On my first night as a university student, I accompanied my roommates grocery shopping. I did not need to buy anything and would not for a long time. To give you an idea of my preparedness, all you need to know is that I packed 12 kitchen sponges and a 24-pack of toilet paper. However, I was momentarily possessed with the spirit of a coming-of-age movie protagonist and thought it would be deeply symbolic to make my first purchase as a student on my first night of university. I went for a giant glass jar of dry roasted peanuts. For the following two semesters, the jar of peanuts haunted me, opened but barely touched, the dim light of my residence room giving it a haunting yellow halo. The lesson I learned from this is that university life is not a charming off-beat indie movie directed by Greta Gerwig. I had simply wasted $6.99 for no good reason. Below I have listed, in no particular order, some more lessons that I learned during my first year.

One. The orientation week club fair is not a good place to be if you succumb easily to peer pressure. Hold your ground and don’t hand out your email just because someone asks for it. I have been ignoring emails from the Badminton Club for the past six months. Also, be prepared to break hearts. As I walked by the Hindu Students’ Association booth, a lady asked if I wanted to join. I said no, and her face collapsed like an under-baked cake. I was pushed past her by the crowd behind me and did not have the chance to clarify that I am not Hindu, I am just brown. I have thought about her sunken cake face for the past six months. The club fair is a lawless land that robs you of your humanity. Social norms break down. I am convinced it doubles as a Lord of the Flies experiment overseen by a sadistic English grad student. Toughen yourself up beforehand and say a prayer for the booth runners.

Two. Despite living in the GTA for seven years, I had successfully limited traversing downtown Toronto only for violin examinations and medical emergencies. As such, my TTC knowledge left much to be desired. The first day that I travelled to residence alone, I took the Bedford exit at St George Station instead of the St. George exit, despite being in full possession of the knowledge that my residence was on St George Street. Instead of turning back, I kept walking, past the Varsity Centre, past the Royal Ontario Museum, past a few weed shops, all the way down to the then newly opened Chick-Fil-A. This all happened while I attempted to understand Google Maps for the first time. I ended up taking an Uber to residence and called my sister, who took me out for charcoal ice cream to calm me down. Unfortunately, they were out of the charcoal flavour, so we got vanilla instead. It was disgustingly expensive and tasted mediocre. I digress. My point is that Google Maps literacy is essential for success in university life.

Three. University tutorials can be quite intimidating. The trick is to see your TAs as deeply flawed individuals. During one political science tutorial, my TA asked if anyone could comment on feminism and ended up choosing a male student to contribute. Halfway through the student’s sentence, he cut him off, saying that the optics of asking a man to comment first on feminism had just occurred to him. He then asked a female student who had also raised her hand if she’d like to go first. She replied that she did not want special treatment and told the male student to continue. This anecdote is embedded with very deep commentary regarding political correctness in universities.

Four. Another point about tutorials, they are not always ethnically diverse. Diversity, however, can come with its own set of issues. In another poli sci tutorial, the only other South Asian in my class emphatically and vigorously described how everyone in Brampton votes purely based on the candidates’ last names without even considering the party they represent. I had to clench every muscle in my body to restrain myself from physically taking her down. She was right, of course, but these are secret shames that should remain buried in the hearts of first-generation immigrants, not pulled out of one’s back pocket to support Verba Shlozman’s defence of proportional
representation electoral systems. Prepare yourself for similar ethnic secret shames to be so unceremoniously revealed.

Five. If you’re in Social Sciences or Humanities, make peace with the fact that you will buy at least one terrible book written by your professor or your professor’s friend that has been connected to the syllabus with so tenuous a link that a mere cough of dissension would sever it completely.

Six. Many people warn you to take care of your mental health in your first year. Some of the warning signs that you may not be taking proper care yourself are quite universal, e.g. sleeping too much, not sleeping enough, feeling unmotivated, etc. For me, it was wasting my Disney Plus free trial unironically watching reruns of Good Luck Charlie. Just like poor mental health can manifest in many ways, self-care takes different forms, such as walking to the nearest Shoppers Drug Mart, buying a giant bag of Chicago mix popcorn, and eating the whole thing in one sitting. The important thing is to not judge yourself or others.

Seven. The final lesson I will share is that your social life is never so dire as to warrant downloading a dating app. You don’t need passive aggressive strangers sending you a question mark emoji if you don’t reply within twenty minutes. You don’t need to see high school classmates and family friends in a whole new light. You really don’t need to read several consequent profiles that appear to confuse liking The Office with having a personality. I ended up changing my location to Auckland, New Zealand just for some variety. It did not work.

University is not a Greta Gerwig movie—it’s more like a Quentin Tarantino war film produced by Michael Bay. If these references are too mainstream, it’s probably because I dropped Intro to Film Studies after one lecture. In my defence, the professor opened the class with a clip that included a crucifixion and several male appendages. I digress. Regarding university, to quote the classic children’s picture book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, you can’t go over it and you can’t go under it. You have to go through it. Listening to your sociology TA’s jokes about swinging may be a little jarring at first, but before you know it, you’ll be such a pro at uni life that when you slip and fall while racing down the subway steps to get to lecture on time, you’ll get up, dust the salt stains off your jacket, and still buy a packet of obscenely overpriced Welches gummies from the Gateway newsstand before taking up a sprint again. What can I say? Some people never change.