We Should Remove the Stigma Associated with Taking a Gap Year

This week, several media outlets have reported that Malia Obama, Barack Obama’s oldest daughter, has opted to go to Harvard University, making her one of the many presidential children to attend the prestigious Ivy League school. When I learned, however, that she will take a gap year and start college in the fall of 2017 instead of this year, I had one thought: YASSSSSS

Seriously, though, yes! As the daughter of the President of the United States of America, Malia is and will always serve as a role model for youth across the world. By choosing to take a gap year, she is sending a powerful message to all incoming and future college students that there is nothing wrong with taking a year off before heading to university.

Despite the numerous potential benefits of taking a gap year such as having the time to work in order to save money, traveling in order to learn about the world and discover different cultures, or having the opportunity to gain valuable career experience through an internship or building a business, there is still stigma around gap years. I know for sure that I considered taking a gap year myself in order to first figure out what career I really wanted to pursue, but I ended up going to university right away due to pressures from family–and, as much as I hate to admit–perhaps from the society as well. And I am not the only one who considered but didn’t end up taking a gap year. I have spoken to a lot of classmates and friends who admitted they wanted to take a year off, but did not do so in fears that they might lose their desire to pursue a university degree after the gap year. I feared this, too. But looking back, I honestly think a gap year would have made me a more driven student, primarily because it would have helped me figure out my true passions, and it would have probably allowed me to choose a major that better suits my skills and interests.

Hopefully, with Malia’s decision to take a year off, the society will be more supportive of students who want to take a gap year.

If you are an incoming freshman and are still really unsure about what you want to do in the future, THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE. University is a place that is supposed to help you know yourself better. But if you can, please take a gap year. Rest. Work. Travel. Start your own business. Use it to do anything that you think will help you become better prepared for your university experience.

Second Year Round-Up (Term 1)

In a lot of ways, my second year at UBC was better than my first one. This was mainly because I was able to force myself to focus more on my academics this past year, which resulted to more effective time management on my side, and of course, less stressful days! It also definitely helped that I enjoyed almost every single course that I took this year.

In this post, I will review each class that I took in the first term of my second year. Let’s get to it!

ECON 221 – Introduction to Strategic Thinking (Instructor: Michael Vaney)

This course is all about Game Theory, the study of developing and using strategies in making decisions. If you’re planning to take this class, be prepared to study a lot of different economic models (Cournot, Bertland, etc.). Getting an A in this class is definitely possible if you: 1) make sure you have complete lecture notes (Vaney doesn’t post his lecture notes online, so your notes will be your main study tool), 2) do your assignments at least 3 days before the due date (they’re quite long; last thing you want to do is copy off someone else’s work and miss your chance at answering problems that may appear again in your midterm or final), and 3) go to your tutorial/discussion class! Before I took this course, the only economic models I had been familiar with were the ones taught in ECON 101 and 102. So lectures during the first few weeks were a bit hard to follow, but thankfully we had a very helpful TA for our discussion group; she was patient in answering all of our questions and was very generous of her time outside her office hours! I wasn’t very happy with my midterm mark. Thankfully, the midterm and the final had almost exactly the same format! So after thoroughly reviewing the midterm questions and going through the practice final exams, I was able to pull off an A!

Best thing I learned from taking this course: Take advantage of econ tutorials/discussions! Even if attendance is not mandatory, attending discussion groups will surely help you understand the class better.

ECON 325 – Introduction to Empirical Economics (Instructor: Hiro Kasahara)

I guess I’ll start by saying that I didn’t enjoy this course as much as I wanted to. ECON 325 is a required course for the Economics Major program, so I thought it would be a good decision if I took it early and got it out of the way as soon as possible (most econ majors take it in their third year). Boy, was I wrong!! In simple terms, this course shows students how basic statistical techniques could be used in economic research. Although I liked most of the things that we learned, there was one thing that I struggled with: proving formulae manually. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed statistical (null and alternative) hypothesis testing, getting confidence levels, figuring out probability distributions, and many other statistical techniques taught in the course. But there was something about manually proving statistical formulae that I just couldn’t grasp (I get it now though, thanks to ECON 226 and Prof. Adshade! More on that in my next post). I do not mean to disrespect Mr. Kasahara–who is one of the most respected professors by post-grads and his colleagues–but I just don’t think that his teaching style matched the way I learn. I wish class time were spent more on solving practice problems and less on reading off PowerPoint slides. My classmates seemed to have no problem with that though, since the class average was 77, which is quite high for an econ course. Midterm was okay, assignments were easy but tedious, and final exam was difficult.

