health and wellness - askastudent

academic standing, health and wellness

nooo don’t suspend me how will i bench press

September 27, 2024

can probation/suspension students use the gym or the counselling people? is that allowed? or are we no longer considered students???

hey there,

ok so this is sort of an interesting one because there’s nothing official said about this on any of the U of T websites. so we’re gonna have to rely on our sleuthing and reasoning powers here.

first off, probation and suspension are two different academic standings (here is some Official info on that). when you’re on probation, you’re still enrolled as a student, but your grades are sort of put on watch. the best way i can think of explaining it is, it’s basically academic purgatory lol. you’re not quite suspended, but you’re also not in good standing. it’s sort of the buffer zone before getting suspended, where you still have the chance to pull your grades up and get back into good standing — but if you don’t, you’ll get suspended. you can read more about the specific GPA’s that determine all this on that site i linked.

meanwhile, when you’re suspended, you’re technically not enrolled/registered for the school year, so everything sorta goes on pause.

can you still use the gym?

using the gym and (some) of the libraries would require that your T-card works. however, your T-card would not work if you’re suspended.

the biggest determining factor here is incidental fees. if you’re suspended, and you aren’t registered for the school year, you won’t be paying your fees, which is what gives you access to the gym in the first place.

i guess you could separately pay to access some of the gyms though, like the hart house gym, which i know non-U of T folks can pay to use.

can you access counselling/mental health services?

by counselling services, i’m going to assume you mean health & wellness services and registrar counselling?

again, the services provided by health & wellness are covered through incidental fees and that makes me think that maybe you won’t have access.

BUT i did some digging and found this one person on reddit (keep in mind, idk how reliable this is) who was asking a similar question to this just last month. they were asking if they could still go to their mental health appointment if they were placed on 4 month suspension. they then came back to update us (king behaviour, imo) that they were still able to go to their appointment! so it seems like you’re not automatically kicked out of the system if you’re suspended.

so it seems to me that if you already have an ongoing relationship with someone at health & wellness, it’s worth reaching out directly to them for clarification. they might be able to continue working with you, especially if your suspension is short, but you’d need to confirm that. like for example, if you see your therapist every week and get suspended, i don’t think you should get cut off from therapy? there has to be a way around that.

it’s just if you’ve never gone, and try to initiate something after you’re suspended that you might run into issues, i think.

so ultimately, your best bet here is to double-check with health & wellness to know for sure. if they don’t have an answer, maybe your registrar’s office will.

because even in the worst case scenario in which you are completely cut off from accessing health and wellness services, you won’t be completely stranded. if you’re suspended, you still have access to your registrar’s office for support and advice. (this fact comes directly from my registrar). they will be able to offer you counselling services and mental wellness support — and some colleges or faculties might have specific resources or guidance for suspended students, so definitely check them out.

sooo tldr: if you’re on probation, you’ve got access to gyms and counselling services. if you’re suspended, no access to gyms, possible access to health and wellness counselling, definite access to faculty/college registrar counselling.

and, yeah! i hope this was helpful. best of luck to you, feel so free to reach out again if you have more questions!

over and out,

aska

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health and wellness, mental health

counselling! cw: mental health

April 13, 2019

Does uoft offer therapy? My friend at another uni said it was a part of her tuition and set up appointments.

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hello and welcome,

thanks for asking, cause this is something we should all know about.

resources-for-the-run-down rundown time. options! delightful! not all of these are necessarily set up by u of t, but i figured the more you know the better, right?

below i’ve given you everything i’m aware of, and you can weigh whether or not each will meet your needs. i’ve also tried to include what i’ve heard about each option. never worked up the guts to take the plunge and get help myself (working on it !!) but if i ever do, i’ll update this with personal experience lol

1. help line

some people love it, some people hate it– i was at a mental health forum a week or so back, and peoples’ experiences with this seemed to vary dramatically. i guess it depends on whether or not you call at peak times– apparently wait times can be over an hour, or there can be no wait time at all. but! good2talk is an always-open mental health helpline for young adults, so it is a resource available to you should you wish to give it a try. it’s also bilingual, if that plays a role in your accessibility.

a lesser-known one is the gerstein crisis centre, which you can phone at 416-929-5200. as far as i know, this isn’t affiliated with our lovely lifesci library of the same name. they pick up 24h/day and serve anyone 16+.

what i like about the help line option is that you don’t have to leave your home to talk to somebody. a lot of the time when i’m coming down from an anxiety attack, the last thing i want to do is bundle up and head outside. i want blankets, pajamas, and the safety of my own room. phone help lines are probably good for this feel.

