covid-19 - askastudent

covid-19

back to school, for real this time!

July 4, 2021
Hi! I’m an incoming second year student who basically feels like a first year because everything was online during my freshman year LOL

I guess I wanted to ask if you have any general tips for in-person classes in university. I also wanted to ask if you could let me know how to attend an online class before an in-person class (back to back). I saw some people on reddit talking about study rooms, but I also don’t really know how that works/how to book it? I’m in Victoria College studying English and BMS if that helps at all :]
Thank you so much in advance !!!

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hello there,

this is a great question!

here’s what i can come up with off the top of my head for in-person classes. it’s been a quick minute since i’ve done one of those, so i expect we’ll all need to adjust.
- use the U of T map to look up building codes when you plan your classes out. whenever possible, i like to avoid registering in back-to-back classes that will require me to run from corner to corner of campus. you can technically make it from con hall to vic within the ten-minute window between classes, but it may require some jaywalking and some awkward walk-running.
- note down the location of each one of your lecture halls before the first day of class!! and then check them last-minute to make sure they haven’t changed, as sometimes that happens. one of the worst feelings is running around a building looking for the right lecture room, only to find that the class recently moved across campus.
- make sure you bring snacks! there won’t be any more running to your fridge during lecture breaks if you get hungry.
- familiarize yourself with the underground tunnels at vic, since they’ll keep you warm and dry when you’re going between buildings in the winter. plus, remember to use the museum subway tunnel to cross queen’s park between the faculty of law and emmanuel college. it’s much safer than jaywalking if you’re in a rush.
- sit close to the front of your classes! i can imagine that if you have to talk with a mask on, you won’t need to struggle as much to be heard if you’re closer to the instructor.
other than that… i’ll be learning how to juggle online courses with in-person courses the same as you, as i’ve never done that before. i can imagine online courses that don’t require voice participation will be a lot easier to manage, as you can just pick a quiet study space on campus and take your class from there. just make sure you bring your laptop charger and headphones.

let me know if you need study space recommendations, as i do have a few favourites, but i think part of the fun of uni is trying all the spaces out and figuring out which ones you love!

if you do need to participate by turning on your camera and/or mic, it may make sense to book a study room. information about that will be available on this page when u of t reopens the booking system.

i hope this was at least a little helpful! i’m struggling to wrap my head around the concept of returning to campus myself, so i expect we’ve all got a learning curve just up ahead. remember to be gentle with yourself, stay hydrated, and plan things out well. you’ve got this!

be Boundless,

aska
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covid-19

the start of the school year just got that much more chaotic

July 4, 2021

Hi! I’m really confused about the Dean’s explanation of whether things will be online or in-person next year. I know that until September 23, classes are all gonna be online (right???) but what happens after that??? Do only some switch to in person?? Sorry i’m just really confused

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hey there,

it’s entirely fair to be confused, i think things are still quite a bit up in the air!

from my understanding, you are correct that classes will generally be online until september 23. after that, any classes labelled “in person” on ACORN/the timetable will switch to in-person offerings, unless you hear otherwise. it’s possible that these plans could still change with the evolving nature of the pandemic in toronto, but that’s the information we have so far.

for more information about how classes will look at the start of the academic year, i’d recommend reading through all the FAQ on this webpage, as it helped clear up a lot of the questions i had.

hope this helped!

be Boundless,

aska

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covid-19, failing, first year

sending hugs to all the first years <3

May 5, 2021
Hi I’m a first year life science student and to be honest this entire school year has not been great. I only passed one course and failed the rest of my courses. I don’t know what to do next to be honest. With COVID-19, online learning, online tests, online exams, online classes, the constant staring at my screen, trying to keep up with work, to be honest its too much. I don’t know what to do next with course selection and choosing majors. I plan on talking with a academic advisor. Any advice?

