{"id":2110,"date":"2010-03-11T15:34:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T20:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/?p=2110"},"modified":"2016-07-11T11:48:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T15:48:38","slug":"2110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/?p=2110","title":{"rendered":"follow your heart, not your nose"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hey aska,<br \/>\nI applied to UTSG for life sciences but I&#8217;m having a really tough time deciding on whether I want to attend New College or University College. I&#8217;ve been looking online (for example at the official websites) but I can&#8217;t seem to find a whole lot of information on New or UC (although there seems to be no lack of it for Trin and Vic) from a students perspective or information that hasn&#8217;t been polished to attract students. So I was wondering, which college would be closer to most of my classes? What&#8217;s the general atmosphere like at each? What&#8217;s the social scene like at each? Any other pros or cons you know about these two colleges (for example I read new college is pretty anti social and smells odd&#8230;)?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>First things first: stop it with the stereotypes. I&#8217;ve said this many times before in the past, and I&#8217;m going to say it again. There are anti-social and stinky people in every college (and yes, that includes you, Trinity. Those robes don&#8217;t magically prevent you from getting stinky, even if you think they do). And I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s fair to the 4000 people going to New College that you automatically stereotype them as being anti-social based on what sounds like a random forum post by someone who likely never even went to New College.<\/p>\n<p>I really don&#8217;t know which college will be closer to your classes, because 1) I don&#8217;t know what classes you&#8217;re taking, and 2) even if I did, the locations of classes change each year, so it&#8217;s really hard to say. Still, UC and New College are both located in the middle of campus, so both are pretty convenient places to be. They&#8217;re both close to places like the athletic centre and Sidney Smith (the Arts and Science building you&#8217;ll probably have a few classes there). If you&#8217;re a commuter, New College is close to the Spadina streetcar, but it&#8217;s not like UC is that far away from it, either.<\/p>\n<p>New College is a diverse bunch. They are the host of the Equity studies program, so diversity is something they really push for and some students really appreciate. Though UC isn&#8217;t too different. From what I gather, they are pretty open-minded group.<\/p>\n<p>As for other advantages? if you&#8217;re living at residence, you might want to consider how <a href=\"http:\/\/images.starpulse.com\/Photos\/Previews\/Powerpuff-Girls-cn04.jpg\">pretty<\/a> the buildings are. If you&#8217;re living in Toronto, take a tour of the colleges, if you can. Of course, the University College building is infamous, and is what a lot of people think of when they think of UofT. (Though one of my high school friends once said it looked like a haunted house. *shrug*)<\/p>\n<p>Finally, from what I&#8217;ve collected from being at UofT for several years, a lot of people seem to like UC I&#8217;ve even heard people saying that they wished they&#8217;d gone there. I don&#8217;t know how much you should let that affect your decision, but there it is. Still, I have a friend who&#8217;s an international student going to New College, and she&#8217;s still having a great time. She says that New College&#8217;s meal plan is probably the best on campus &#8212; and I&#8217;d be inclined to agree, because I&#8217;ve eaten at Victoria, UC, and New and I liked New College&#8217;s food the best. Of course, if you&#8217;re not living on residence, that&#8217;s not really an important issue.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that your decision is not final. If you find that you don&#8217;t like your college, you can always apply for a switch at the end of first year. Also, you might want to take a look at <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/UpbeaT\/2009\/11\/23\/new\/\">these<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/UpbeaT\/2009\/11\/02\/university\/\">posts<\/a> by the amazingly-awesome Cynthia of UpbeaT. She&#8217;s interviewed the student life director so they&#8217;re not exactly the <em>unpolished <\/em>opinions you requested, but they do nevertheless give you a good overall impression of the two colleges.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I know I probably have not swayed you too much in either direction, but my advice to you is just pick one and go with it. A lot of people find that at the end, their college choice is only a small part of their overall experience at UofT. You will meet people in other ways &#8211; such as joining extra-curricular activities, volunteering, or through your classes &#8211; especially if you&#8217;re in a small program. At the end though, I think one of the most important things you get from your University experience is that you will meet people from extremely different backgrounds. And I think that will happen no matter what college you pick. I know this totally doesn&#8217;t help you pick your college, but I think one day you&#8217;ll look back at my post and think WOW! Aska was right!