*Pro-tip: If you’re taking ECON 325 or 326, download Stata on your laptop as early as possible so you can experiment with it in your spare time. Having it on your laptop will also save you lots of time and effort in assignments!

Best thing I learned from taking this course: If you want to do well in a course, ask your questions RIGHT AWAY–ideally in class–when you get confused.

STAT 200 – Elementary Statistics for Applications (Instructor: Eugenia Yu)

If you have been paying attention to what I’ve been writing, you *might* wonder: is taking ECON 325 and STAT 200 at the same time recommended since they’re both statistics courses? My answer: NO. In fact, if you’re planning to be an econ major, you can just use STAT 200 to fulfill the ECON 325 course requirement. Why did I take both? That’s a question I ask myself until today hehehe….. Thankfully, STAT 200 was a great course. It wasn’t an easy class, but Eugenia found a way to clearly explain complicated concepts to students who were not expected to have any background in statistics. She managed class time wisely: spent no to very short time going over self-explanatory concepts, and spent ample amount of time explaining more difficult ones. She promptly answered my questions after class, during office hours, and even through e-mail. The midterms and the final were quite difficult and long; thankfully Eugenia allowed us to have a one-page back-to-back exam cheat sheet! You’ll do well in this class if you regularly do the suggested textbook exercises and the weekly WeBWork assignments.

Best thing I learned from taking this course: Do WeBWork assignments with classmates. Aside from being able to ask one another about things you’re struggling to understand, it’s also an easy way of gaining more friends!

PHIL 150 – Minds and Machines (Instructor: Gerardo Viera)

Hands down the best class I took that term! First of all, I love philosophy. I love the fact that it teaches you how to think and that it forces you to think about important issues that you’ve never thought about before. I love that there are there are good and bad answers, but never right or wrong ones. PHIL 150 poses questions like: Do machines have a mind? Are their minds different from human minds? What allows us to claim that something has or is a mind? Gerardo’s lectures might have gotten a bit repetitive and monotonous in terms of format, but the content never failed to interest me. Because most of the stuff we talked about piqued my interest, I was able to go over the readings effortlessly. If you don’t read the assigned readings before class, there’s a big chance that the topics you’ll talk about in class will bore you to sleep (some of my classmates would fall asleep AT LEAST once a week in front of our instructor. Not even kidding). There was no midterm exam for this course; we had three papers and a final exam. Gerardo is a very generous marker. He cares more about the logic of arguments than about flowery language and wide vocabulary. As long as you show that you understand the readings and make a logically sound and valid argument on your paper, you will get a high mark.

Best thing I learned from taking this course: Start writing your papers early, but never be satisfied with your first draft. Sometimes you want to start writing a paper but are hesitant because you don’t exactly have your argument fully formed yet. That’s okay–just start writing and you will gradually figure out what it is exactly that you want to say in your paper.

Those are all the courses that I took in term one. In my next blog post, I will review all the courses that I took in term two. If you want to check out the other courses that I’ve reviewed so far, click the Course Reviews menu in the sidebar of my blog. If you have any questions about a professor, a class, or anything UBC-related, don’t hesitate to comment below or tweet me @seanceli!

Career Days!

Are you looking for an experience that can hopefully jumpstart your career? Do you want to give your resume an extra flare so you can land your dream job? Or are you still uncertain about what to do and just want to explore your career options? If you answered yes to all these, then you must check out Career Days 2014!

Career Days, an annual event that allows UBC students across all faculties to explore their career options by networking with different companies and organizations, is happening on September 30th and October 1st!

This year, employers like Amazon, Microsoft, BC Hydro, and Metro Vancouver will set up booths for the said career fair.

Visit the Career Days 2014 website to see the full list of employers and the location of their booths.

Do not miss out on this awesome opportunity to connect with potential employers! UBC offers tons of resources to its students; all we have to do is reach out to them and utilize them!

UBC SLC: The Birthplace of Quotable Quotes

Let me start by confessing that I arrived late at the SLC. I missed the opening ceremonies and John Horn’s presentation. If you attended the conference, you do not have to tell me that I missed out on some really good stuff. Please, I do not want to hear it again. It just makes me hate myself even more for not getting my sh*t together on that day.

