okay so again welcome to mature and
transfer student orientation part
one sorry which speaks to starting
school and how to prepare
what i'd like to explain to you today is
your zoom experience so
on the top right hand corner there's a
speaker or gallery view
um if you would like to see who's
speaking just click speaker view
if you want to see everyone you could do
the gallery review it's totally up to you
also we ask that you please keep your
camera and microphone
muted um if you would have a question or
you need
assistance with zoom please message in
the chat
below um and now our work study student
Dilraj will be able to manage that
chat and let me know and
i'll speak to your questions if you have
any or she will answer you
also we ask that you please hold your
questions for the panelists at the very
end um and we will have a Q&A with them
our agenda for today will focus on our
welcome remarks which will come from
Brian Poser the Director of Aboriginal
and Mature Student Services
I will then speak on our ACMAPS
services.
I'm the coordinator um of mature student
success
Navinie Somaroo-Durga is my name and we
will also be doing a little icebreaker
activity with everyone in the room so
that you get to know each other
but just you know you're not the only
one who's a mature or transfer student here.
There's many of you that's joining us
for this fall.
Our keynote speaker, sorry, let's go back
to the agenda. Our keynote speaker will
be Brian Poser as I mentioned
um we will also be hearing from our York
University Mature Student Organization
group.
We have Elaine who's representing the
group. We'll give you a little insight as
to what that group
is and events that they have planned for
the fall and then we'll do
um a quick wrap-up and a thank you and
we'll speak to the COVID-19 website that
York has
um up, if you have if you need updated
information.
So I will now introduce, umm, the Director
of Aboriginal and Mature Student Services
- Brian Poser, to do a welcome.
Okay, thank you, Navanie and good morning
everyone, and again, thank you for joining
us
for our Mature and Transfer Student
Orientation. Nav, if I could ask you to
stop sharing your screen, I'll pop up
mine in here
and uh we'll begin um.
That's where we start, alrighty,
so a couple of a couple of things to
talk about. First of all welcome and uh
as mature and transfer students uh you
know you've already started a very big
transition into the university;
and we have lots in store for you today,
um before we get going too much further
though, I would like to uh
do the traditional land acknowledgement.
And
then as you see we'll progress with some
other material here.
York University campuses are located on
the traditional lands of many Indigenous
nations. The area known as Tkaronto
has been caretaken by the Anishnabek
Nation, the
Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Huron-Wendat.
It's now home to many First Nation, Inuit and Metis communities. We
acknowledge the current treaty holders,
the Mississaugas of the Credit First
Nation.
This territory is subject of the Dish
With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant,
an agreement to peaceably share and care
for the Great Lakes region.
Now we're not all on the same location,
as uh,
York's Keele or Glendon campuses, so you
might be in far-flung places and I'd
encourage you to reflect a little bit on
where you are today,
and which traditional lands you might be
occupying and uh
a little bit about this Dish With One
Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant
might be new language for many folks. Um,
I'll say just very briefly that the
concept here is
the Dish With One Spoon has a number of
different levels
of significance for our Indigenous
community members. One is that
it's uh about sharing um it's the notion
that one takes only what one needs
and no and not more uh and so that way
there is enough
uh of whatever resource to go around to
everyone
and the notion too that there's a spoon
the dish that has a spoon
you'll notice there's no knife and
that's because
um in an indigenous uh tradition
the idea is that we we would never bring
a knife to the table.
