{"id":7551,"date":"2014-04-22T10:14:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T15:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/?p=7551"},"modified":"2019-08-12T22:54:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T02:54:20","slug":"ask-what-uni-can-give-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/?p=7551","title":{"rendered":"ask what uni can give to YOU."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Aska,<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m supposed to be going into my third year at UofT next fall but I fudged up really bad and will be going into my second year (credit wise). Last year I decided to take only political science and international relations courses. I realized as much as I loved International Relations I could not do it in a classroom setting so I had to drop all those courses (LWD). I also failed astronomy by like 5%. So this year I decided to double up on my courses and took 6 per semester to &#8220;catch up&#8221;, that backed fired. I&#8217;m about to fail a political science course (pol200) and I did awful in my other courses. Last year I was on academic probation but I got out of it after summer school, but I&#8217;m pretty sure I&#8217;m headed right back or even academic suspension. I figured out that I want to major in Equity , that&#8217;s so far a definite because there&#8217;s a variety of courses I can take which I like. I was told to do a minor in sociology by my registrar because it was the one class I did well in, and I do like sociology but again I screwed up and will just get a passing mark (50%). I&#8217;m undecided if I should stay in political science. I love it but the classroom setting isn&#8217;t working for me. I tend to fall asleep in my classes because my professors are too dry as are my readings. But most of the opportunities I want, require a BA in political science. I was also thinking about doing a major in Urban Studies but I despise economics in a classroom settings. I have really bad luck when it comes to economic teachers, it all started in high-school. And for urban studies I have to take an intro to eco course. Another problem I have is that I&#8217;m almost all out of my LWD and CR\/NO CR and have probably used up most of my first year course allowance figuring out what I don&#8217;t like. So I can&#8217;t screw up anymore. I&#8217;m going to make an appointment with the academic success centre later this week to see if they have any helpful advice. But I just don&#8217;t know what to do anymore. I&#8217;m just so burnt out from school, I have no motivation. The problem is I don&#8217;t like any other university other then UofT (in Canada). Also no course sounds interesting to me anymore. Any advice? I know I didn&#8217;t really ask any specific questions, but just any input would be greatly appreciated \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>OH P.S. I forgot to mention, I eventually do want to get into law school (Idk if i&#8217;m gnna stay in Canada or go abroad for that) But at this rate I<br \/>\ndo not have the grades.<br \/>\nP.P.S. All the opportunities I find for work or volunteering or internships require a GPA that I don&#8217;t have. And these experiences are amazing and will help me discover what I like and dislike, and if it&#8217;s for me.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<br \/>\nNeed a Spark<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>hey there,<\/p>\n<p>you&#8217;ve got a lot of stuff going on here. i&#8217;m gonna be honest, i don&#8217;t know how much help i can be. like you said, you haven&#8217;t asked any specific questions, and since what you are asking seems to fall under the category of General School Life Advice, i&#8217;m just going to go that route, and let academic success handle the nitty-gritty details of your next steps at school (subject POSt stuff, LWDs, etc.), since they&#8217;ll probably be better at that than i will, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>it seems to me that you&#8217;re interested in <a href=\"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/everythingBENC.gif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a lot of things<\/a>, but a lot of them you don&#8217;t like in a &#8220;classroom setting.&#8221; you said that more than once about different programs in your question, so i get the feeling that the issue here is not you finding a major that you like, but the actual atmosphere of school. if a lot of these things interest you, but not necessarily in a university context, then maybe the university&#8217;s the problem. i think maybe it would be helpful to think about what you really want out of your education, and whether uni can really provide it.<\/p>\n<p>keep in mind that i&#8217;m just making suggestions; i&#8217;m not going to tell you to drop out of school or make any drastic decisions, and of course you should definitely talk to your registrar&#8217;s office before making your decision, whatever it may be. however, i do think that every step of your education should be chosen by you, and for <a href=\"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/everythingBENC.gif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">your own benefit<\/a>. maybe sociology&#8217;s the best choice for you (just make sure you take a look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca\/ofr\/calendar\/crs_soc.htm#ASSPE1013\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">program requirements<\/a>\u00a0before committing yourself to that route), maybe you need to take a year off, or maybe you now&#8217;s the time to move on from uoft.<\/p>\n<p>ask yourself why you &#8220;like UofT&#8221;; if it&#8217;s just for the prestige or the pretty buildings, then you&#8217;re in it for the wrong reasons. additionally, i&#8217;d say your academic probation is definitely a cue from the university to take a good look at your school career, and make a serious decision about where you want to proceed from here.