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Hi, I'm Greg Rombough.
I manage the undergrad business program in the
DeGroote School of Business.
I'm Faiza Hirji.
I'm an assistant professor in the Department of
Communication Studies and Multimedia in the faculty of
Humanities.
My name is Jeffrey Donaldson and I teach in the English
Department at McMaster University in the faculty of
Humanities.
My name is John Maclachlan.
I work in the faculty of Sciences, specifically in the
School of Geography and Earth Sciences.
I'm also affiliated with the arts and science program in
the Center for Leadership and Learning.
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You probably will fall behind in the first year.
It's going to happen.
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You should have a fair sense very early if
you are falling behind.
And make sure you are addressing that head on.
I think time management and falling behind is probably the
most intimidating factor for a lot of university students.
Understand from your academic advisors and from your faculty
advisors where you can access resources to get
back on top of things.
Ask the instructor if you're having some problems.
Ask the TA if you're falling behind and the best
way to catch up.
They can help you work out a schedule, or maybe give you
some advice as to how you can be more efficient in terms of
your planning for a particular assignment.
You have four essays due at this time.
And then--
oh, and somebody mentions some other thing that also needs to
be done that day.
The instant that happens, you tend to crash.
It's just too much.
There will be some point where you feel a bit overwhelmed.
The best thing you can do at that point is not panic.
The worst thing that you can do when you find yourself
overwhelmed by the amount of work that you do is to try and
think of it all at once.
But make sure you understand, very much, how the school and
your faculty operates.
There are opportunities for you to manage your course load
to make yourself more successful in your program.
To think not about what has to be done in four or five days,
all of this work.
But what are going to do with your next five minutes?
You can start small and make it something that feels a
little bit less intimidating.
What are you going to do with the next half hour?
Five term papers that are due at the end of the semester.
You're going out for supper with friends at 6 o'clock, and
it's 25 after five, seems like time to kill.
So you might be able to set a milestone by saying, by this
point in the semester I'll have completed all my research
for this paper.
By this point, I'll have completed my outline.
By this point, I'll have written my thesis statement.
You would be amazed at how much better you'll feel about
yourself and the work that you have still to do, if you sit
down and take 10 minutes.
It's amazing how much work you can get done in 10 minutes.
Never don't hand something in.
Take the time, go through it, ask the instructor if you're
having some problems.
Ask the TA if you're falling behind, the best
way to catch up.
It might not be the same for every class, might not be the
same for every faculty.
But if you do fall behind, make a reasonable
plan to move forward.
Don't try to catch up in one day.
Give yourself the course of a week.
And try to catch up a little every day until you are back
to where you need to be.
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Campus has numerous resources, and I really can't list them
all off the top of my head.
There's a lot of resources.
Yeah, resources are available all over the university and--
Your own faculty has resources, as well as can
point you towards university-wide resources.
The Student Success Centre.
The Student Success Centre.
The Student Success Centre has a lot of good programs.
I'm surprised by the number of students who don't visit the
library, whether it's visiting in person or
visiting the website.
So, for instance, if you're worried about how to format
your essay, those style guides are all in the library.
If you don't know how to conduct research, librarians
can help you.
We have a number of databases that you can link to if you
prefer to do your research online and you don't want to
do it in person.
You really do need to lean on the resources of your TAs and
instructors.
They have office hours.
They do want to talk to you.
Use faculty.
The faculty are a major resource for you.
So don't be afraid to engage with your professors.
Professors hold office hours.
Students often neglect those.
By and large, our experience in first year is that students
are terrified of us.
And you leave your poor professor
sitting there by himself.
I've been a prof here for a while, and I've had whole
semesters where nobody has spoken to me
during my office hours.
I would be happy if you came and just asked about the
material, even if you understood it.
You can come, initiate a conversation, you'll probably
come away with something.
We like to know how you're doing.
We like to follow your progress in a course.
So please engage with your professors.
Take advantage of that office time.
Also, you have TAs for each class.
The TAs are also very happy, and very able, to help you.
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My biggest piece advice would be to read the course outline.
Understand what's coming.
Get a calendar, write down when all your mid-terms are,
all your tests are, all your big due dates are, and start
to organize your life around those dates.
You will have times you are busy.
But if you know an assignment is due two weeks ahead of time
and you know you have three due on that same day, you can
get moving and you shouldn't fall that far behind.
So read the course outline, understand the course
expectations, and go to class.
If you think of your experiences as a rehearsal.
A rehearsal is a time when you are testing possible
approaches.
It's a time when you are not afraid to make mistakes.
It's not the main performance, yet.
That is to say, you haven't entered the program just yet.
But it's also time that you have to take very seriously.
Rehearsal isn't the time to joke around.
Actors think of rehearsal, in some ways, as more important
time than the performance time itself because it is the time
when they are finding out what it is that they are going to
be capable of doing, what it is they might want
to do, and so on.
So in a lot of ways you're rehearsing as a learner.
You're rehearsing your own interests.
You'll find what it is that you are called to do.
And you're rehearsing the learning process itself.
Trying on different ways of learning and finding the ones
that are most comfortable for you.
Consider the source for where you're getting your
information.
Speaking with upper year students often
has a lot of benefits.
But everyone is coming from their own personal paradigm.
So what one student found was a very difficult class, you
might not find that to be the case.
What another student says is a very strict instructor, you
may not find to be the case.
Make sure you're making informed decisions, and
consider where you're getting your information.
There's only one piece of advice, but it encompasses a
lot, which is really, really be professional in how you
conduct yourself.
And it doesn't mean that you treat it like a work
interviewing, and you show up every day in a suit.
But I think your attitude is really important, and
professors remember it, and TAs remember it.
And I think increasingly now in the age of social media and
people texting back and forth, I see a lot of informality
from students.
And sometimes this can have long lasting repercussions.
It has repercussions if later on you what reference letters
from that professor that you addressed as hey miss.
And I think often when student's are unprofessional
it's not out of any ill intent, I think it's just that
sometimes they don't know necessarily that it's not
appropriate in the setting.
I think university is a really great opportunity.
Not everyone realizes sometimes it is an
opportunity.
It's a privilege to be at university.
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