A sky view of University College, U of T just outside Convocation Hall.
There's something very intimidating, yet beautiful about walking through the Harvardesque buildings, routes and the odd assortment of stone archways at U of T. My first time on campus reminded me so much of Harvard that I held in a sigh of admiration. I remember this quite well: I was seventeen and booked for an early-morning tour of the campus. As a Torontonian, I should have had a great sense of the architectural wonders gracing U of T, but I hardly walked by the campus. Downtown is a menagerie of sights and sounds, as well as tastes, so I've spent most of my time scouring the non-academic centers of metropolitan Toronto. It was like discovering a little nugget, a little gem of frozen time.
I spent a morning wandering the downtown campus before picking up my convocation tickets; I almost forgot that Simcoe Hall was adjacent to Convocation Hall. It takes some remembering and some mind-bending to realign yourself on campus, but once you do, you realize how easy it is to weave through fragments of classes and scattered students leaving chemistry, anthropology or biology classes. I remember how I held my breath; I wondered if they could smell that I was no longer a student at the university, that I was now an alumnus and that I was simply visiting, not staying. My time spent at U of T honed my complex a bit; I could tell when a non-university student was wandering the premises and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand, my arm hairs prickling with feverish detection. It wasn't so much hostility, as it was innate pride. Who are you and why are you walking on student-sacred ground? It came with years of browbeating work and grading curves, so I suppose it was a conditioned response as opposed to a manifested feeling of superiority.
As a graduate student outside of the University of Toronto, I feel that there is some pride to knowing that I survived a stringent set of guidelines and rules. There is a work ethic I cannot tear from myself; I can tell myself to calm down, to take a day off, and I will, but the work ethic returns with great force. After that day off, a full day of work follows. It's the law of give and take, of work and play, and where better to learn about the risks and rewards of hard work than at U of T? The land of high quality input, critical appraisal and creative problem thinking has generated cohorts of brilliant minds, of incredibly astute researchers in various fields.
For all the griping I've done over the years (re: ridiculous work loads, difficult and meticulous marking schemes, multiple choice tests that have been the bane of my existence, the stripping of my creative and literary passion, the homogenizing of personalities into assigned numbers, etc), I do have some sense of pride, albeit sick and misaligned. If you've graduated from U of T, or if you are on your way, I can tell you that despite the gruesome journey you've taken, you'll have a great sense of pride in coming from a top tier school. Of course, this is no advertisement or endorsement of the school or its programs; it's simply a fact. Once you've survived what seems like the most difficult years of your undergraduate career, anything afterwards just feels possible.
As I walk into Convocation Hall tomorrow evening, donning my hood and wearing uncomfortable heels, I'll take one more glance at the beautiful architecture that inspired so many scholars. Austere, tall, proud are all words that describe the university and its aged stone buildings. Timeless, sturdy and mature is what you'll hopefully be by the end of your term there.
To alumni, graduates and persevering undergraduates: we came, we saw, we conquered--we survived.
No comments:
Post a Comment