Having said that, I honestly felt like I did not miss that much because of the superfluous greatness of the workshops and talks that I was able to attend. Each speaker/workshop facilitator opened my eyes to see this wonderful world that had been waiting for me to explore. In my own Guinness Book of World Records, January 11, 2014 officially holds the record for the most number of epiphanies that I had in one day. I had so many that I eventually ended up writing down every word that the speaker said in order to keep up with all the light-bulb moments I was having. Here are my five most favourite ones:

From Darshan Soni’s “Social Media and National Tragedy: A Change in Our Perception of Events” workshop:

“We all make mistakes. But Social Media can frame those mistakes and display them infinitely.” -Darshan Soni

This is one of the many things that we already know, but do not take the time to think critically about every day. Most of us know that once we post something online, it cannot be deleted anymore. However, there are still a lot of us who do not really think before we tweet (or instagram, or reblog, or post a Facebook status).

From Mark Busse’s talk about the power of authenticity and vulnerability:

“Who you are is unique. What you’ve learned is not.” -Mark Busse

Mark Busse believes that to be able to obtain our dream job, and for employers to hire the right people, the first thing that we should talk about in job interviews is why we do what we do. He says that every person out there is talking about what they do or how they do it. So once we find the answer to why, and start talking about it, we stop being like everybody else; we become unique.

“Passion is not something you pursue. It is something that you produce. You participate in it.” -Mark Busse

“Most people–teachers, parents, friends, mentors–tell you to pursue your passion. I’m sorry to tell you this, but that is bullshit. Passion is a feeling. You don’t pursue it”, Mark said. I definitely agree with him on this one! Passion is a feeling, that’s a fact. So is it something that we pursue? I don’t think so. I don’t think humans have the ability to pursue emotions. (If there is a scientific study that suggests otherwise, please send me a link to it. I would love to know more about this kind of things!)

Just in case you’re wondering, I also do not believe that we can actually pursue happiness. I believe that happiness is a choice. It is a product of what we do. If we choose to be happy, we do and revel in the things that make us happy. We don’t pursue it.

But I digress. On to the next one!

From Waneek Horn-Miller’s talk during the closing ceremonies:

“Dig deep. Find that one reason that stops you from quitting” -Waneek Horn-Miller

Oftentimes we forget why we do what we do in the first place. We usually want to give up, forgetting how far we’ve come. Listening to Waneek Horn-Miller’s amazing life experiences and words of wisdom definitely made it easier for me to dig deep.

“You are only as powerful as the person next to you.” -Waneek Horn-Miller

Most favourite quote of the day! Waneek said that we are only as powerful as the people around us. If we empower other people, we, too, are empowered. It is SO true! I really admire how Waneek’s talk emphasized the idea that humanity and community can help us reach our infinity.

It was undoubtedly a day of discovering my infinite potential. SLC 2015, I’m patiently waiting for you!

Term 1 Roundup (Part 2)

ASTU 100B – FIRST YEAR CAP SEMINAR (Instructor: Dr. Laila Ferreira); PPE

I loved this course. Not only did I receive my highest mark in term one from this course, but it was also the only course where I enjoyed doing each and every assignment. This course is a part of the Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics (PPE) stream of the Coordinated Arts Program. ASTU’s main focus is academic research and writing. Each ASTU class is assigned a particular topic, and students analyze the academic discourse regarding this topic. Disability was the assigned topic to our class. Hence each of our reading and writing assignment revolved around the topic of disability. I definitely did not expect I would enjoy reading research papers about disability. Because I found the topic to be so interesting, I had an exhilarating time doing my research paper. Although our prof had the tendency to give out very confusing instructions, she was very helpful during her office hours. She did not have any problem with proofreading my drafts, so that definitely strengthened my research writing techniques.

One thing I learned from this course: Assigned readings are not as horrible as most students make them out to be.

POLI 100 – INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS (Instructor: Dr. Christopher Erickson); PPE

Poli 100 is another course in the PPE stream. Dr. Erickson always had interesting and hilarious lectures. He never failed to perfectly connect critical political concepts to celebrities (for instance, he mentioned Miley Cyrus when discussing the concept of globalization). That made waking up early to attend his 9 A.M. class a lot easier. Also, his lecture slides were very easy to follow and were sufficient to do well in the course. I only used the textbook whenever I felt like the lecture slides weren’t enough to understand a concept. The midterm and the final are fairly easy if you study the lecture slides. One thing I didn’t like, though, is that the five-page essay was worth as much as the final exam. I did not like this mainly because the essay that I turned in was crappy. And by crappy, I mean I-wish-I-don’t-ever-remember-that-I-wrote-such-paper-ever-again type of crappiness.