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hey there,

thank you for your patience with this answer! i’m really sorry to hear that things have been so rough for you. back in december, i heard from several other first years who were in the same boat as you, and it seems like this year was a phenomenally difficult one in which to be adjusting to uni life. i hope that you’re able to take some time to rest now that the academic year is over — please be kind to yourself!

i’m not sure if you’ll already have spoken to an academic advisor at your registrar’s office yet, but this is the advice i can offer you. i expect that you’ll be placed on academic probation since your CGPA is likely less than 1.50. maybe you’ll have been notified of that already, or maybe this will serve as a heads up for you. in either case, i’d ask your registrar what that means in terms of your course and subject POSt selection. there may be stipulations that i’m not aware of.

in terms of choosing majors, you’ll need to have selected the minimum program combination (a specialist OR two majors OR a major and two minors) to register in second-year courses. i’m not sure if the programs you’re interested in are open enrolment or limited enrolment, but for now you’ll need to select open enrolment programs that don’t require you to meet a specific threshold. if they’re not your actual program choices, think of them as placeholders that you can swap out next year if your CGPA is higher.

i’m not really sure what advice i can offer you regarding course selection, as that’ll depend entirely on your program goals and what requirements you need to fill. if you come up with any specific questions, let me know and i can try to help! otherwise, your registrar’s office is always a good place to go.

finally, i’d like to recommend some other resources that may help you moving forward:
- your college should have a learning strategist that you can book an appointment with. learning strategists can help you re-design your study systems, plan schedules that work for you, give you personalized time- and stress- management tips, and more. if you’ve never visited one, they may be useful to you as you try to pull your GPA up.
- i’m not sure what type of classes you’re in, but writing centres and math learning centres are also great places to visit for paper/homework help.
- if you’re feeling overwhelmed, u of t runs the ‘My Student Support Program,’ which is accessible 27/7 in multiple languages for confidential support. university is really tough, and resources like these have been invaluable to me as i’ve tried to make it through. i hope you access MySSP if you need it.
be Boundless,

aska
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admissions, covid-19

ma’am, this is a global pandemic

October 13, 2020

Hey, so I’m a student in grade 12 looking forward to applying for the concurrent program however, i know they need experience but what if i wasn’t ableto get a lot of experience because i was still in high school and then covid quarintine struck which completely blocked my chances now that i was older and able to get more volunteer experiences relating to teaching. Is that going to affect my application and get denied? Im so stressed about this 🙁

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hello hello,

this is the first i’ve heard about any concurrent program at u of t— do you mean the concurrent teacher education program? it looks like that program hasn’t been doing direct admission from high school for several years, so if that’s the program you’re after, you may want to look into other options.

anyway, i know that the issue of experience is something that’s causing a lot of anxiety for senior high school students. the thing is, it’s hard for me to say whether how much a lack of experience will impact your application. i’m not an admissions officer and as much as i wish i had the inside scoop on this stuff, i don’t.

it may be worth contacting whatever department you’re applying to and see if they’re willing to answer your questions. that’s usually what i recommend for admissions questions.

if it helps at all, what i can tell you is that normally, when you apply, you’re admitted based on how you compare to the others in your application batch. if everyone’s missing out on experience right now (which is quite likely), then you won’t be at any distinct disadvantage for not having experience. most students are in the same boat. i mean, the world is still in crisis!

an idea— is it possible that you can get creative with your application? for example, you could explain your situation, and then include any experience that might be transferrable to teaching, ie. peer tutoring, academic clubs, or any extracurriculars with leadership. if your school has a guidance or academic counselor, it’s possible that they may be able to provide you with advice on how to put a strong application together without experience. see who you can reach out to for help.

final words: i know admissions season is incredibly anxiety-inducing. remember to take breaks from applying/studying/working and drink water, stay connected with the people you love, and go outdoors if you’re able. when i was doing my apps a few years ago, they seemed like EVERYTHING. and they are incredibly important. but do what you can to prevent yourself from dissolving into a puddle of stress, yeah?

best of luck with applications and the rest of high school! aska is rooting for you.

be Boundless,

aska

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covid-19, grad school, profs

going the distance to bag those references

May 6, 2020

hello! i am looking for reference letters for graduate school and i was thinking of asking a professor during summer courses. any advice on getting to know my profs this summer when courses are online?

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hello hello,

good afternoon to everyone except profs who are still assigning textbooks that cost over a hundred dollars, even during an economic downturn.

grad school! an exciting endeavour.

online summer courses! a mediocre endeavour at best.

