What changes might I experience?
This is the exact content found in the ‘What changes might I experience?” activity within the Pre-Arrival Program.
Whether you’re coming straight from high school, transferring from a different institution, here on exchange or coming after spending some time in the workforce, starting at UVic means starting a new phase of your life. It’s exciting! But we also know it can be a bit nerve-wracking. This transition typically results in a lot of changes in your life and change can be hard. What are some of these changes?
Your relationships with your current friends and family and your support system may change as you move to a new city, move out of your family home and/or start prioritizing your time differently.
Classroom expectations may be different than what you’ve experienced in the past and you may need to study more and/or differently than you have in the past.
You may be responsible for tasks that haven’t fallen to you before, including things such as cooking, laundry, cleaning and finances. Even if you have taken care of these tasks before, they may look different as you try and fit them into your UVic life.
If you’re not local to Victoria, you may experience differences in culture and climate that require some adjusting to.
Your daily schedule may be different. ‘School’ is no longer a 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. commitment and you will likely have classes scheduled at various times all throughout the day and evening, with free time sprinkled throughout as well.
You’ll likely have fewer people checking up on you regularly. Your family may no longer be making sure you’re awake and out the door every morning, no one will be telling you to go to bed at a certain time and it’s unlikely you’ll have a professor tapping you on the shoulder to remind you to submit an assignment.
Change can be difficult, so it’s important to recognize that you don’t have to know everything right from the beginning. University is a time for learning and experimenting, and mistakes and failure are perfectly okay, as long as you get back up and try again. Additionally, you’re not starting from scratch here. Parts of your life may be changing during this transition, but you have a wealth of skills, knowledge and experience that brought you to this point. That’s all still useful!
If all these changes feel a little overwhelming, know that you’re not alone and that there are things you can do to help make the transition a little easier (that’s what this module is for!). It is possible to make it through the changes and challenges- just ask the thousands of students who started at UVic before you! It just takes a little thought, effort, intention and the willingness to reach out and ask for help when you need it.
As a start, watch this video (2:30) to hear what a few current students had to say about the challenges they faced in their first-year at UVic and the advice they have for you.