So it's a peaceable place and uh
I'd encourage everyone if this is brand
new to you, to reflect a little bit on
uh on your place uh in in
Canadian culture, uh we're just through
uh National Indigenous People's Day
and that's a time for us all to reflect
a little bit on
uh on the nature of indigenating Canada
and colonialism
in Canada as well. Okay, so
we move on from there a couple of things
just to mention
i want to make sure that we speak to
this and i think navi you're coming back
to this toward the end of your agenda
but i'll just touch on this
um people are going to have a lot of
questions about
what's happening at york under the
context of the kova 19 pandemic
and so we want to make sure you're aware
of a few key points
and there are some resources and
incidentally we'll be sending you copies
of these slide decks
after today's presentation to you so
through the email that you use to
register with us
i will be sending this stuff forward
first to say uh there is a full range of
courses
being offered at york this fall term the
vast majority of those are going to be
online there will be some select courses
where lab and or studio requirements
mean that the university is going to be
piloting a few in-person classes
but the vast majority will be online and
so
uh your experience here today with us
using zoom
might be kind of typical of some of the
experiences you have in the fall
um but there's a lot to learn about how
to be successful
in an online environment we'll touch a
bit on that today
uh one thing i would say too is that for
staff faculty and students
the eventual return to campus which we
don't know exactly the timing of that
yet
uh that eventual return is being planned
very carefully and is guided by public
health and government directives
so you can be assured and you can be
reassured
that if we're suggesting that students
staff and faculty are set to return to
our campuses
that doing so will be only following
very careful planning
uh and with the proper kinds of supports
and safety measures in place so that
uh you know we are maintaining the focus
on our safety safety is the number one
priority for staff faculty and
students and we want to make sure you uh
you have that information that you need
around that
there is a site uh that catalogs a whole
series of announcements made by the
university president dr
um i went back to the old one
um our president and um
you can get there uh with this link and
when you uh receive this
uh this slide deck you'll have that
opportunity uh to to to kind of look
further into those um particular
um announcements and all the details
about planning that's going on
another thing that we wanted to mention
is very timely right now
it concerns black lives matter you might
have seen a lot of this happening in the
media these days
and the one thing that we want to kind
of make sure we express
today is that york stands together
against anti-black racism
there's a great deal going on at york
not only in terms of
say announcements that align us with
anti-black racism activity but also
um that is to say uh
against anti-black racism activity uh
but
but also there are activities planned
and there is work going on at the
university to ensure
that york stands together against
anti-black racism
not only by its words but by its deeds
so you'll see more about that
uh in the coming months as well so uh
those are my quick opening remarks
uh usually at this time i would tell
people that you know here's uh here are
safety
measures for leaving the room if we need
to have a fire escape or anything like
that
we're used to gathering in person i
think today
well over 150 people have registered for
our session
uh we have a good turnout so far and
others may trickle in
um we're delighted that you're joining
us and again our objective
today is to try to provide you some
supports and some information and
resources
that are going to help you uh whether
you're a mature student or a transfer
student or maybe both
uh in your successful transition to
university and getting ready for the
fall term
so i'll pass it back to you at this time
to move forward to the next step
thank you so much brian i'm going to
share my screen again with everyone
give me a minute there we go
okay so now what i will do is i'll speak
to the act map services and then we'll
go into
our uh little activity um so again like
i mentioned before my name is naboni and
i'm the coordinator of matrices
success attackmaps and i want to just
tell you briefly about what our services
are at
maps act maps was actually established
about in 2007
we're committed to supporting mature
part-time and transfer students
from admissions to graduation we serve
all three populations keep in mind that
you can be
all three at the same time you could be
a mature student you could be part-time
and you could be a transfer
here at acmaps what we do is we have a
mature student success series workshops
that we offer
and those workshops are actually
developed and facilitated
by our mature student peer mentors they
help mature students build skills to be
successful at university
and some of those workshops are
citations 101 where
you can learn apa mla style introductory
computer skills time management
essay writing or we have a very popular
one that's called cafe hour
and what we do is we have our peer
mentors run those sessions and you just
come in and have a chat
in person we would do we would have
coffee and cookies but um
for the fall we won't be able to do that
or in the summer we're not doing that
but
they're there just to help you chat and
learn about um
resources anything you want to feel
comfortable can't learn about study tips
from them that's what it's for
we also have a peer mentorship program
and
these are made up of mature students who
are third or fourth year level
and they're caring experienced students
who help you navigate the campus
resources
and the physical space of the university
we also have
a mature student first year experience
program that our director brian um
developed and
