First Year Experiences Series Part Nine: Neepa

By NEEPA PARIKH, MACINSIDERS

My first year at McMaster started off a lot differently than most of the people reading this article. I didn’t really do any research about living in residence or adjusting to living alone. I’d already gone on an exchange for a few months and traveled alone a lot so I figured I’d be able to adjust easily to living alone at McMaster. I was wrong. Do your research!

Greeted by loud and colourful welcome week reps it was hard not to be excited. I moved in, my parents left, I met my roommates and all was good. After Mac Connector (an awesome welcome week event) my roommates and I came back to our awesome triple room and that’s where my problem began.

My roommates were unhappy being at McMaster at first. One was clearly homesick and the other kept on talking about transferring. That killed my buzz and we ended up not participating in most of the other welcome week events. Big mistake.

It got to about mid-September when my roommates and I realized that we hadn’t really made any friends in our residence and that it was probably why we didn’t like McMaster much. We knew that we needed to do something about and we talked about ways to make friends outside of our classes. We were apprehensive about knocking on our neighbours’ doors and introducing ourselves so we decided to just wait and see what happens.

Believe it or not we made our first friends while sitting in the hallway watching a movie because it was cooler outside of our rooms. Everyone we met was amazing and our floor was already really close so we made quite a few friends instantly. Our year turned out wonderful in terms of the friends we made.

ADVICE: Take initiative to get to know people in your res and in your program. Welcome week is a great way to start making friends.

There are so many ways to get involved at McMaster. I wish I had done more in my first year and joined FLIRCs or Maroons or a club at McMaster. Instead I joined only one thing – McMaster’s Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. It was a great opportunity to meet some new people and I was able to make a team with my closest friends. We ended up having a great night and raised money for a great cause but it wasn’t something that I could really use on my resume for other jobs or volunteer opportunities.

ADVICE: Try to get involved right away on campus or off campus. Find something you are passionate about and stick with it.

Academics-wise McMaster has so much to offer. There are so many resources to help with studying, essay writing, career counselling etc. I wish I had taken advantage of those resources in first year but I didn’t and I struggled to find something that I was passionate about.

The biggest issue I had in terms of academics was learning how to study. I was one of those kids in high school who got by just listening to lessons and doing the homework. I experimented a lot in first year and finally found a few techniques that really worked for me.

Another issue I had with being at university was the huge change in teaching style. Lectures are definitely different than your high school classes. You sit, you listen and you write down what you think is important. I was one of those students who started off thinking everything was important. I would struggle to get everything down and would end up unhappy after class. I learned really quickly to use short forms and to only write down the main points. This helped me a lot in lecture and even when studying because I didn’t have to go searching for the important points.

ADVICE: If you find you’re not getting the marks that you want, experiment with different studying techniques. Make sure you manage your time and remember not to sweat the small stuff.

Overall, I'd say I had a great year and that first year is all about finding your McMaster family and your best learning style.