2. health and wellness

from what i’ve heard, this is generally not the way to go. there’s a really high demand for the counsellors at health and wellness, and i’ve spoken to people who have waited 4-6 months for an appointment once they’ve obtained a referral. i don’t think it’s the fault of anyone working there, and while i understand peoples’ anger, i’m hesitant to take an adversarial stance with the staff and admin on this issue. to me, it seems like the system itself is just overwhelmed and we need to be funneling more resources into it. which is a whole tangent you didn’t ask for. get to the point, aska, cmon.

to get an appointment, you can call, book online, or visit them in person. more on this here.

i’m pretty unfamiliar with the system and couldn’t find much else otherwise. if you feel up to it, you can give this a try. it’s supposed to be the main u of t-organized resource for mental health therapy.

i don’t know how long this is gonna be up, but at least during this exam season, you can get drop-in h&w counselling at robarts. appointments are 45min beginning every hour 5-10pm. and and and, they’re offered in NOT JUST ENGLISH but hindi, mando, and punjabi. give it a shot if you’d like, this year it runs til april 30.

3. embedded counselors

these tend to be a lot more accessible than health and wellness, from what i understand. they’re essentially counsellors from h&w assigned to a college/program and operating at a location close to them (which helps if you live in res, i guess). because they serve a smaller demographic, it follows that they’d be easier to get an appointment with. i want to stress, though, that this is just something i’ve heard from friends’ experience– a friend at trin managed to book something the next week, i think.

i believe you can phone h&w to get an appointment with these as well, but some also have alternative methods of contact you can give a try. eg. for the innis ones, you can drop into the registrar’s office and ask, or speak to specific staff who can hook you up.

here are links to all the ones i’m aware of (a very limited list):

utsg

trin, vic, innis, uc, kpe (undergrad and grad), engineering, grad students in general. anything i didn’t link here, eg. other colleges and professional faculties should all still have embedded counsellors! just call h&w and ask for whatever you’re affiliated with.

utsc

psych, english, anyone living in res

utm

send help ?? could not FIND anything. really sorry, i’ll keep looking and see what i can add for yall ‘sauga kids. maybe utm doesn’t have embedded counsellors, though?

4. counseline

seems like this is mainly targeted to utsg artsci kiddos. in-person as well as online counselling is available at this outlet running out of the faculty of social work. there isn’t a lot of info for how intake works, but you can try shooting an email at the project coordinator, whose contact info is available here.

this may be a good LGBT+ friendly option, cause they collab with the sexual/gender diversity office.

5. OISE

seems like our lovely OISE runs a clinic for counselling and therapy. you’d be speaking to a student doing their clinical, but under supervision by a professional. there are associated fees, and i’m not sure if uhip covers these but it might. the clinic site recommends that you call intake and ask about a specific program to get further details, and apparently subsidies are available in some cases.

i’m a lil iffy about this one, just cause they do record your session for training purposes. i mean, they delete it after, but i wouldn’t be fully comfortable knowing that my session would be accessible to someone other than my therapist and i. just something important to be aware of, i guess. i understand that it’s probably important for the facilitators to be learning from the sessions they’re carrying out.

6. external counselling

in my experience, if you struggle to get help from any of these other options/don’t feel like you have the energy to give them a try, looking for something outside of u of t may not be a bad idea. if you haven’t opted out of the university’s insurance plan, you have coverage under the universal health insurance plan, or uhip.

this essentially means that if you choose to see someone outside of the university’s system, you’ll get refunded $125 per visit at most. you can do this 20 times a year, which doesn’t sound too terrible compared to most of the 7-8 visit limits on other options. it also gives you more flexibility with who you choose to see, and where you go.