this is online for this year and what it
is
it's a it has different workshops for
mature and transfer students they're
encouraged to take these different
workshops
at your own time at your own pace and
it's to help you transition to
university
these workshops are offered in
partnership with the career center and
learning skills services
um so any of that information if you're
interested in registering for that
program you can go to our website
it's updated the link is there and then
i will be
um directly send you information and
enroll you into moodle so that you're
able to access that information
okay so now we'll go to our ice breaker
it's a five minute mixture i call it and
it's
basically i'll put you automatically
into breakout rooms
and what we ask is that you just mingle
and get to know each other
um what what i would like for you to say
and if hopefully you all get a turn to
just to speak
is that why did you return to school now
what is your program and what is your
passion it's just to get to know each
other
and so i think what i'm gonna have to do
is stop sharing my screen to do this
first we'll come back to that and i'm
gonna put you into breakout rooms
so just as navies doing that you may see
on your screen
uh a little pop-up that invites you to
join the
particular breakout room and we'd
encourage you just to accept that and
then
at the end of the breakout rooms uh
nathaniel will be able to bring you back
to the main group
okay brian for some reason on the bottom
of my screen it doesn't give me an
option for breakout
does yours give your adult the option uh
it seems to do
so yeah okay i don't know if it's
because i'm a record mode but um
for some reason i can't see it i only
see up to reactions would you like to
put them into breakout rooms for me
please
sure i'll do that right away so folks
you'll see a little pop-up on your
screen
we're looking at approximately
you know let's see here nine to ten
participants per room
and so that that gives us nine breakout
rooms that's very nice okay so here we
go into breakout rooms in a few minutes
we'll pop back in
from those breakout rooms to the main
area um
hopefully you'll be able to quickly move
through and say hello to one another
and uh we'll see you again in a few
minutes
so
so
you guys could take your microphones off
and have a chat
so why did some of you come back to york
now
can you guys hear me yes
yeah yes marge um so why did you return
to york
um i just i'm retired and i live in
sarnia and i was looking for something
to do
so i decided to come back to york that's
awesome and what's your program
uh women and gender studies
okay okay and what's your passion
um i'm not really sure actually
okay i'm still working on that no
problem
um anybody else want to share with us as
to why they return to school now
and amanda is having some microphone
issues so she's just gonna type
um nika i think it is says her program
is business of society
and so um yeah if anyone wants to share
it's nice to get to know each other to
know that you're not the only mature
part-time transfer student at york
there's over 7 000 mature students if
you didn't know
yeah there's a lot so amanda says i've
decided to return back to school to
further my education and try something
new
it's good um and learning on zoom and
doing online learning is something new
for the fall for everybody so
that's going to be interesting
um anybody else wants to share you could
take your video off if you wish it's up
to you
nika says she's a transfer student not a
mature student okay nica
do you want to share as to where you
transferred from was it a college was it
another university
if someone uh seymour says she wants to
become a teacher
so sayma are you in the faculty of
education or are you starting off in a
different degree gonna see if she's
gonna type
everyone's a little shy this morning
amanda i'm a mature student i guess a
transfer student as well okay
um
sorry i'm just trying to read the chat
as we're going in here
um no one else wants to share
so seymour says yes i got an admissions
in ba educational studies okay
that's good that's good um yes
the thing go ahead so i'm i guess i'm a
transfer student an amateur student
my program is children childhood and
youth studies and
i was kind of encouraged by like family
members and friends to go back to
university because
just to um so my goal is to like do
something with adoption
and my friends and family just said
university might help you
um get to where you want to get yeah
oh that's good that's good i have a peer
mentor i'm a trusted
peer mentor actually who's in that
program she's in her fourth year and she
will be speaking as one of the panelists
today
when i do the q a her name's kate so you
should listen to some stuff that she has
to say yeah she's in that program
uh amanda says i'm an anthropology ba
okay
um and i don't know if everyone saw that
little note that popped up but brian is
asking us to return in a few minutes but
you'll we'll get a note that
will pop us all back into the main room
shortly
um this is the first time that you guys
are using zoom and doing a breakout
or have you had time for a breakout yes
person for a breakup i don't know why
for some reason
the button wasn't there for me to press
today it's weird every time we we do
something different
we experience something different with
zoom
so we're getting used to it as well and
you'll probably learn that as you use it
more and more
so yes for breakout for amanda seymour
says the same thing
okay
can anybody else want to share what
their passion is
everyone's a little quiet it's okay
okay so brian says one minute
warning return to the larger group
so if we if we don't want to share
anymore we don't have anything else to
say i think we could leave the room
and it'll bring us back i believe so
samus says my passion is to work with
children that's awesome
yes i have three of them and they're
very um
they're a handful during coleman 19 yes
keeping them busy um
okay let's wait for brian to pop us back
in and
