My First Week of University Classes at UBC

September 08, 2019

My First Week of University Classes at UBC

I'm writing this from a library after having done laundry and homework and I think I am officially a university student. I navigated my way through my first classes, large lectures, and even some studying. I wish I could say it was some magical experience, but it was a little anticlimactic. That's not to say it wasn't a good experience, but you spend so much of high school hearing comments that begin with "Once you get to college..." and "In college..." that once you actually get to the point where you're in college, you realize that going to class is just that: going to class. Yes, the classes are run a little differently and you're not getting the same type of assignments and handouts, but it's still class. For me, that's not a bad thing. I have always liked school and if I like a class, I look forward to going to it and doing work for it. That hasn't changed here, at least not yet.

Before I get into the details of my classes and how it has been to be back in school, I wanted to recap my last few days of freedom from the beginning of the week, as classes didn't start until Wednesday.

On Sunday, after publishing last week's post, I went to a UBC v. Wisconsin hockey game. I figured I can't go to a Canadian school and not go to a hockey game! The game was interesting, to say the least, starting with the fact that we quickly realized that both the goalies were in Wisconsin gear. We're still not quite sure why we didn't have our own goalie, but it was a sign that maybe our team wasn't quite ready for the season, which showed on the scoreboard from the get-go. After the game, the group we went with stopped by a coffee shop then made plans to get dinner at a restaurant on campus later. While at the game, I was talking to a friend about Norway and she mentioned that there was a guy from Norway on her floor, so I reached out to see if he'd be interested in getting together to speak Norwegian and I ended up meeting up with him after dinner. It was nice to have someone to speak Norwegian with, especially because the 9-hour time difference between here and Oslo has made it tough to talk to my friends there often. Later that night there was a floor decorating event that I went to for a little while before going to bed to get up for a busy day the next morning.

Monday morning I woke up somewhat early for a non-school day to take part in Wreckfast, a mash between Wreck Beach (the beach on campus) and breakfast. Basically, a club had put together an event where we would go down to the beach, jump in the water, then go get breakfast together on campus. I expected to jump in and run out because I thought the water would be freezing, but it ended up being really nice and we stayed in swimming for a while before refueling for the day at one of the residence dining halls. After a shower, Amy and I met up with Anna and Esther, two girls we had met a few times and become friends with, and caught a bus into town. It was my first off-campus excursion since moving in, and although you could totally get by without ever leaving campus, it was nice to get out and into the city! We started in Gastown, the neighborhood where Vancouver first originated, and got some really good lunch at a vegan restaurant there. We looked at some shops, but ended up cringing at prices more than buying stuff. We then walked over to Canada Place, a funky building that juts out over the water, to look at the view of the mountains and water. It's such a beautiful view and it still seems surreal that all this is so close by. I can't wait to get a chance to go hiking in the mountains to see the view from another perspective! On our way back to campus we stopped by a grocery store to stock up on snacks for the room, and on the bus ride into UBC I met two Swedish guys. It's funny how, as soon as I started wondering if there were any Scandinavians around here, I was running into them left and right.

Tuesday was Imagine Day, UBC's school-wide orientation with a big pep rally for first years and an afternoon club fair. The entirety of Main Mall is lined with booths for all the clubs you can imagine, and I put my name on the email list for quite a few. Some of the ones I'm more interested in keeping up with are SISU, an outdoors club for women; Tandem, a language learning program; the Scandinavian Society; and the dragon boat team! I also talked to some more academic groups that I think will be good to be a part of once I decide what specifically I'm going to study.

Wednesday was my first real day of classes, although two of the three I was supposed to have were cancelled, so I ended up only having an hour-long chemistry lecture. My chem class, like most of my other lectures, is big with probably around 150-200 students. I met some people before going into the lecture hall that I sat with, along with Amy and a girl from my orientation group. As was the case for most of my first lectures, the professor went over the syllabus and used whatever time was left over to begin the curriculum. After class I went down to Wreck Beach with Amy and Anna and we went for a swim. Thursdays are my long days with class from 8 am to 8 pm (totally my own doing, not really sure why I thought that was smart), and I had my first physics and bio lectures as well as my first computer science lab and second chem lecture. I don't have class straight through the twelve hours, so I was able to take some breaks and hang out with friends. Friday morning I FaceTimed with some friends from home before going to class, and I had my first computer science lecture that afternoon after getting lunch with friends. After class I started to organize all the information that had been thrown at me over the past few days, and even started some homework.

So far, it is a little hard to tell how I feel about my classes. All of them cover things I'm at least a little interested in, but all of my classes but comp sci are continuations or repetitions of things I learned in high school. For that reason, I'm finding computer science the most interesting right now because everything I'm learning is new, and because I think coding is a fun challenge. I've found that I have a hard time motivating myself to do big chunks of reading for classes like bio and physics, and would much rather just do problems where I feel like I can apply what I'm learning, but I also completely understand that the reading I'm doing is an essential part of building up my knowledge base so I can even think about starting the applications. I'll be interested to see how my opinions of the classes change over the next few weeks, especially as workload increases and I have to be more diligent with my time. I can already tell that I'm more inclined to do comp sci work because I actually get to do something rather than just read and take notes.

This weekend I went to another party, went grocery shopping again to finish my snack collection, and have spent a lot of time with new friends and just on my own recharging after my first week so I'm ready to start my first full week tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with these weekly posts as school kicks in; it's nice to be writing regularly again!