My colleagues Paco Estrada and Tom Kielstra recently sent out an e-mail asking for some advice to give first year students.
Elsewhere, I’ve written an extensive list of Advice for Students which is generally beneficial for students of all levels.
For first year students specifically, the most imporant piece of wisdom that I
have is this obvious fact: University is Not Highschool.
Let me say it again: University is not highschool. The deeper we look in to this fact, the more it will show us. The students are different. The teachers are different. The rules, regulations, and spirits of the two endeavours are so different as to be incomparable. Allow me to explain.
In highschool, the student body consists of an age segregated group of people from the same place1. For example, all the students in Grade 9 are roughly the same age. All the students at the school come from somewhere that is only a short bus ride away. These restrictions on age and proximity lead to a narrow view of what a student can be.
Let’s contrast this with the situation of students at university. Anyone who is admitted to university, and even some who are not, are permitted to study there. There are no age or locality restrictions. It is fairly typical to have, in a large first year course, a handful of mature students and retirees. I’m going to tell a bit of a story now, to introduce you to an unlikely classmate. At the St. George Campus, there is a student Helen, who, after living a full career in China decided to emigrate to Canada to dedicate herself to painting and learning She spends her days painting acrylic sunsets and studying MAT 157. Every single time MAT 157 is offered, Helen enrolls. She has taken it dozens of times. Every TA gets to know Helen well because she attends every office hour, and asks deeply insightful questions honed over years of pondering mathematics. She has a lifetime of experience behind her; she is mature, kind, and thoughtful. Helen is definitely not a highschool student. And yet, she could well be a student in your first year class. Your professors will treat you the same way that they would treat Helen.
There is another aspect of the university student group that is worth mentioning: the sample group of students. At your highschool, there was probably1 no academic restriction on being admitted. If you lived close enough to the highschool, then you got in to it. There were some students who worked harder, and achieved higher grades, but they weren’t specially selected by anyone. Given that you’ve been selected to university, it is reasonable to assume that you got high grades in the last couple years of highschool. This means that you are already a high achieving student; let us not forget this.
The population of students at a university is radically different than that of highschool. Almost every first year student has been carefully selected by the Office of the Registrar. They’ve screened thousands upon thousands of applicants, and selected the very best to attend. People from all of the world applied; few got in. The few who got in were all high achievers, like you. This means that your status as high achiever relative to your highschool is now relative to high achievers from the whole world. It is both humbling, and exciting, to be among such a population. As a teaching professor, I believe that it is an honour to teach such a population of students.
In highschool, the teachers are people who completed a bachelor’s degree and a teaching degree. This amounts to four to six years of study. To get a highschool teachable in mathematics, one needs to complete the equivalent of three university courses. For example, the following courses would qualify you to teach higshcool mathematics for your entire career.
A teaching degree is typically one to two years long. It consists of an intensive and explicit introduction to teaching. Teachers are made to learn the current curriculum, and how to deliver it effectively to students.
At university, your teachers are called professors. They have an entirely different educational background and skill set than your highschool teachers. Highschool teachers receive mandatory training on how to teach. University professors, even teaching stream professors, do not2. A professor has dedicated their entire adult life, and probably a good chunk of their teenage years, to mastering their field. Our education3 consists of a four year undergraduate degree, four to eight years of graduate study, and a lifetime of reflection. They are experts in their fields4. Your professors live to learn. If I find out that someone, somewhere, is interested in the same topic in education as me, then I will get on a plane and go talk to them for as long as necessary to understand their views. This is definitely not typical for a highschool teacher.
The teachers at university and the students are so vastly different than those at highschool that everything changes. The two institutions, despite both being dedicated to education, are totally distinct. This has practical consequences for how you should engage with the experience of university. Your professors will treat you like an adult because there are lots of mature adults in your classes. You can come and go from class as you wish. They will assume that you can decide what is in your best interest5. They know that you were the top of the class in highschool, and will ask you to work hard. And most importantly – You can approach your professors as an adult, and ask them interesting questions. They will be glad to help you because exploring interestin questions, and helping people learn, is their entire purpose in life.
One could say that the purpose of a highschool is to teach the curriculum proscribed by the government. The purpose of a university is to create and disseminate knowledge.
There are exceptions to this geographic limitation such as boarding schools and international highschools. If you attened an international baccaleurate program outside your home country, then your highschool experience was probably a lot close to the typical university experience. ↩︎ ↩︎
Many of your professors do learn seek instruction on how to teach. They attend lectures, workshops, and perform classroom observations. The Centre for Teaching and Learning at UTSC does a lot of wonderful support for faculty, aimed at improving the quality of teaching. However, this is all done voluntarily by faculty. ↩︎
As with any rule, there are exceptions. Erik Demaine became a full profesor at MIT at age 19. He’s really great guy. ↩︎
There are other differences between highschool and university teachers. They are sometimes subtle, and barely noticable. If you’re at the St. George Campus, waiting at the Blue Fry Truck, you might find yourself waiting in line beside a tall man with white hair. He pays for his hotdog and fries in cash, with his left hand. He goes back to his office, and does a bit of work over lunch. Later, you see him teaching an Introduction to Computer Science course. This man is Stephen Cook, who started the field of computational complexity studies. He is definitely not a higschool teacher. ↩︎
Due to the scale and scope of a university, it is very easy to cheat in university. All it takes is a willingness to lie and throw away opportunties. Professors have a lot of concerns other than catching cheaters. But knowing what you know now, about what a university is and does, why would you want to cheat? You could sign up at a gym, hire a world class personal trainer, and then use a forklift to do all the weight lifting for you. ↩︎
Published: Nov 18, 2023 @ 05:04.
Last Modified: Feb 19, 2025 @ 21:36.
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