i hope you guys enjoy the session um
what's the remaining of it once we get
back
does it give you guys an option to leave
the room at the bottom
oh now it does there we go now oh yeah
he's giving us one minute okay
okay navi are you still online with us
yes i'm here okay so are we zooming into
uh is there anything you'd like to do
about the the breakout
before we i begin uh so did everyone
enjoy that did everyone get to say
um and meet new people my room was a
little quiet until uh we started just
talking a little bit more and getting
into it with the students um hope you
guys enjoyed that session it was just
something really quick to get
to let you know that there's there's
other people that are mature transfer or
part-time students here as well
um so i can start sharing my screen
again
see after that is i'll introduce again
our keynote speaker
who is brian poser um brian is actually
going to teach you tips and tricks on
what you need to know to start your year
off strong
and how to prepare as a mature learner
so ryan i'm going to stop sharing my
screen and you could share yours okay
terrific
all right i hope everyone can see this
all right um
so succeeding as a mature or transfer
student
um let me start by saying that these are
terms that the university uses
to kind of put people into useful
groupings
um you know we're not all into labeling
per se but what we're interested in is
making sure that we identify groups
who might have elements or needs or
interests in common and that way we can
begin to
customize our services to meet the
specific needs of those students and so
when we refer to people as mature
students we're talking about folks who
are
typically going to be 20 years of age or
older out of high school for at least
two years
and never have done
work at post-secondary never completed a
full year post-secondary
and so mature students are ranging in
age from 20
and at york all the way into their 80s
and we have
just under 7 200 mature students at york
which is a huge percentage of our
population and a surprisingly large
group and uh
you know you get to see how how robust a
population matures are transfer students
that's a label that we apply to groups
who who have done
post-secondary work either at a
community college or
at a university or college outside of
ontario so you might have come from a
local community college you might have
done university
somewhere in canada or abroad you might
have got post-secondary education
somewhere and typically transfer
students come
uh with some advanced standing in their
degree process and they use that past
learning to guide them as they move
through so
we're going to talk for a few minutes
here about succeeding as a mature or
transfer student
um keep in mind that as navi mentioned
before
you can you can be a part-time or
full-time student at york
and it's possible for you to be mature
and a transfer student at the same time
very typically our mature students
you know have a configuration of roles
that we'll talk about here in a moment
uh that mean they have a lot going on
alrighty so let's just jump in there
um one of the questions we get asked
some of the time is the question
is there a recipe for success and i
would say that they're
in some ways there is a recipe for
success but it's not exactly the same
recipe for
every single individual certainly you'll
bring strength of your own
and and you'll bring experiences of your
own uh that will enhance your experience
at the university
and support your success but here are
some of the general
elements that we know will help students
be successful
obviously working hard and what we find
is mature students and transfer students
already come with a great deal of
with a great deal of readiness to work
hard
they understand the value of coming to
university
and they understand what it means to
to be successful and so they're going to
apply their life skills to working hard
uh to learn well and to to
move through their degree process um
it's important too to apply your life
experience
one of the great strengths of being a
mature student is of course
that you have life experience outside of
the university whether you're coming
from a career
of many years and now coming to
university for the first time or perhaps
returning to university
if you've got experience at community
college or another university
that you want to bring to to bear on
this experience
it's important not to shut that part of
you off it's important actually to
to celebrate those life experiences and
to figure out how they configure with
what you're learning in the classroom
there'll be a lot of times where you
have to compare that lived experience
uh to what happens in the classroom and
sometimes those are really revealing
moments they teach you a lot about
you know the difference between theory
and practice or about how
theory might organize your experiences
it's very powerful stuff
third thing seeking out resources very
important
uh to make sure that you remember you're
not alone and as much as
um you might have heard from guidance
counselors in the past or
from other people that you know you have
to be independent at university
you have to be willing to do your own
thing uh pardon me one sec
sorry about that i'm not disturbed um
you're going to want to make sure that
you realize you can move through
university with a series of resources
the university
provides to enhance your success whether
that's
personal counseling or it's learning
skills services or writing services
or math supports there's a whole range
of things to look for
being persistent is a huge feature of
uh being successful at university
remembering that
you know it's really just one foot in
front of the other progressing through
bit by bit piece by piece uh that
persistence will matter
but going through this experience with a
beginner's mindset
remembering that you're learning
something new you're in a new space a
new culture there are new
norms at york there's a new culture at
york
and it's useful and and actually very
adaptive
