In my first year in residence, it often felt like I was stumbling blindly through my classes.  Looking back, it’s honestly a miracle that I even passed my first semester classes!  Then, in the second semester, I felt slightly more prepared after having survived the first half of the year, but there were times when I still felt extremely lost and unsure about how to succeed and thrive at university. 

Then, I came back to residence this fall as a second year, and I realized that the best resource to help me through my first year had been right in front of my eyes the entire time!  Second and third year students in residence are an AMAZING resource for students just starting university, and even for fellow second year students:  they’ve taken your classes before, they know what a given professor likes to see in assignments, and they can help you take your marks from the C to the B, or even the B to the A. 

This year after arriving back in Sackville and during quarantine, I was sitting on the grass in the quad talking to a group of first years.  One was complaining that they’d dropped close to $800 on their first semester textbooks the night before.  When I heard about the books they’d bought, I realized that I would have suggested that they honestly didn’t need about half of them.  And after realizing that I’d taken all the courses that they were planning on taking, we immediately started talking about at least 10 different questions that had clearly been weighing on them.  It was then that I realized that upper year students are absolutely amazing resources, that often get completely skipped over when it comes to who the university recommends a first year go talk to, or who we might think of as someone super helpful. 

As someone who has taken a class before, we can give you all sorts of insider information, and even more, some of us might even be willing to help you look over your papers or assignments, and see if there’s anywhere that you could improve just a bit, or whether your paper is amazing and good to submit as is!  Residence is also full of tutors or TAs for specific classes, and talking to this person in the casual setting of their room or a lounge is much less terrifying than attending a help session for that specific class. 

Upper year students can offer a first person POV of what the course you’re taking was like, what the prof looks for, how you can succeed, whether you’ll need the textbook, and so, so much more. These students are such valuable resources, and so I know that this year I’ll DEFINITELY be taking advantage of this, and you all should too!