< so i took a solid chunk of time and thought this out, because initially it seemed highly unlikely to me that you'd be able to successfully get to know a prof who's teaching remotely. even before this pandemic, i'd taken a few online courses and found that each time without fail, the instructor remained a nameless faceless entity. do online instructors even exist?

i hate feeling useless, though, so here are the suggestions i scraped together for ya:< number one: online office hours

as far as i’m aware, most instructors are still holding office hours using platforms like zoom or whatnot. these office hours are gonna be your best bet to get to know your profs. show up, have good questions, make it clear you’ve engaged with their material so that you make a good impression.

bonus points for knowing what their area of research is and being able to talk to them about it– but only after you’ve spoken to them at least a few times.

number two: engage with your prof via email

it’s a second-rate strat, but if you’re unable for any reason to talk to your prof face to face over some kind of video call, sending them emails will at least let them know you exist. make sure these emails are polite, professional, and make you sound smart without trying too hard lol. respond quickly (which i suck at, rip me) and once again, ask good questions and express an interest in the class material! some form of communication is better than none.

number three: make yourself stand out if you have class discussions

now, i know this isn’t the case for many classes this summer, but some smaller upper-year seminars will still be holding live lectures with a participation or discussion component. if you’re planning to apply to grad school soon, my hope is that you’re an upper year able to take a small advanced class like this. participating is a good way to get noticed by your profs. the ones i’ve had have always appreciated quality participation, and if you do really well they’ll notice you and you won’t even need to try. it’ll then be easier on you when you reach out and want to talk about grad school later down the road.

number four: do well in the class, or make yourself stand out through assignments

it goes without saying that sometimes these things are out of your control.

if we all could do well in our classes we would. but in my experience talking to profs about grad school, they’ve been pretty transparent about how, if you want a solid letter, you should get an A in their course or have something academically noteworthy about you that they can discuss. if you can manage to do really, really well, or turn in a creative or surprising assignment, this will definitely get your profs to notice you as well as hand them material for whatever letters they may write you later on.

hope this was helpful! good luck with your summer courses and grad school applications.

be Boundless,

aska

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academic offense, covid-19, no one asked, profs, tests

quercus test PSA

April 23, 2020

hey hey hey there online schoolin’ students, and a good evening to everyone except profs who give closed book exams during a pandemic,

this is just a friendly neighbourhood announcement that when you’re taking exams on quercus, your profs can actually see a log of your activity.

some of yall might be aware of this already, but for those of you who weren’t, figured i’d put it up on the site. i know finals season is pretty much done but this might be applicable to anyone taking summer school. share to save a life, or whatever.

so for backstory, quercus is basically the same thing as canvas, just renamed to fit u of t’s pretentious tree theme.

canvas’s official support webpage is pretty transparent about the fact that, when a quiz or test is taken on its platform, it retains a ‘quiz log’ for up to six months. what can your profs see on this log, you might wonder?

well, funny that you ask. they can actually see a second-by-second ‘action log’ of when you view, answer, and skip questions. they can see every attempt you take at a question (previous answers don’t actually get overwritten) and every attempt you take at a quiz overall, as well as how long you spent taking the quiz.

most importantly, they can see when you click away to a different tab or window. this shows up as “stopped viewing the canvas quiz-taking page.” you can see why a high recurrence of these alerts might look suspicious, especially if your mark jumps quite a lot after the assessment in question.

i’ve also heard (but don’t know where on the canvas support site to confirm this) that profs can see what course materials have been opened/are currently open/have been downloaded on your computer. because we don’t love making empty allegations, this article from the OTHER U of T, the university of texas, seems to serve as confirmation. the article also lets us know that once again, canvas/quercus does its job WAY too well and provides a briefing of how long those tabs have been open as well. which is a bit embarrassing for me, given that i never close those tabs even when i’m done with them. my profs probably think i’m obsessed with their material.

obviously, canvas/quercus activity reports will generally not be an issue if your tests are open book, or if your profs have made other provisions to prevent students from cheating. but make sure you’re clear on what’s allowed and not allowed before taking an exam on quercus, just to be safe. dodging academic integrity issues is always cool. we like that.