to to begin thinking about this says
okay i'm a beginner
they're going to be new things around me
some things are not going to operate the
way
i might expect them to and additionally
you know some things may not go the way
i want them to because they're different
than the way i'd like them to go
and so the beginner's mindset says i'm
going to see new things and i might make
mistakes and it's important to
accept that that's a possibility there
is pressure on us to do well as mature
and transfer students
people expect us to to be excellent
right from the start
but beginner's mindset says it's okay to
make mistakes and
to learn from those mistakes to adapt to
the new environment
learning new skills is all part of that
whether that's learning skills like
time management or writing or how to
read textbooks effectively or make notes
in the lecture hall
if this means that you're building
skills that you had before
and just sharpening those skills that's
great sometimes you're going to be
learning skills you've never had before
and so you want to provide yourself some
time to move through that
it's also important to think about your
sense of purpose
uh why did you come to university we're
going to talk about this a bit further
in a moment
but cultivating your sense of purpose
for being here is good for motivation
and it's also good to kind of keep you
on track and help you to discover new
opportunities
why did i come to york why did i choose
this particular area of study
part of york is that we have a culture
all of our own
we're a city within a city we have more
than 50 000 students
we have more than 5 000 staff and
faculty
and york's culture may be different than
the places you were before
in your work life or different from
other places
uh where you studied and so paying
attention a little bit for hey what's
different about york what's new about
york what
how does york do this where i come from
we did it this way but how does york do
it
keeping flexible around that and
adaptable to that is really valuable
and finally building connections you had
just a few moments
really like three or four minutes to
build connections
to start building connections in these
little breakout rooms
but what we're really talking about here
is meeting people in your class
getting to know your teaching assistant
or ta getting to know your faculty
member
the instructor in your course these are
all part of building connections
and we want you to feel part of
something we don't want it to be that
you know you get on public transit or
get in your car and come to york and sit
in a class
and go home or in undercover uh log into
your
online course take your course and then
log off and not make any connections
that's really not what we want for you
we want you to feel part of something
bigger
and that means making connections and
you'll hear a little bit from
the york university mature students
organization today
who can elaborate on that a little bit
okay so
um given where we are i'm going to move
forward just a little bit
ask yourself this question what drives
you what are your primary motivations
for attending university uh the the top
four are listed here
but it might be something else for you
are you here for career advancement are
you hoping that by studying at
university
you'll earn a credential that will open
doors to a new career or to advancement
in your current career
are you here for self-fulfillment is
this kind of the feeling like i've
always wanted to come to university
uh this is my time this is my
opportunity to do that
are you here to be a role model to other
people perhaps your children
perhaps your siblings or your parents or
your friends or your co-workers
showing others that this is a viable
pathway that you can do it
is a really powerful motivator for some
people and
the fourth one to prove you can do it
the question sometimes comes up of
were you ever told that you weren't
going to make it at university
did anyone ever put you know a barrier
in the way did anyone ever put a block
in the way
and suggest that you weren't going to
make it for some of our students
they claim their biggest motivator is to
prove to the people that they can do it
and in the process what happens is they
prove to themselves that they can do it
and they feel less worried about proving
to others but at the very beginning
proving to somebody else sometimes it's
a guidance counselor somebody it's
it's a naysayer in their life who said
they couldn't do it they're here to
prove them wrong
but it might be something else and so we
want you to think about what those
motivations are
precisely because it's valuable to
uh be aware of what is going
to keep you on track you know the very
beginning there's excitement right now
there's probably anticipation and
thinking ahead
um you know as you move into courses the
full weight of
the experience will come to you you'll
feel that the reading load and
what it's like to go to classes and do
the the writing and the research
associated
and at times you may have to ask
yourself why did i do this to myself
what am i
going to get out of this experience
what's my motivation again
and we'll be looking for you to uh to
reacquaint yourself with that motivate
uh here's how those motivations line up
uh this is from last year's orientation
you can see here career is
perhaps the biggest self-fulfillment is
next and being a role model and proving
to naysayers
is a smaller set of key motivators for
people
but this gives you an idea of kind of
how that lines up
something else to think about whether
you're a transfer student or you're a
mature student
really you know it's it's not correct to
think
of students as having just one role
um generally speaking our mature
students and transfer students have a
multitude of rules
that define their lives and how you
define your roles and prioritize those
roles in your life
will play a role in how you progress
academically
and whether or not your experience is
continuous
or interrupted here are some of those
rules
