First Year Experience Series Part Three: Ken

By Ken Mwawasi, MACINSIDERS

My first year of University was without a doubt a memorable and exciting chapter in my life. The experiences I’ve gained from living on residence, transitioning to post-secondary expectations and networking with a larger and more global group of peers have been invaluable to my development as a student and a person. Like Danielle said in her article (part one of the series), not everyone has the same experience: I wish I could say that first year was all fun and games all the time, but the reality was there were several significant academic, financial, social and personal adjustments that I had to make, which at times were both challenging and frustrating. Nevertheless, in hindsight I felt like I made most of the appropriate adjustments, and I would like to share my experience in hopes that you will all enjoy your first year at McMaster University as much as I have.

During the summer months leading up to move-in day, I tried to obtain every piece of information about McMaster as I could. I researched the residence I was about to live in extensively, read all of my potential professors’ ratings, viewed peoples’ comments on the first years facebook group page and read every single Macinsiders article that was posted. I’m a very detail-oriented person, and I wanted to know as much about the school as possible so I could brace myself for certain expectations. Looking back, I was very fortunate to have a site like Macinsiders to answer all of my inquiries, because I had certain questions (like residence internet bandwidth limits) that I wouldn’t have been able to find answers to on my own.

As summer ended, I got more and more excited for residence move-in day. I got assigned to a double room in McKay Hall, which I ranked very high in my residence application. When I drove up to McKay with my parents the first day, we were immediately surrounded by the Welcome Week reps who were surprisingly loud and enthusiastic for 8:00am on a Saturday morning. They moved all of my stuff upstairs to the third floor, and when we got to my room, it looked just as I had expected: a typical double room with two beds, two desks, and a huge wardrobe (to be shared by both roommates). My parents weren’t impressed with the old desk and white brick walls that you’d see in a high school classroom, but I honestly didn’t mind because as long as the room had internet and heating I would be perfectly fine with it.

As the day went along, I got to know the people on my floor, except for my roommate who still hadn’t moved in yet. I absolutely loved the atmosphere on campus that first day; everyone was in the residence spirit and already learning most of the cheers. However, I still felt somewhat isolated due to a very absent-minded mistake that I made during the summer – I didn’t buy a Macpass. Everyone who had a Macpass that first night was wearing their residence hall shirts, and I was one of the few residents without one. To make things worse, I couldn’t get my “McKaviators” – a cool pair of aviators that every resident with a McKay t-shirt received. The lesson learned from this is to definitely purchase your Macpass. Not only do you get residence/faculty t-shirts, but you also get access to a lot of Welcome Week events (which fits in nicely with the MACcess Granted theme this year). Also, if you’re not in McKay hall this year, you might not get aviators but you will get a cool item relating to your residence theme (so be sure to buy your Macpass).

My roommate eventually moved in on the third day; it turns out he was in the military and couldn’t make to it Mac on move-in day. We got along great (and he brought a fridge, which I was fairly certain I would never use but turned out to be a nice luxury as the year went by) and the rest of Welcome Week went along great as well. My favourite event in Welcome Week was Faculty Day: not only did I get a glimpse of life as a Science student, but there’s also a friendly rivalry of pride and little animosity between the faculties, and you all let it out during this day. Everyone pretty much had a cheer against the other faculties, and it was a lot of fun chirping each other (but it’s all in good fun).

The fun and games of Welcome Week didn’t last forever, and classes eventually started. Most courses I was in during first term were in huge lecture theatres with hundreds of other students. My psychology tutorial had 35 people, but that was still relatively big compared to my largest high school class of 28 students. At the beginning of every year since the sixth grade, I always told myself that I would improve my work ethic by doing all of my homework, reading ahead of the class, etc. For the first two weeks or so, I did just that: I completed the mathematics review manual in less than two days, read all of the macromolecules chapters ahead of the lectures for Bio 1A03, finished every single ‘assumed knowledge’ webCT quiz for Chem 1A03 and did all of the textbook readings for Intro Psych and baby physics. But like every year since the sixth grade, I got lazy: I stopped reading ahead, skipped a couple of homework questions and essentially reverted back to my detrimental high school work habits. Lucky for me, I had a good source of inspiration...my roommate. He would pretty much do all of his homework in our room until 2am after getting back from class every day. Every time I procrastinated by browsing youtube videos or playing computer games, I would just look over my shoulder and see him quietly doing his work. All of the engineers in our building would go to him for help because he had excellent academic discipline and knew his material well. His work habits rubbed off on me, and I definitely developed consistent academic patterns throughout the term. I did very well in all of my first midterms (except psychology, but I bounced back from that course) and I even developed the time management skills to get a part-time job on campus while coping with my academics. The job was only at night (Building Access Staff – the people who check your Id when you enter residence on weekend nights), which worked out perfectly for me because I could finish my school work before my shift started and just sleep after it ended. It took some time, but I was eventually able to balance my work, social and academic lives. My advice for time management skills only consists of two concepts: patience and discipline. Some people can’t instantly manage all of their tasks at once (I certainly couldn’t). It’s a skill that takes time, so have patience. That’s not to say you should lay back and expect things to get better on their own, because you need discipline as well. It’s up to you to come up a time management plan, but most importantly to follow through with it.