be Boundless,

aska

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academic offense, covid-19

“waiting for academic rep to contac–” *static*

April 8, 2020

I’m a first year eng student shifting online. 2 labs I did not know how to submit and sent it to my professors & second time I tried to submit remotely and searched how to do it and submitted the wrong one. I got an email about an academic offense and realized my friends codes were sent and submitted and not mine they r completely different & work there is no incentive and I have my search history on how I was trying to figure out how submit. What will happen. Waiting for academic rep to contac

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hey there,

you ok, bud? never finished your sentence there.

i know it’s been a rough transition to online school for many people, and it must be even tougher to navigate that as a first year– in my first year, i had no clue what was what. so take a sec, breathe, it’s okay, you’re doing great.

typically, the procedure for academic offenses begins with a meeting with your instructor. i’m guessing that under the current circumstances, that’ll be conducted on zoom or something. anyway, this meeting is where you’ll explain to your instructor what happened– how the mistake was made, how confused you were, etc etc. at this point, it would be useful for you to have proof that what happened was an honest mistake. so have your search history ready to go, and any other evidence you think will work in your favor, like the file that you meant to submit and proof that it was completed on time. if, after this meeting, your instructor believes you to be innocent of an academic offence, you’re off the hook.

if not, the case goes up the ladder. in other words, it’ll go to the department chair or dean, and you’ll probably have another zoom meeting. more on the rest of the procedure here, should you choose to torture yourself with information that may not even apply to you.

that’s basically what i can tell you about what will happen to you. obviously the specifics of it will depend on how your meetings go, and how far up the chain your case gets moved. i hope for your sake that things get resolved early on so you don’t have to gou through the whole ordeal. maybe they’ll be a little more forgiving given that we’re all in a weird transition-to-online-school phase that’s thrown everyone off a little bit, instructors included.

unrelated, but i’ve referenced the code of behaviour on academic matters way, way more often than is healthy and this is the first time i noticed how melodramatic it is. truly. “this mandate is more than a mere pious hope. it represents a condition necessary for free enquiry, which is the university’s life blood.” um… ok. it’s just a set of rules, but ok.

sending you good vibes from quarantine! hope your mistake gets resolved okay.

be Boundless,

aska

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covid-19

PASS

March 23, 2020

Hi there! With all this craziness going on I’m just getting more and more confused. UofT just issued another statement and it seems to me like they’re just going to give us credit for the courses completed during winter. Did I read that right? Do we still have to pass? Should I bother handing stuff in?

Thank you! Stay safe!

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hey friend,

sorry i didn’t get back to you sooner– been upended by all this turmoil, same as everyone else, and lost connection to the website for a couple days as well. the u of t statement you saw does not mean that credit is going to be handed out for everything– the credit/no credit option is basically a pass/fail, meaning you still need to pass in order to receive credit.

as a result, i exhort you:

i want to stress the seriousness of this situation– the updated CR/NCR policy for covid isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card for your semester, but rather a provision from our school to ease the repercussions/anxiety that students disproportionately affected by covid are facing. i’ve been really proud of be a u of t student as this crisis has unfolded; our admin seems to be doing right by us, and seem to have recognized that so many people are packing their lives up and leaving toronto, caring for sick family members, or facing the mental health consequences of social distancing. i know it’s been confusing, though, dealing with the flood of information, and i’m not saying you specifically are treating it like a ‘hell yea, school is out’ situation. just wanted to clarify that. and i’m happy to continue clarifying policies if anyone else has questions.

in short– please continue handing stuff in. i hope you’ve continued to do so in the time between having sent this question in and seeing the answer. i know it’s difficult to focus on school right now, but if you need a lil’ monday motivation, here’s our fave artsci dean melanie woodin with a good luck/hang in there message. most wholesome thing i’ve seen all week.

hope you’re staying safe and healthy as well– and another reminder to everyone to use my tumblr ask box for covid-related things, as i monitor it more often and will respond quicker. on top of that, please don’t look to me for urgent answers. your registrar’s office is still your best option for important matters.

be Boundless (but within the bounds of your home),

aska

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