A Student's Perspective: Welcome to UBC!

Bienvenue! Happy summer Monroe! Once again, sorry for the lack of posts, but for the past week or so, I have been out of the country, staying in the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia. 

While I know this blog was originally intended to talk about what it is like to be a high school student, I am now no longer a Masuk student. I was one of the 376 graduates to graduate June 23rd with the Class of 2011, and now, I am a fully registered 1st Year student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver! With that comes many new things to talk about, and in future, this column will be about what it's like to be a college student (I'll occasionally still talk about high school and continue to give advice, however.) I had hoped to have written many more articles about Masuk, but as life would have it, there wasn't enough time to do so!

To introduce this new column, let me start by giving you a little background into why I chose UBC and the city of Vancouver. While most graduating students from Masuk are headed to great schools all over the United States, I was very luckily given the chance to study in Canada. UBC is one of the leading research universities in the entire world, ranking right up there with Ivy League colleges. With about 40,000 students from Canada and around the globe, UBC is a leader in progressive scientific and social research. Come August, I will be in the Department of Arts studying to become a Political Science/International Relations major and will hopefully be dual majoring in Music at some point in the future. 

Why Vancouver? Well for one, I have a brother here who is a 4th Year student, an Arts major, just like myself, who has raved about the school and the area since day one. Second, this school gave me a chance when most schools I had applied to looked at my academic record and ran the other way, therefor I could not pass up an opportunity like this. Lastly, Vancouver is just an absolutely gorgeous city surrounded by mountains and forests, with the best that a major metropolitan area and small suburb can provide, and a lot of European influence which was exactly what I was looking for when searching for a university. Overall, this city has it all and is a perfect match for me. 

I returned from Vancouver last night, after a full day of traveling (Vancouver is about 6 hours by plane from NYC.) For the past week, I've been traveling around the city seeing the sights and also checking out the campus. We landed at Vancouver International last Wednesday evening around 9PM EST (6PST) and took care of the first important details (like getting a study permit) and then immediately took to the streets to check out the city. If you've never been to Vancouver before, it is absolutely awe striking to see the snow-capped mountains and the buildings of Downtown contrasted together with sandy beaches and beautiful clean water flowing around you. 

Something we didn't know prior to flying in was that we were there right in the middle of the Canada Day celebrations, the equivalent to the US 4th of July. We took part in those activities, watching the Parade down Burrard St. and then seeing the Fireworks show at Canada Place right on the water. The food there is superb as well. We ate at a bunch of different places in the city, and not one meal we had was anything less than delicious. On Friday, we went to Granville Island, this massive public market with every type of food imaginable (produce, bread, coffee, teas, deserts, etc.), then spent a few hours just walking by and sampling everything we possible could. From there, we went off to Stanley Park, one of the largest parks in North America and took a horsedrawn carriage ride around the park to see all of the highlights. Between the Rose Gardens, the Seawall, and the Aquarium, there is enough to keep a person busy for days without even having to leave the park. 

On Saturday, we walked around the Seawall of Vancouver, stretching from Canada Place where there are cruise boats currently docked, all the way to the beaches in English Bay. We walked on boardwalks, watching ships and seaplanes pass by, stood on the beaches and looked out at the mountains in the distance, and even had time for lunch at an English Pub. Between walking through Yaletown, Gastown, Chinatown, Granville Island, Downtown, and the Westend, I've really had the opportunity to see a majority of the city and all of the different styled areas that I'll soon be calling home. 

As Vancouver is known for it's outdoor lifestyle, a majority of the attractions involve nature. On Sunday, we took a tour to North Vancouver where we went to Capilano Park, the home of a Salmon Hatchery, where we got see Salmon jumping upstream to lay and fertilize their eggs, and then we went to see one of the largest thrill attractions, the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Spanning across the Capilano River, the bridge is somewhere around 380 meters long from cliff to cliff and about 300 meters above the river, and it sways as you walk on it. I decided to go over it anyway, and while I was hanging on for dear life as it swung about 6 feet in either direction, it gave some really beautiful views. From there, we went to our last stop, Grouse Mountain. Grouse Mountain is one of the largest mountains within the metro area, home to two massive Grizzly Bears and several white Wolfs. We boarded a high speed gondola, and in about 4 minutes time, we were looking out from atop the mountain at the entire city of Vancouver. To sum up this trip, it was nothing but extraordinary.  

While seeing the sights was exciting, the point of this trip was to view the campus, so at least once a day, we drove across the Burrard St. Bridge, up through the University Endowment Lands, and then onto Point Grey, the home of the UBC Vancouver Campus. The only way to describe campus is if you see it for yourself (check out the photos!) UBC is a city unto itself with beautiful botanic and japanese gardens, two museums (the Museum of Anthropology and the Beaty Biodiversity Museum), state of the art and absolutely beautiful academic and dorm buildings every which way you look, and also provides some of the best views in the entire city of Vancouver. To be brief, it's and absolutely amazing setting, and a wonderful school. 

I'm still in the process of finalizing a schedule, but overall, my schedule for the first two Semesters will consist of a Philosophy course, two Political Science courses (one on Canadian Politics, the other in American Politics), one Economics course, one Music course, and possibly a language/literature course, totaling up to about 33 credits in the year (5 classes a Semester.) It's going to be an incredibly busy year dealing with course work and getting acclimated to the city, but it's going to be an extremely exciting time for me. 

I should also mention how multicultural this city is. With almost every nation represented (but primarily Asian cultures and First Nation tribes) in the city and on campus, this really is a diverse place to live. Every culture has it's own area of the city, it's own style and artwork strewn around everywhere, and it seems like the coexist quite well. On campus, which is actually on First Nation tribal grounds, the First Nation tribes and the dozens of different cultures blend together so nicely where you can see different aspects of each culture represented all over campus through artwork, through the varying academic buildings, and also through the courses themselves. The people here are so friendly and welcoming, it just seems like a wonderful place to spend 4-5 years. 

I'm very honored to have the opportunity to study in such a beautiful city and at such a great school. I truly am looking forward to starting my first semester at UBC August and being able to share my experiences with you all! 

I hope you all had a happy an safe 4th of July!