7. stella’s place

i’ve never been, but stella’s place looks promising. really, really promising, actually. they do mental health help for young adults 16-29 free of charge. i don’t know what wait times are, but it does appear that they’re actively working to make them shorter.

you can find their contact info under this FAQ page, or visit them at 18 camden. it’s a half hour’s walk/10 minute streetcar from robarts. they do these sessions 3pm on thursdays where they walk you through all the options they offer, and i think if you attend these you’re automatically eligible to join their groups as well as get individual counselling. if it works better for you, walk-in counselling is offered tues/thurs 3-5 to anyone, regardless of whether you’ve attended stella’s place previously!

did i mention it’s f r e e ?

8. online option

i believe studentcare is running an online counselling service that works under uhip coverage as well. you talk to a licensed psychologist through a video call, kind of like skype i guess, but with a different software. and you get the convenience of not having to trek to an in-person clinic and wait.

9. side-options

they’re not in any way professional therapists or counsellors, but residence dons and commuter dons have received basic mental health training and may be able to help you out, maybe while you’re waiting to see a real therapist. it’s a better option than not having anyone to reach out to, in any case.

i’m hoping to see this list of options expand as u of t starts to address the deficiencies in its mental health help system.

if you’re reading this and know of anything i didn’t mention that you think should be on here, or if you’ve had experience with any of these options and have advice to impart, comment it below and i’ll edit this post accordingly.

over n out,

aska

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fees, GPA, grades, health and wellness, mental health, OSAP

mario kart ghost mode is the only mode that matters

March 15, 2019

Hi there,

I am currently in my third year at UTSG and sitting at a 2.61 GPA and I am feeling pretty shitty about myself, I had a pretty rough last semester, but am trying to get myself back on track for my last year and a half. Is messing up a semester going to set me back significantly? do you think that taking summer courses and trying to get good grades in my 4th year would be enough time for me to pull my GPA back up? I feel really bad because I went from a 2.9 in my first year to a 2.61 in my first semester of third year, because of personal reasons and I also changed programs. How do I stop comparing myself to the accomplishment of others? I know my GPA is not the worst, still a B, but it is so hard being surrounded by others who are doing so well, and is so toxic and damaging to my mental health.

ALSO OSAP QUESTION

I was advised by my registrar to drop the courses that I was not doing well in this year to save my GPA, which brought me to 3 courses per term, which is still a full time status, and was told that i would not get in trouble with OSAP for dropping these courses. Is this correct? I am afraid to drop the courses I want to this semester because of this and I do not want to get into any type of trouble with osap.

thanks..

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hello!

coupla questions here, so i guess i’ll break it up like i usually do.

can i pull my gpa up?

i thought about this one for a while. looked at the numbers and all, and tried to figure out if there was some mathy way i could give you reassurance. unfortunately, my brain doesn’t really work like that, but i can link you to the u of t gpa calculator that will be able to give you a more definitive answer anyway. basically, it’ll let you input your grades so far, as well as hypothetical grades for future semesters. then, it’ll calculate your SGPA and CGPA with all that considered.

the thing with summer courses is that they are accelerated, so they can sometimes be harder to do well in. so just be cautious before rushing into it, i would say.

osap!!!

ah, money issues. so for your OSAP to be secure as an undergrad, you need to have at least 1.5 credits per term– that translates to three courses. as long as you make sure you keep these three courses, your osap should be safe! keep in mind this doesn’t mean an average of three per semester– you can’t take two now and four later, and hope you’ll be okay. osap looks at each term separately. and if you do have a permanent disability of any sort, that requirement drops down to 1.0 credits or two courses.

what about my mental health?

i feel like i should start by linking you to mental health resources. i’m only really aware of the ones @uoftears_ on instagram uses: where to get free mental health help in toronto, as well as the university health and wellness centre and mental health resources. if you check these out, they’ll likely to be able to give you better support than i can, and if you’re struggling with your own mental health i want you to get the best help possible.

