An unusual circumstance

When I heard that classes would be in-person for the upcoming semester, I was over the moon. The anxiety set in a couple of minutes later. What if I walk into the wrong lecture hall? What if I can’t find my classroom? What if I humiliate myself in front of 500 people in the middle of a lecture? What if everyone stares at me? (And so on and so forth.) You know, the usual questions an introvert—and perhaps the occasional extrovert—asks themselves before walking into any given social situation. 

By nature, I find big groups of people intimidating, but this doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in meeting new people. In fact, I can’t wait to see my fellow second-year students face-to-face after spending all of last year viewing them through a screen. I’m hoping that we can all band together and figure out our ‘second first year’ together. I have a feeling many of us are wondering how we’re supposed to navigate this massive campus and make it to all of our classes on time, or how we’re going to manage closed-book exams again. These questions are what one would expect a first-year student to be asking themselves as they arrive on campus for the first time, but during this rather exceptional school year, second-years will be asking the very same questions.

On the bright side, our unique first year experience still provided us with the necessary tools to be successful in university-level courses, something incoming first-years won’t yet have. I found certain aspects of online learning to be quite handy, such as the ability to pause, rewind, or speed up recorded lectures. If I missed a lecture or found myself in a rush to get through the material, I could simply double the speed of the recording and whiz through the lesson, with a few pauses to finish taking notes. It’s a pity we can’t pause lectures in real time, but being able to attend lectures last year—synchronous or recorded—gave us the necessary blueprints upon which to build the foundation of our study and note-taking habits. I might not know exactly what an in-person lecture entails, but I won’t be coming in unprepared. This revelation helped alleviate my anxieties…somewhat.

For all my experience in online lectures, there’s little I can do to stop worrying about the social interaction associated with in-person learning. Luckily, I was able to spend my first year living in residence. I’ve met many of the people who make up the Victoria College community, and I can confirm that the people here are friendly and welcoming. Whether you are a first-year coming into university for the first time, or a second-year who never had the opportunity to visit campus, rest assured that your fellow Victoria students are more than willing to offer their help. 

Aside from academics, clubs and sports have also experienced many changes. Last year, I joined the Victoria Chorus, which took place entirely online. Rather than having live concerts, as was the norm, we ended up recording ourselves singing and sending the videos in by email. This year, I’m hoping we’ll be able to rehearse in person, if the University permits, and maybe even put on a show or two. As with everything else about the upcoming semester, I have mixed emotions. I’m excited yet nervous to attend an in-person choir rehearsal, but I’m glad I managed to acquire some experience, albeit in an unusual format, before returning to ‘normal.’

‘Returning to normal.’ For first- and second-years alike, we aren’t necessarily returning to ‘normal.’ As an institution, the University is reinstating some of its old methods of operation, but we students are entering an entirely new set of circumstances with which we have little—if any—experience. It’s important to remember that many of us are making the transition from high school to online university to in-person university, or just from online high school to in-person university. For second-years, that’s three different lifestyles in two years—it’s rather disorienting. I managed to settle into online learning (reluctantly), and now I’m jumping into in-person learning. The transition, though less jarring than the one from high school to university, is a transition nonetheless. Anxieties and worries of any kind are valid. We are, after all, still in the middle of a pandemic. It’s perfectly acceptable to worry about what life will be like in September, especially when changes can occur without warning.

All in all, I eagerly anticipate the start of second year, and I can’t wait to return to Toronto. During these trying times, I hope we can all come together, whether we’re in our first year or our fourth. We’re all coming back—or, in the case of those who haven’t been to UofT yet, coming in—to a vastly different year than the last. Life on campus is returning to ‘normal.’ For those of us who don’t quite know what that entails and who find themselves worried, know that you’ve still got some experience to guide you and that those of us at Vic are always willing to help out.