One thing I learned from this course: TRY TO DO YOUR PAPERS AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. AVOID STARTING YOUR PAPER THE NIGHT BEFORE IT IS DUE. Hate that I had to learn this the hard way.

ECON 101 – PRINCIPLES OF MICROECONOMICS (Instructor: Dr. Clive Chapple); PPE

Another course in the PPE stream. Even though the exams in this course were the longest and trickiest exams I’ve ever written in my life, it was hands down my most favourite course of the term! Dr. Chapple always had the most effective analogies and examples which made understanding the course more comprehensible. Every course-related work that he assigned to us–from his Clicker questions to our weekly Aplia online assignments–greatly helped in understanding the course better. I also liked that he posted lecture notes on Connect ahead of time. That way, all I had to do was print them out and annotate them in class. The midterm and final exam were very tricky and time-consuming in my opinion, but you can pull off a decent mark if you put a lot of time and effort in mastering the concepts.

One thing I learned from this course: If you are genuinely interested in a certain course, you won’t care about how difficult it is; you’ll always enjoy studying it.

That was how my term one went. Tomorrow, term two begins! I’m ready to see what it has to offer.

#CommuterProblems

Being a commuter student is not easy. Enduring everyday commute takes a lot of patience. If you are like me who uses the public transit to go to and from UBC everyday, you know that commuting is very much like being a tribute at the Hunger Games. You spend a lot of time running (to catch the bus) and competing with others (to grab a seat).

Needless to say, commuting is stressful. I know I speak for every other commuter out there when I say that these are some of the most common #CommuterProblems:

*You need to wake up early every day–probably at least 2.5 hours before your first class–because you have to think about the possibility of your bus not coming on time, experiencing pass-ups, or insane traffic.

*So since you always wake up early, chances are you want to maximize your time by sleeping on the bus. But there’s a problem: you don’t want other people to see you sleeping. I don’t know about you, but ~~I’m feeling 22… wait, what?~~ I feel like every time I fall asleep on the bus, this is what I look like:

*You want to sleep. But the bus is either too cold or too hot.

*You want to sleep, but you can’t because the bus is too full and the concoction of different scents emitted by the commuters around you is just too nauseating to tolerate.

*More often than not, you have to run like an Olympic sprinter just to get to your bus stop/loop on time.

*Sometimes, even if you make it to your bus stop/loop on time, chances are the bus that you plan on taking will arrive 10 (or more) minutes late.

*On some days, you spend more time on the bus/train than you do at school.

*Pass-ups. Fortunately, I have experienced only one pass-up this term so far. Since I live fairly close to Metrotown (where the 49 UBC bus leaves), the bus isn’t usually full yet when it arrives at my bus stop. However, those who live 10-15 minutes away from UBC have to allot additional 30-45 minutes because (naturally) busses tend to be more full as they come closer to UBC.

*When drivers are not in the mood to stop at every bus stop. Sometimes, they’ll just flash “SORRY, BUS IS FULL” when clearly they just have some personal appointments to attend because there is still enough space on the bus for me to sleep like this:

*You can NEVER estimate your travel time accurately. Sometimes, your travel time will be 15 minutes less than your estimated time. Other times, it will be 45 minutes more than what you expected.

*AND PROBABLY THE BIGGEST #COMMUTERPROBLEM OF ALL: 94.79% OF COMMUTERS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO “MOVE TO THE REAR OF THE BUS”. I mean, come on. When you know it’s rush hour and there are many people trying to get on the bus, why don’t you just move to the rear of the bus and make everyone’s life easy? If you are too concerned about your private personal space, then I’m sorry to break it to you, but you have to stop taking the bus. Just bring your own car. Or bike. Or walk. Just don’t take public transit if you expect commuters to give you some private space. If you’re part of that 94.79%, I have nothing to tell you but this:

Although I am aware that commuting also has its own perks, I focussed on the downsides of commuting because this blog post is primarily a reflection of what my commuting experience has been like this week. I am probably going to make another post in the future to list the advantages of commuting. For now, if you are living in residence, revel in the fact that you are lucky enough not to experience the aforementioned #CommuterProblems that we commuters regularly have to deal with. If you are a commuter like me, I want you to know that you are not the only one experiencing these things. I guess we should just be happy and thankful that we arrive at our own destinations safely every single day 🙂

Seanonymous

sean talks about university life, economics, and pop culture

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