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hey aska, I applied to UTSG for life sciences but I&#8217;m having a really tough time deciding on whether I want to attend New College or University College. I&#8217;ve been looking online (for example at the official websites) but I can&#8217;t seem to find a whole lot of information on New or UC (although there seems to be no lack of it for Trin and Vic) from a students perspective or information that hasn&#8217;t been polished to attract students. So I was wondering, which college would be closer to most of my classes? What&#8217;s the general atmosphere like at each? What&#8217;s the social scene like at each? Any other pros or cons you know about these two colleges (for example I read new college is pretty anti social and smells odd&#8230;)? Thanks. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211; First things first: stop it with the stereotypes. I&#8217;ve said this many times before in the past, and I&#8217;m going to say it again. There are anti-social and stinky people in every college (and yes, that includes you, Trinity. Those robes don&#8217;t magically prevent you from getting stinky, even if you think they do). And I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s fair to the 4000 people going to New College that you automatically stereotype them as being anti-social based on what sounds like a random forum post by someone who likely never even went to New College. I really don&#8217;t know which college will be closer to your classes, because 1) I don&#8217;t know what classes you&#8217;re taking, and 2) even if I did, the locations of classes change each year, so it&#8217;s really hard to say. Still, UC and New College are both located in the middle of campus, so both are pretty convenient places to be. They&#8217;re both close to places like the athletic centre and Sidney Smith (the Arts and Science building you&#8217;ll probably have a few classes there). If you&#8217;re a commuter, New College is close to the Spadina streetcar, but it&#8217;s not like UC is that far away from it, either. New College is a diverse bunch. They are the host of the Equity studies program, so diversity is something they really push for and some students really appreciate. Though UC isn&#8217;t too different. From what I gather, they are pretty open-minded group. As for other advantages? if you&#8217;re living at residence, you might want to consider how pretty the buildings are. If you&#8217;re living in Toronto, take a tour of the colleges, if you can. Of course, the University College building is infamous, and is what a lot of people think of when they think of UofT. (Though one of my high school friends once said it looked like a haunted house. *shrug*) Finally, from what I&#8217;ve collected from being at UofT for several years, a lot of people seem to like UC I&#8217;ve even heard people saying that they wished they&#8217;d gone there. I don&#8217;t know how much you should let that affect your decision, but there it is. Still, I have a friend who&#8217;s an international student going to New College, and she&#8217;s still having a great time. She says that New College&#8217;s meal plan is probably the best on campus &#8212; and I&#8217;d be inclined to agree, because I&#8217;ve eaten at Victoria, UC, and New and I liked New College&#8217;s food the best. Of course, if you&#8217;re not living on residence, that&#8217;s not really an important issue. Another thing to keep in mind is that your decision is not final. If you find that you don&#8217;t like your college, you can always apply for a switch at the end of first year. Also, you might want to take a look at these posts by the amazingly-awesome Cynthia of UpbeaT. She&#8217;s interviewed the student life director so they&#8217;re not exactly the unpolished opinions you requested, but they do nevertheless give you a good overall impression of the two colleges. Anyway, I know I probably have not swayed you too much in either direction, but my advice to you is just pick one and go with it. A lot of people find that at the end, their college choice is only a small part of their overall experience at UofT. You will meet people in other ways &#8211; such as joining extra-curricular activities, volunteering, or through your classes &#8211; especially if you&#8217;re in a small program. At the end though, I think one of the most important things you get from your University experience is that you will meet people from extremely different backgrounds. And I think that will happen no matter what college you pick. I know this totally doesn&#8217;t help you pick your college, but I think one day you&#8217;ll look back at my post and think WOW! Aska was right!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colleges","category-new","category-university"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}