Starting your journey as a first-year university student is an opportunity for a fresh start. Your first few weeks will likely be dedicated to balancing academic deadlines, navigating campus, creating a social life, and learning how to live away from home. Some students show up with a game plan, while others enter the year with an open mind, ready to dive into the unknown. In any case, every single student will have something to learn. The unknown—as exciting as it can be—is scary. Here are some things that upperclassmen would have wanted to know when first arriving at McGill.
In a huge university like ours, it can sometimes feel like you lack guidance. Organizing your degree is not an easy task, especially when you’re trying to do it on your own, without any counselling.
In an interview with The Tribune, Jeanne Lotz, U2 Arts, urged students not to be afraid of asking for help.
“What I’ve told the Froshies is that there is help at McGill. Sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming,” she said. “There is help, you just have to always reach out for it because no one is going to come and be like ‘Do you need help?’ [….] I know [that] for a math class, the Faculty of Engineering organized free tutoring where you just show up […] and there is also intense training before exams.”
Reaching out for help also includes meeting with your department advisor to get advice and make sure that you’re on track to meet your degree requirements.
It can be tempting at the beginning of the year to focus on building up a solid social life at the expense of academics. This is especially true with the whirlwind of moving into residence, Frosh, and Open Air Pub. However, at some point, the carefree summer months must turn to fall.
For Colette Ayissi, LLM Law, focusing on your courses as soon as school starts is crucial to avoid getting caught off guard by work later in the semester.
“My advice would be to start working from the beginning of the year and not wait for October and November because you get the midterms and everything at the same time,” she explained.
However, your first year of university shouldn’t just be a slog through endless coursework.
Qetsia Misenga, U2 Science, emphasized that while school should remain a top priority, having fun activities to look forward to is crucial to a healthy lifestyle.
“My advice is make the most out of your first year by joining clubs and associations and making friends in a bunch of different settings, because you are going to need them,” Misenga told The Tribune.
Attending Activities Night, which will be held from Sept. 11 to 12 in the Fieldhouse, is a great way to get to know the school’s clubs and other student organizations. That’s where you’ll be able to register for a variety of clubs and talk to existing members about what they do.
McGill is known for being a cosmopolitan school, with roughly 30 per cent of its students coming from outside of Canada. International students might feel even more disoriented than others when first settling into Montréal. Diane Potignon, U2 Arts, relates to that feeling and advises international students to live in residence.
“When you’re an international student […] your English is usually not as good as other people here so it’s easier to communicate with people who speak [my] language for me personally […] and it’s hard finding that outside of [residences],” she explained.
Overall, the best advice you can receive as a first year is to try things out. That’s the only way you’ll figure out how to make the most of your university experience.
Diane Potignon’s quote was translated from French to English.