being a parent being a partner or spouse
having uh you know responsibilities for
elder care maybe you're caring for a
parent or more than one parent
uh perhaps you work for pay you're maybe
working
full time as you come to school maybe
working part time
maybe that work is directly related to
the thing you're studying
perhaps it's not and it's just a means
to an end
and then of course the role of student
and what we find is
first of all student isn't necessarily
at the top of the list
for some uh these priorities kind of
move up and down
in the priority and depending what's
going on in life
being a student might take a back seat
temporarily there might be points in
your year when
you're not a hundred percent focused on
your academics because
you know something's gone wrong with
your children maybe one of them's
uh needing your attention for something
maybe something's up
uh at your home maybe with elder care
responsibilities or working
responsibilities
your student role temporarily might get
interrupted and what i want you to think
about is
it's not so much whether it gets
interrupted or not but how you respond
to that interruption that will
really dictate your progress at
university when i say juggling roles i
think what i mean here is that we're
going to spend time in all of these
roles
and student won't always be the top role
we're going to sometimes have to put
student
role first but often these other rules
will come first and so
this has an impact perhaps in how we
think about our course loads
how we think about our commitments
overall in life
and generally speaking people coming to
university as transfer students
and as mature students they come with a
pretty full life already
and so then making space for the student
role
the number of hours in class the number
of hours for
self-directed study outside of class
what we would otherwise call homework
wedging that new role into a busy life
in a full life already
can be a challenge at first and so you
want to give yourself a little room
to find your balance and find what the
right interplay between these roles is
going to be
okay finally a couple things here a few
questions you can ask yourself
through the summer time to help prepare
you intellectually and emotionally
perhaps for
the experience ahead what do you think
might be different about the
quote-unquote culture of university
how will you adapt so if you're coming
from a community college let's say
you're used to having 30 hours of class
a week how will university be different
one tip i might give you right away is
you'll be in classes a maximum of about
15 hours per week instead of 30.
but those hours that you're not in class
will convert to time you spend
on your own doing self-directed learning
readings making notes studying and so on
doing assignments for those courses what
role will your prior education and lived
experience play in the classroom
but we've got a little bit of a an
ageist joke here
we've got a woman saying you know she
corrects the history professor because
she remembers being there
the the sense here is it's important to
engage that
lived experience and your prior
education when you come into a
university classroom
don't negate those experiences but
what you may feel is that those past
experiences are quite different
from what happens in the classroom for
instance your lived experience
perhaps you've worked in a particular
field and now you're taking courses
related to that field
you might be listening to the theory in
the class thinking that's not how it
works in real life
that's a moment for really powerful
learning to happen
rather than saying i'm going to reject
my lived experience or reject the new
theory i'm hearing
wrestling with the conflict the apparent
conflict between lived experience
and classroom theory that's where the
learning is going to happen
so you want to prepare yourself to be
patient for that
uh interplay same with prior education
what you've learned before and how you
learned before might need to shift
uh to adapt successfully to the
university environment and so
you want to make sure that you're open
to the possibility that
how you do things will shift you have to
be adaptable
finally think about what challenges you
think you'll encounter what
in other words what are your worries and
what can you do during the summer to
connect to some of our resources
to put those worries away so you can
resolve those worries and begin
with a great deal of confidence as the
year begins okay last slide here i think
the adventure has already begun we used
to say the adventure begins but in fact
if you're here already you've already
begun this journey you've thought about
coming to university you've made
application you've organized yourself to
apply
you've been successful of being admitted
and now you're attending our
orientation a few things to be thinking
about over the course of the summer
make sure you decide on a course load
and course selections that are
appropriate to you
you will have direct access to advising
and advisors will give you some guidance
on this
but there's no rule that says you must
take five courses there's no rule that
says you must take a certain
array of courses you want to think
carefully about your course load
think about that in light of whether
you're seeking financial supports
through osap
but also think about course load in
terms of what you think you can manage
given
all the roles in your life and remember
that being a full-time student means
the equivalent of three full courses
over the course of the year
course selections are just as important
choose things that interest you choose
things that are
going to move you forward in your
pathway and look for
how you assemble a course selection that
permits you to cover off your general
education requirements
secondly having what i call quote
unquote the conversation
with your key supporters your partners
spouses family friends employers
about this experience do people know
you're coming to university do people
know
uh what your goals are for that do they
