reforms were too effective or not effective enough is up for debate.

 

But after centuries of Western academics being dominated by men, if the school system really does give girls an extra boost over boys, I don't begrudge them the leg up. Eventually the scales will balance.

 

And if the difference in post-secondary enrolment grows, it's only going to make university more alluring to future generations of straight males - if not for a desire to regain academic status for their sex, then at least for the dating pool.  

 

Living in residence on campus demands that you share with others in a number of ways. In our house, the walls are thin, so if someone is playing music or has a guest over to their room, everyone gets a piece of the audio. When it was time for residency inspections, we all chipped in to make our home look (more or less) habitable. And our culinary relationship with neighbours has led to the evolution of a communal spice bag full of curry blends that has no permanent home.

 

Prior to moving here, my belongings were my own. If I shared anything, it was with my family - and even then, most of the common resources in the house didn't belong to me. Here, a sort of black market in favours has developed, run by a wide circle of regular visitors and nearby residents to this house. Food, alcohol, tobacco, and other essentials of existence become common property, with the law of reciprocity the only guideline in place.

 

What allows such a co-operative system to develop? Aside from willingness to share and a trust that goodwill shall, eventually, be repaid in kind, what conditions lead to this social cohesion? And, assuming that not every student living on campus participates in similar neighbourhood economies, how can they be nurtured or encouraged?

 

UBC's Alma Mater Society (AMS) suggested earlier this school year that they were looking into the possibility of themed housing on campus. This would see students in some residences on campus sorted according to their program or academic focus. Other universities in North America have implemented similar programs, sometimes with housing themed around ideas like "ecology," "peace," or preparation for Grad school.

 

I have to wonder what shape my year would have taken had I been lodged with Arts or English students instead of the milieu I'm currently among. My friends in residence come from a wide range of backgrounds and compose an equal blend of Science and Arts. And yet - perhaps because we're forced to cohabitate - we've managed to form a posse of individuals that shows no divisions along faculty lines.

 

Obviously this isn't the case with every resident. Every year people end up sharing houses or rooms with people they can't stand, but I doubt this has anything to do with what degrees they're pursuing. In fact, I should think that would be the last thing to affect social harmony. More prevalent issues arise - like who ate all the Eggos, or who dropped hot shisha coals all over the carpet. The matter of whether you spend your study time on differential equations or on the lesser works of Yeats takes a back seat to these more pressing matters.

 

For all the social cohesion program-based housing is going to promote, the AMS might as well divide student residences according to Zodiac signs. I have no idea whether I would get along better with an Aries than a Scorpio or vice versa; not being a great believer in horoscopes, I suspect the point is irrelevant. Subtler aspects of an individual's personality than their star sign - or future profession - play a role here.

 

The qualities that allow people to live harmoniously, and even become friends, cross artificial boundaries set by academia. I've met as many irritating know-it-alls who call themselves poets as call themselves scientists - and I, in my turn, have fulfilled the same role in the eyes of other students. Political scientists can be as rigid and uncompromising in their views of the world as microbiologists.

 

The one benefit I can see in planned student housing is academic, and even then the matter is not clear. Presumably, living with other students of English or Religion would aid me in studying for those topics. And while it's true that I sometimes wish there was another individual in the neighbourhood with whom to hash out the finer points of Jewish dietary law, I could also go without being surrounded by Arts students. Some of the more interesting tidbits I've learned outside the classroom this year have had to do with the formation of RNA, the movement of tectonic plates, and the Large Hadron Collider. And none of them came to me by way of my sonnet-analyzing brethren.

 

At the very least, planned housing would be unfair to Engineering students. In the words of my roommate, "There are no girls in Engineering, man." After all, isn't life on campus about more than networking within your department? It's an experience to be shared with friends, not just classmates. Socializing between faculties is a good thing. Separating them only serves to put up more walls and close more doors - in a very literal sense.

 

I don't live in Vancouver. I live in a town called UBC. It has restaurants, a hospital, a police station, recreation centers. It has streets lined with tall trees and an old library that looks like it should be haunted. And when you leave UBC to visit the city, it's clear that you're crossing a boundary. There are signs. They're quite large.

 

It's not so bad being isolated from the city, from the sirens and spinning wheels and lights that never go out. Walking to class in the morning, I'm guaranteed to at least see a few people I recognize, if not ones I know. Leaving campus, faces start to blur, locations become less distinct. Bearings are lost. I spent a few weeks becoming comfortable with this place when I arrived, and over the past months, the lay of the land has become ingrained in my bones. UBC feels as familiar as any hometown I've ever had, but the city beyond remains a tangled mystery.

 

I won't be living here next year. That is for certain: My number in the line-up for residency is somewhere in the billions. Unless I pitch a tent on Wreck Beach, or find a reasonably-sized janitorial closet on campus, I'll be in Vancouver next year. The real city. The big city. The wilderness.

 

A long, long time ago, when I was trying to decide where to attend university, I went through stacks of promotional pamphlets and third-party reviews for Canadian schools. They all mentioned the campus - its beauty, its convenience - as an important factor for deciding where to go. At the time, this seemed frivolous. Who cares where you go to learn, so long as you get the information - and the degree - you want? How does attractive landscaping or a nice climate affect how you study?

 

That varies, depending on the individual. But even if the place you live does very little to change the way you learn, it will define how you live. My friends in the city know the best bars, the best restaurants, the best places to go dancing. They can find their way home wherever they are in the city without Google Maps or the help of strangers. I envy them their knowledge, but I don't aspire to it. Let them take the lead: You choose the bar tonight. Which bus do we need to catch? How many blocks are we from home?

 

 I have to wonder what it's like to go to a university that isn't removed from the city it occupies, but integrates into the landscape - like McGill, for instance. Being separate from the city, and by extension, the adult world one is on the verge of entering, seems like it would delay an individual's growth. By merging knowledge of city life with knowledge gained in the classroom, maybe the transition from student/youth to worker/adult becomes smoother.

 

Or maybe being a step removed from nightclubs and gridlock helps to focus a student on their immediate task - education. Keeping the rest of the world at bay might help a person stay attached to their scholastic role, without getting drawn away from the distractions of worldly life. When the first European universities were established, students lived monkish lives, retreating from the toil and chaos of everyday existence to focus on their books. Maybe the campus away from town is a holdover from that style of learning.

 

The school years are a time for finding one's place in the world, literally and figuratively. It's mentally disruptive to have this ever-changing notion of home - from here, to where I grew up, to wherever I'll be next year in Vancouver proper. But it's part of the process of growing up.

 

I realize now that there is a reason people care so much about where they're going to school, in much the same way that people care where they are going to live. Choosing what place to call your home is important, because it's bound to have an affect on who you are. It's true: You take yourself with you wherever you go. And you take wherever you are with you when you leave.