The U of R Sucks
SHAMELESS PLUG / Arthur Ward
It’s true… you can avoid being miserable at the U of R. Here’s how.
The University of Regina is an awful place to go to university. I really wish I could go somewhere else. I don’t like the city, I don’t like my classes, and my professors are awful. And on, and on, and on.
I hear this constantly around the university. It’s a generation of university students, at least here, plagued with pessimism. I don’t know if it’s – to use that awful buzzword – a millennial thing, or if the concerns are actually grounded in fact. Sometimes there are awful profs, and sometimes the U of R has its problems, but it’s the complainer’s responsibility to make things better. Nothing will get better by complaining. Not to mention, there are a lot of things at this university to be optimistic about.
When I left high school, I decided that I was going to have a different attitude toward life. In high school, I mainly did solitary activities: reading, playing video games, playing guitar, etc. Essentially, I didn’t get involved with many activities at my high school, preferring to stick it out alone. Leaving high school, I quickly realized that I would only be at university for four years (nearly done!), so I had better get cracking on all the things this institution had to offer me.
Lecturers (like the amazing Ted Jaleta), debates, meeting as many people as possible, picking the brains of my profs, trying my hand at everything in the university until I found my groove, and all the while trying my best in all my classes, (always striving to take the most interesting ones).
The result? An amazing three years that I wouldn’t trade for anything, anyone, anywhere. So it really makes me cringe when people complain about this city or this university. Stop complaining and make a change in your life. It’s ridiculous how much there is to do at the U of R. Don’t believe me? Take a tour. One can get involved with URSU, a debating club, the Carillon (absolutely shameless plug), respective student societies, and so much more. Nobody should be bored here, and guess what, by getting involved in these sorts of clubs and activities, you make the university, and yourself, better. Not to mention that there’s also a more practical note to this: if two arts majors graduate in the same standing, but one has a plethora of extracurricular activities on their resume, guess who has a better chance of getting hired?
University is what you make of it; university does not make you. The sooner students realize this, the sooner this campus will be less of a commuter campus and the sooner there will be even more to do here.
The other day, I was sitting in the Carillon office during those high school tours (remember those?), greeting the new students, giving them the run down, and so on. I realized, that most students were probably just going to coast through university, without really seizing the opportunities presented to them.
So I did my little part: I tried explaining to them all the great things they can do here, the opportunities for them, and how it will help (and not just plugging the paper). Let’s hope that they have an even greater time than I did, and make this little place we call the U of R better for subsequent students.
Positivity! Yay! We create our own experiences for sure! Our lives are only as amazing as our attitudes are! Wishing I could go back and take advantage of all the great things the U of R has to offer. Good on ya for encouraging those students to get involved… and like we have talked about on many occasion… the people who take advantage of those opportunities will only create more for themselves. I have no idea why this article would generate hateful comments… it still baffles me! Obviously they are the ones who have boxed themselves in with misery and the illusion that the U of R does not have anything great to offer.