Students

1st Year University Experience - Time for College?

  • Last Updated:
  • Jan 22nd, 2013 3:31 am
Tags:
Sr. Member
Apr 24, 2011
557 posts
243 upvotes
Scarborough
1stYearUni wrote: 23 days till I'm done yet for each course there's like 40-50% still untested. Seems so close yet so far... I have a tendency to put in a good amount of effort for the first two months then bomb everything after. I can already see how I've been slacking after midterms....... and I get over stressed when I run into problems or get bad grades which further makes me perform terribly. I've practically given up on one of my business courses. The professor teaches so terribly and makes it so hard the class avg is like 50%. I am somehow sitting at a 60 and I even got a school tutor and she wasn't much help. Clearly my tutor got her 89 from the prof that had a 4.2/5 on ratemyprofessor. Sorry for my rant. I guess I need to be focused I'll come back after I find out my 1st semester grades. Happy early christmas people...
I was in your position a few years ago and I've always put a lot of emphasis on having co-op experience unless you're a in a top-tier program at a top-tier school. After transferring from UTSC to Seneca for the AFP program, I've luckily landed a co-op position I believe it was a relatively good decision. My options at the time were to finish a non-business related degree at UTSC or start over in a business program @ either Ryerson, York, or Seneca, and I chose Seneca due to the co-op potential. Sure, you only get a diploma, but experience is more important to me. ACF will get you 3 co-op terms while AFP will only get you one, so if you're in a similar position as me, that's something to think about. Hope this helps!
Newbie
Nov 25, 2012
33 posts
TORONTO
axis81 wrote: I was in your position a few years ago and I've always put a lot of emphasis on having co-op experience unless you're a in a top-tier program at a top-tier school. After transferring from UTSC to Seneca for the AFP program, I've luckily landed a co-op position I believe it was a relatively good decision. My options at the time were to finish a non-business related degree at UTSC or start over in a business program @ either Ryerson, York, or Seneca, and I chose Seneca due to the co-op potential. Sure, you only get a diploma, but experience is more important to me. ACF will get you 3 co-op terms while AFP will only get you one, so if you're in a similar position as me, that's something to think about. Hope this helps!
Situation:
In my 1st term I took 3 courses that worked towards my degree and 1 course that wouldn't count as an elective for my program but I took it for interest sake. The average for my four courses was mid to high 70';s. What I'm really trying to say is I want out before I begin to mess up my academic history as well.

I'm now in my second term, I have absolutely no motivation and courses this term are much harder; I really feel like failing but my parents keep pushing me to get this degree as if it was a life-line even when I told them I might fail.

They are willing to spend as much money as it takes for me to graduate and I am not even close to rich at all. They've been brainwashed that university is the only way. And convincing them to let me go to college would take too much drama.

I really would rather just go to Seneca.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2004
1621 posts
766 upvotes
GTA
is your lack of effort due to lack of interest or something else? the thing is...even if you get by with seneca and get your diploma, it is not going to guarantee you with a 'decent' income. basically, nothing will unless you're willing to work hard continuously, and even that increases your chances but doesn't provide the certainty that things will work out. if you look in the careers section, you'll see a ton of people who are university/college graduates making very little money.

i can understand if you lack the aptitude for certain things but if you're just not willing to put more effort academically, you better have something to compensate it with. else you're just going to defer your struggles to an older age.

my story was pretty similar except i started off in comp sci and switched to math/bus. managed to graduate then got a CMA afterwards and work as a financial analyst now. i had to work bloody hard for it and still feel that i lucked out to be at this level (even though i'm just starting out).
CPA. Realtor.
Deal Addict
User avatar
Jul 28, 2010
1102 posts
350 upvotes
Montreal
I had almost the same issue, but it was reccuring all throughout my Undergrad at McGill Engineering

Mind you, in Quebec we have something called CEGEP which is equivalent to Gr12 and U0, but the bump up in terms of difficulty was definitely there from HS -> College
At least in that respect the transition was smoother going from CEGEP -> University.

I partied a bit too hard in my first year, and was cramming 1 nights for midterms and such. Average of about 65-70 (F is <50, D is 51-55...) Then my gf broke up with me a week before finals.

