How to Succeed At University--Canadian Edition. Danton O'Day

      The calendar is your academic bible and complete information guide. It will tell you the high school requirements for each program and explain the minimum number of courses you need to get your degree and the general requirements that have to be met. It will show which courses are required to complete a specific program and how many courses are optional. The calendar is divided into sections for each discipline or area of study. So if you are interested in English or history, for example, you simply use the index to find the section and see what courses are listed. The essential contents of each course are also outlined.

      The university calendar also has much other useful information. It will tell you how to register, enrol and withdraw from courses. It will explain how to transfer from one university to another. It will detail the grading scheme for that university and the grading regulations. In addition, it will contain information on all other aspects of your academic progress: transcripts, appeals, academic offences (e.g., cheating) and other valuable data.

      If the calendar is complete, it will also give you information about other resources available, such as student housing, library facilities, athletics and student organizations. It lists the names and positions of the academic faculty. Thus it is a valuable reference book when you want to find out whom to see about a specific problem.

      Confusion: Courses and Curricula

      Although your university calendar will give you details about course requirements in various areas, it will not give the lowdown on what you encounter when you enter the university system. One way to find out how other students rank specific courses and their instructors is to review the results of course evaluations. In most universities, a student group or the university administration itself conducts a student opinion survey each year and publishes the results. You simply look up the course that interests you to learn what the students feel about the instructor(s), the course material and the relative difficulty of the course. Course evaluations are covered in more detail later in this chapter.

      A curriculum (plural: curricula) is simply a prescribed course of study, a program of courses in a specific area. The idea behind prescribed programs is to give the student a well-balanced education while making that student something of a specialist in his or her chosen area. For example, if you were a student in English at a university that required twenty full courses for an Honours Bachelor of Arts you would have to take a minimum number of English courses (e.g., eight) to graduate as a specialist in English studies. There would also be an upper limit (e.g., twelve) on the number of English courses that you could take. You would be required to take some courses in other disciplines (e.g., science, math), but the choice would be up to you.

      Most university systems divide the academic year (usually eight months—September to April or early May) into the fall and spring terms. Some universities have fall, spring and summer terms, allowing students to pursue their studies all year round, to take different semesters to complete the academic program or to alternate semesters at school and semesters in the workforce. In universities with fall and spring semesters there are usually two types of courses: full-year and half-year or semester courses. Universities with three semesters usually offer only half-year or single-semester courses.

      The value of a full-year course is that it allows you to get your teeth into a subject. Many students balk at the amount of work that has to be recalled for the final exams of such courses. However, if you follow the study scheme I describe later you should have no fear about doing well in full-year courses. Half-year courses are valuable in allowing you to taste a smorgasbord of intellectual delights; you can sample many different areas because you can fit two half-year courses into the same period that it takes to do a full-year course. Another advantage is that there is only half a year’s work to recall on final exams. There too lies the shortcoming of half-year courses—they don’t give the depth and breadth of a subject that full-year courses do. As you can see, there are plusses and minuses to both types of course.

      Typically you will require the equivalent of five full courses per year for three years for a standard Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree or four years for an Honours B.A. or B.Sc. degree. Similar requirements exist for other disciplines (e.g., Bachelor of Commerce, B.Comm.). Thus, in general, you will need approximately fifteen courses in three years or twenty courses in four years to graduate. However, the fifteen-course degree is being phased out in some institutions (e.g., University of Toronto). Also, an increasing number of students are taking more than five years to complete their twenty-course (four-year) degree. Regardless, you will need at least a C grade in most of your courses to graduate. Most universities only allow credit for a few D courses. Table 2.1 shows a typical grading scheme for universities.

      Many universities offer certain specialty programs and with each program you will find other requirements (e.g., a minimum average grade in your last two years). Thus you should be sure that you understand the program you are enrolled in so that you don’t end up lacking the proper credits when you think you are finished.

      Most universities also offer extension programs. Although these are usually intended to provide courses to people outside the university (such as teachers trying to upgrade themselves), they are also valuable to students who have failed or dropped a course. They provide a limited range of courses in various disciplines, usually outside the normal academic timetable (for example, in the evening throughout the year or during the day in the summer). Some students who don’t need to work in the summer may prefer to take a course or two then to lighten their course load during the normal academic year or to complete their degree requirements in a shorter time, as is possible with universities that have terms all year round. But generally only a smattering of courses is available outside the normal academic year so that such extension courses are not too useful to the full-time student. So if you are having trouble with a course, try to improve your performance rather than relying on the extension program to upgrade your marks. You will need the break that summer brings, for students who go at the study routine all year round are prone to mental fatigue.

      Grades and Admissions

      As we all know, no matter what anyone tells you, grades matter. Historically, high school grades have been the primary determinant for acceptance to college or university. Although not currently required for admission to Canadian universities, standardized tests (e.g., ACT, SAT) are the second most important factor affecting whether you are acceptable; if you are planning on applying to a university in the United States, you may be required to submit SAT or ACT scores. There is evidence that standardized admissions test scores are becoming more important than high school grades, most likely because of grade inflation at many high schools. Of course, each college and university selects students in different ways. Emphasis may be put not only on grades and admission test scores but other factors as well such as high school awards, extracurricular activities and application essays, among others.

      Did You Know?

      The College Board miscalculated the SAT scores of 4,000 students who had taken the test in October 2005. Some of the scores were over 200 points below what they should have been (out of a total of 2,400)!²

      However, since high school grades and standardized admission test scores are the primary way admissions are determined, there have been many studies attempting to find out if these scores give any true indication of success once the student is enrolled. Are high school grades and admission test scores good predictors of student success in college or university?

      Recent research has verified earlier studies showing that a student’s high school grades give the most accurate assessment of his or her GPA at college or university.^3,4 While there is a relationship between high school success and postgraduate grades, typically students get lower grades at college and university than one would predict from their high school marks. In other words, high school grades overestimate later success.

      SAT scores are a less