By Lori Fazari
Editor-in-chief
This is the best time of year on campus.
Walking down Gould Street under the late summer sun, everyone’s enjoying themselves and the view, not scurrying to class worrying about late assignments and tests. If you can make it to class with all the various parties and distractions going on, the first week is bullshit work, listening to well-rested professors outline what they’ll put you through over the year.
There are crowds of people everywhere, pub nights on the patio are great, and except for all the lineups of people who haven’t heard you can pay tuition at the bank, Rye High seems full of energy.
That, of course, comes from someone who doesn’t actually have to sit through any of those classes and start worrying about all that work piling up.
I’ve been there and have the receipts to show for it.
But during my four years studying journalism here, I quickly realized that I spent more money on classes as I actually attended less and less. Which was fine, because most of them were taught by professors who for the most part failed to inspire anything but dread at the thought of sitting through a whole lecture—maybe because they themselves were bored.
Early on I realized how much more I was learning and earning working outside of school. After a while, my education became not about achieving high marks but merely passing.
Consider for yourself, though, as your eyes glaze over as you wait in line to pay tuition with your summer earnings, what you’ll actually get out of the hours of class time you’ll be subjected to.
Will you use the things your professors have taught you 10 years down the line when you’re part of the working world? How will all those late nights spent cramming and writing essays serve you when you’re trying to earn a paycheque?
I became a phantom student at Ryerson—you could say I was in it only for the naming rights to my degree, which has yet to be framed. It was the time outside the lecture hall’s walls that counted most.
Now our university has earned the honour of being the most expensive one to attend in the province. Ask yourself what you’re getting for the money, and if class time ends up not fulfilling everything you wanted it to, appreciate that, in the end, you might be spending a lot for a mere piece of paper.
And appreciate these party times on campus while they last, because you’ll find that your roughly $4,500 tuition bill will buy a lot more bitterness come midterm season.
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