<\/p>\n<p>finally, there are plenty of exciting, real-world volunteer opportunities that don&#8217;t have a GPA requirement at all. i&#8217;ve done my fair share of educational, rewarding, productive volunteering, and not once have i had to provide my GPA. university is definitely not the only path towards being a successful, productive member of society, and doing some volunteer work could be your entryway into a career you actually, y&#8217;know, <a href=\"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tomskailoveit.gif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enjoy<\/a>. so <a href=\"http:\/\/www.volunteertoronto.ca\/networking\/opening_search.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">take a look around<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>best,<\/p>\n<p>aska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Aska, I&#8217;m supposed to be going into my third year at UofT next fall but I fudged up really bad and will be going into my second year (credit wise). Last year I decided to take only political science and international relations courses. I realized as much as I loved International Relations I could not do it in a classroom setting so I had to drop all those courses (LWD). I also failed astronomy by like 5%. So this year I decided to double up on my courses and took 6 per semester to &#8220;catch up&#8221;, that backed fired. I&#8217;m about to fail a political science course (pol200) and I did awful in my other courses. Last year I was on academic probation but I got out of it after summer school, but I&#8217;m pretty sure I&#8217;m headed right back or even academic suspension. I figured out that I want to major in Equity , that&#8217;s so far a definite because there&#8217;s a variety of courses I can take which I like. I was told to do a minor in sociology by my registrar because it was the one class I did well in, and I do like sociology but again I screwed up and will just get a passing mark (50%). I&#8217;m undecided if I should stay in political science. I love it but the classroom setting isn&#8217;t working for me. I tend to fall asleep in my classes because my professors are too dry as are my readings. But most of the opportunities I want, require a BA in political science. I was also thinking about doing a major in Urban Studies but I despise economics in a classroom settings. I have really bad luck when it comes to economic teachers, it all started in high-school. And for urban studies I have to take an intro to eco course. Another problem I have is that I&#8217;m almost all out of my LWD and CR\/NO CR and have probably used up most of my first year course allowance figuring out what I don&#8217;t like. So I can&#8217;t screw up anymore. I&#8217;m going to make an appointment with the academic success centre later this week to see if they have any helpful advice. But I just don&#8217;t know what to do anymore. I&#8217;m just so burnt out from school, I have no motivation. The problem is I don&#8217;t like any other university other then UofT (in Canada). Also no course sounds interesting to me anymore. Any advice? I know I didn&#8217;t really ask any specific questions, but just any input would be greatly appreciated \ud83d\ude42 OH P.S. I forgot to mention, I eventually do want to get into law school (Idk if i&#8217;m gnna stay in Canada or go abroad for that) But at this rate I do not have the grades. P.P.S. All the opportunities I find for work or volunteering or internships require a GPA that I don&#8217;t have. And these experiences are amazing and will help me discover what I like and dislike, and if it&#8217;s for me. Sincerely, Need a Spark \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 hey there, you&#8217;ve got a lot of stuff going on here. i&#8217;m gonna be honest, i don&#8217;t know how much help i can be. like you said, you haven&#8217;t asked any specific questions, and since what you are asking seems to fall under the category of General School Life Advice, i&#8217;m just going to go that route, and let academic success handle the nitty-gritty details of your next steps at school (subject POSt stuff, LWDs, etc.), since they&#8217;ll probably be better at that than i will, anyway. it seems to me that you&#8217;re interested in a lot of things, but a lot of them you don&#8217;t like in a &#8220;classroom setting.&#8221; you said that more than once about different programs in your question, so i get the feeling that the issue here is not you finding a major that you like, but the actual atmosphere of school. if a lot of these things interest you, but not necessarily in a university context, then maybe the university&#8217;s the problem. i think maybe it would be helpful to think about what you really want out of your education, and whether uni can really provide it. keep in mind that i&#8217;m just making suggestions; i&#8217;m not going to tell you to drop out of school or make any drastic decisions, and of course you should definitely talk to your registrar&#8217;s office before making your decision, whatever it may be. however, i do think that every step of your education should be chosen by you, and for your own benefit. maybe sociology&#8217;s the best choice for you (just make sure you take a look at the program requirements\u00a0before committing yourself to that route), maybe you need to take a year off, or maybe you now&#8217;s the time to move on from uoft. ask yourself why you &#8220;like UofT&#8221;; if it&#8217;s just for the prestige or the pretty buildings, then you&#8217;re in it for the wrong reasons. additionally, i&#8217;d say your academic probation is definitely a cue from the university to take a good look at your school career, and make a serious decision about where you want to proceed from here. finally, there are plenty of exciting, real-world volunteer opportunities that don&#8217;t have a GPA requirement at all. i&#8217;ve done my fair share of educational, rewarding, productive volunteering, and not once have i had to provide my GPA. university is definitely not the only path towards being a successful, productive member of society, and doing some volunteer work could be your entryway into a career you actually, y&#8217;know, enjoy. so take a look around! best, aska<\/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":[189,90,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career-choice","category-failing","category-subject-post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551","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=7551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}