with that said, this is definitely something i’m sensitive to. every time i get a question along these lines i’m at once saddened that another person feels this way, but glad that we have the opportunity to talk about it a little. we go to a competitive school, and based on your program/community maybe you’ll feel it more than others might.

one way i’ve been taught to look at it– and you can decide for yourself whether this perspective makes you feel better or pisses you off– is that you never know what’s going on under the surface. it may seem like some people have it all– are doing super well, have that golden 4.0, whatever. the thing is, people with all sorts of GPAs are self-conscious about their grades, and those at the higher end of the scale often feel an insane amount of pressure that begins to impede on their mental health as well. seems like they should be happy with what they’ve got, yeah, but the happiness isn’t intrinsic to the number– it’s more about how you look at it.

basically, it can be rough no matter what your GPA is, unless you’re able to work towards the place where your grades and self-worth aren’t intertwined. obviously, this is just my take. it’s something i struggle quite a lot with myself, if that helps. i myself was raised in an environment where my self-esteem was contingent on my academic achievement, and that’s something i’d like to leave behind but haven’t yet. bad grades still feel hella personal, especially when i know people are doing a lot better than me. so i definitely sympathize there.

something i’m trying to learn is that it’s definitely healthier to focus on yourself. think about it like playing mario kart ghost mode, if you will. sure, you can try to out-race everyone else, but because i SUCK at racing games i’ve learned to be okay with beating my own record. hopefully someday that’ll transfer over to the rest of my life. but for now, it’s a start. wow, a metaphor! hope my high school english teacher would be proud.

suffice it to say that i really hope you’ll be able to pull your GPA up, but if you can’t? just work on what you can control– improving your study habits, learning the material, and reaching out when you need help. and throw some time in to take care of yourself too, man. put on a face mask. spend a lil time outside, now that it’s warming up. watch an episode of a show you like. idk, whatever works for you. best of luck, my friend.

x aska

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academic success, failing, health and wellness, mental health

i’m rootin’ for you!

February 5, 2018

HI!!!
Sooo ya, Im in my 3nd year of study and I already failed 2 courses back in first year. I thought I was doing fine in this course (csc236) but then the marks came and it was abysmal. During this whole year I wasn’t feeling well, a lot of anxieties and some depression – I know, I only have myself to blame. I’d like to ask what are your suggestions on the actions I should take to deal with this 0.0gpa and the advice to do better?

Thanks ;(

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hi!

that sounds like a really tough situation to be in. i’m really sorry for how long this response has taken me, but i hope that you still find it helpful.

first of all, i’m going to suggest that you make an appointment with your registrar’s office. they can help you and/or point you towards resources that can help you. they should be your first point of contact whenever you’re feeling distressed (emotionally or academically). make an appointment, talk to one of the advisers there, and they’ll be able to give you more nuanced/ detailed/ personalized advice– more than i can give you (as a lowly student blogger).

for academics, i highly suggest checking out the academic success centre. you can make appointments with learning strategists, mentors, people who work in writing centres, and a whole bunch of folks that’re there to help. they can provide a lot of personalized advice and teach you all about HOW you learn and ways of learning more effectively. that should help you learn BETTER and (hopefully) boost your marks. they also have some walk-in appointments that you can make, if you don’t wanna make an actual appointment.

you should also check out health and wellness. in your question, you said that you aren’t “feeling well” and have “a lot of anxieties and some depression.” i think that you should check out their mental health services, even if you don’t think that you need to. mental health is super important, and the university doesn’t talk about it enough. mental health can really have a negative effect on your academics and getting to a healthy state of mind can help improve your academics as well.

i hope this was helpful. i think that, most importantly, you should make an appointment with an adviser at your registrar’s office– they are literally paid to help you. school, especially this school, can be really hard, and we all need a little bit of help sometimes. there’s no shame in it 🙂

good luck.

xoxo,

aska

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