In high school, I wasn’t a big fan of study groups, but they were actually really helpful in first year. The key aspect of the study groups we formed was that everyone was responsible for reading/studying the material prior to the group meeting. That way, everyone would be familiar with the content and the group would spend our time having insightful discussions rather than wasting time reading the textbook on our own. The key advantage to going over the material in groups is that someone would always elaborate or catch a concept I didn’t understand or I missed. When you and your peers pool each other’s ideas together, you gain a well-rounded and more complete understanding of the material.

First semester went very well. I was really bonding with the people in my residence, survived my first round of post-secondary exams and was getting good grades (better than high school actually) and I felt that I had fully adjusted to University life. Nevertheless, I felt during the first term I was fretting over the simplest things; so I decided to take my foot off the gas pedal so to speak and take it easy for the rest of the year. Boy, was I in for a wakeup call in second semester. What seemed like an easier course load actually turned out to be way more challenging: the material picked up in difficulty, the professors seemed to be lecturing much quicker, and the amount of homework I had increased. I did very poorly on my first physics 1B03 midterm, and wasn’t pleased with my bio and chem 1AA3 midterm marks either. Frankly, I got a little arrogant from first term and underestimated the amount of genuine work you should always put into a University class. I didn’t let the mediocre midterm performances discourage me however, and I actually used the low marks as an inspiration to get back into academic shape. Again, resilience is an imperative component in University.

From a social perspective, there were a lot of ups and downs during my first year. In residence, I really bonded with the people on my floor, especially during the second semester. We had residents from Vancouver, BC to Montreal, QC and despite the diverse personalities, we were able to appreciate and embrace the contributions we all made to our residence atmosphere. My roommate also purchased a television and Nintendo Wii in late January, so our room pretty much became the unofficial third floor common room for the rest of the year.

I also highly recommend if you live on residence that you attend as many programs ran by your CAs, HCA and IRC reps as possible. Programs are social, academic, wellness and awareness events held by Residence Life Staff and the Inter-Residence Council to help educate character, promote growth and enhance the University experience (they range from floor movie nights to res-wide talent shows). Programs are a great way to meet new people and socialize with your fellow peers. I was a relatively quiet person in first year, so I really benefited from all the programs held in residence in socializing with others. In fact, I’m going to be a CA in a certain North Quad residence this upcoming year in hopes that I can relay some of that help to incoming residents and build a strong atmosphere and community in residence.

Nevertheless, with socialization comes the prospect of distraction, and it’s very important that you recognize the difference between the two. People on our floor frequently came to our room to play Smash Bros on the Wii, and they’d always try to get me to play as well (because nobody likes playing against the computer). While I absolutely loved playing that game with friends, if I had an upcoming midterm or essay due, it became a distraction and I quickly had to learn to decline the offer and finish my schoolwork. Don’t get me wrong, with proper time management you can always find free time to hang out with friends, but it’s important to realize when work needs to get done. In part two of the series, Eva also mentioned the infamous DC++, which can be an excellent resource to cure your boredom, or a deadly vice to distract you from your schoolwork.

Overall, I learned so many valuable lessons from my first year of University. It’s important to keep a positive attitude and remain resilient during the difficult times. If you’re living on residence, you will be exposed to several different personalities all at once, and it might take time to get use to your new lifestyle at your new home. In due time, you’ll find your own rhythm and your personal community niche in residence and begin to embrace the new atmosphere. Although everyone’s experience will be slightly different, the first year of University is a brand new chapter in everyone’s lives. Good luck, have fun, and make the most of it!

Check out the other parts in this series:

• Part One: Danielle
• Part Two: Eva

Hey can thank you so much for sharing your experience!

I hope mine can be as great as yours!

That was an AWSOME article Ken (esp the part about patience.. I had NO idea patience was key). Thanks!

thanks for this article, it was really good

Awesome article Ken! Good job!

Sweet article Ken!
I think our room has become an unofficial CA getaway...