First semester was C C C B- F (CGPA of 1.92 in first semester), landing me in Academic Probation. It was by far the most stressful year of my life, as I had to hit one of two requirements

1) Get CGPA >2.00 by the end of 2nd semester
2) Get 2nd term GPA > 2.5

Otherwise they tell you to withdraw from the program at least one semester and come reapply (but essentially this is you getting kicked out because when you reapply you'll have a <2.00 CGPA trying to apply for engineering again). It was so depressing that I started to look for openings in the environmental departments, economics, history, wherever I might have a CHANCE of getting accepted with my GPA... The feeling was terrible

Worst part is I had the hardest course in my entire curriculum in the second semester, and things weren't looking good for that class.
I had to reduce my courseload to 13 credits maximum, and study day in and day out.

After writing the final for the hard class I legit ran away and walked home (45mins). I scheduled an appointment with the teacher to try and see if he would see me BEFORE he started correcting the finals.

I ended up passing with the skin of my teeth with a 56%, netting me a C in the class and out of the hole.
He suggested I take it easy and screw the "recommended" curriculum and take ~4 classes a semester so I can actually take the time to learn things.

4 years later and I've graduated from Electrical Engineering at McGill and working a good job! I still remember how low I was and what I felt like it was yesterday, and I do believe that I grew from that!

Best of luck wherever you go
Sr. Member
Apr 24, 2011
557 posts
243 upvotes
Scarborough
1stYearUni wrote: Situation:
In my 1st term I took 3 courses that worked towards my degree and 1 course that wouldn't count as an elective for my program but I took it for interest sake. The average for my four courses was mid to high 70';s. What I'm really trying to say is I want out before I begin to mess up my academic history as well.

I'm now in my second term, I have absolutely no motivation and courses this term are much harder; I really feel like failing but my parents keep pushing me to get this degree as if it was a life-line even when I told them I might fail.

They are willing to spend as much money as it takes for me to graduate and I am not even close to rich at all. They've been brainwashed that university is the only way. And convincing them to let me go to college would take too much drama.

I really would rather just go to Seneca.
Clueless Fox wrote: is your lack of effort due to lack of interest or something else? the thing is...even if you get by with seneca and get your diploma, it is not going to guarantee you with a 'decent' income. basically, nothing will unless you're willing to work hard continuously, and even that increases your chances but doesn't provide the certainty that things will work out. if you look in the careers section, you'll see a ton of people who are university/college graduates making very little money.

i can understand if you lack the aptitude for certain things but if you're just not willing to put more effort academically, you better have something to compensate it with. else you're just going to defer your struggles to an older age.

my story was pretty similar except i started off in comp sci and switched to math/bus. managed to graduate then got a CMA afterwards and work as a financial analyst now. i had to work bloody hard for it and still feel that i lucked out to be at this level (even though i'm just starting out).
+1 - I think it comes down to passion. If you're uninterested in your program, then you're likely going to face the same problem anywhere else. While my program at UTSC was definitely interesting, the potential prospects were lacking, so I went to Seneca for something that's still relatively interesting, but has more prospects. What it really boils down to is what you want to to. Why is it that you want to transfer out to Seneca? Different program? Easier? If it's just simply the latter, I took both econ and stats at UTSC and Seneca, and I can say that the difficulty isn't that much different for them actually. Course material was relatively the same - in fact, my profs at Seneca were better than the ones at UTSC for both courses lol.
Banned
Jul 8, 2009
4006 posts
127 upvotes
1stYearUni wrote: I will research more opportunities about transfer towards specifically Seneca (Accounting and Finance CO-OP optional) but also wondering if there is anyone out there who did a transfer from 1st or 2nd Year University into a college diploma program? What there experience was and whether they were able to get some credits.
Don't waste your time doing college accounting or finance- these grads are a dime a dozen in university level and have trouble with employment, you will be relegated to substandard pay, better pick up a trade and wait until your ready to try in school before you go for accounting or finance. You can drive trucks in alberta and make 100k, why would you want to push paper in toronto for 35k?

Top

Thread Information

There is currently 1 user viewing this thread. (0 members and 1 guest)