understand
what you need from them maybe at this
stage you're not sure yet
exactly what you'll need from them so
the conversation
is not a one-time thing the conversation
is an ongoing kind of
dialogue you have with those key
supporters to make sure they understand
uh what you're experiencing to let them
know where the challenges are to let
them know where the successes are so
they can celebrate with you
um keeping an open dialogue keeping an
open line of communication with those
key supporters is really
a very important ingredient to your
adventure
as a student third thing here knowing
what signposts to watch for and how to
respond to them
you might want to think ahead to say
what will be the signals
that i give myself what are the
signposts to watch for that tell me
things are going great
you know good grades i'm attending all
my classes i'm getting my readings done
i'm understanding those readings
i'm keeping up i'm finding my resources
i'm making
friends and connections in class those
would be the kind of signposts that tell
you things are going really well
if you happen into sign posts though
that tell you things are not going so
well
maybe your grades are lower than you
think or you're not keeping up with
readings and so on
that's a time when we're going to
encourage you to reach out for some
support
that's to your advising area or to our
office at the atkinson center for mature
and part-time students
we want you to know that we're here to
support you sometimes
you know you'll want to pay attention to
drop dates and to grades and so on
just to make sure that you're handling
things well and that you're adapting to
the new circumstance
finally keep success in perspective as i
mentioned earlier
very often mature students and transfer
students come with uh either an implicit
or sometimes even explicit expectation
of of high performance people expect
them you know
to to come to university and be scoring
good grades right away
and i think what's important there is
that success is relative and defined by
each person
and you may want those high grades but
they may not be there immediately you
may have to
do some adjustments uh you may have to
learn some new skills to get there
and what i would say is in the process
of being successful academically in
terms of grades in the classes you're in
make sure you find balance make sure you
find a balance between school and the
rest of
life and that's going to be a kinetic
balance not one that's fixed and stable
all the time
it'll be where sometimes you spend a bit
more time on school or a bit less time
on school
find that balance though and make sure
that you're seeking a sense of
connection so
you're not feeling alone in the journey
a lot of the value of the university
experience
whether you're coming from college or
you're coming from another university or
you're attending as a mature student
a lot of that excitement and the
goodness of the experience comes
from having that sense of connection so
i'm going to pause it there
and pass it back to navani and we'll
carry on from there
hey navi over to you and you are muted
sorry thank you brian i'm just gonna
start sharing my screen again
okay
so the next part of our orientation
deals with our
peer mentors and they are also mature
students like i've mentioned before
we have a few of our mentors who've been
with us
for a good amount of years um we have
alan feinman who's going into this
fourth year
psychology major we're going to hear
from
kate moo king curtis who's also one of
our peer mentors she's all
she's going into her fourth year of uh
childhood
youth um children childhood and youth
program
and i have a video of our peer mentor
katelyn
that if we have enough time and it
permits i will show you her video
but for now what i'm going to conduct is
just a q and a
with alan and kate with regards to their
matrices and experience
and alan was a transfer student as well
so we'll hear from him on that
perspective
so i'm going to stop sharing my screen
and we're going to go into gallery
review
so that we'll be able to see each other
and hear their conversations down
so let's get started with that so alan
and kate what i would ask is if you can
please
we'll start with alan first if you can
say your name
your program of study your year level
and then we'll go into the questions
hi everybody i'm alan feynman and
i'm taking my honors ba in psychology
it's a four-year course but i'm doing it
in seven
and i have one more year to go and kate
you're on mute kate
i still have to navigate this sometimes
uh hi my name is
kate mukin curtis i'm uh i'm going to my
fourth year for honest rba program
called children
childhood and youth studies and uh
that's
it okay so alan and kate my first
question is
what brought you to york university and
why did you decide to return to school
alan well i decided to return to school
um basically to prove to myself that
that i could do it um
i was in los angeles uh in the
entertainment business and things were
kind of uh
running low in that field for me so i
called up york university and just said
do you have any low tuition rate tuition
rates for a very very mature student
and they they said well we weighed the
tuition when you reach 60. so i thought
this is a great opportunity and
i don't know my instincts just said well
you know what go
for it you you went when you were a kid
you quit after two weeks you were
intimidated by the reading list and the
lecture halls and i sort of wanted to
prove to myself that
that i could do it and sort of you know
towards the end of my life go out with a
bang
and that's basically why i decided to
return
thank you allen and kate uh yes so
um i burnt out as a traditional artist
and
feature animation i was in the business
for a couple of decades
so i took on the roles of development
producer coordinator
professional uh development trainer for
in-studio artists
uh just to still be involved in
the creative process and it was just not
a fit
for me as i missed the art making so
i decided to follow the path of art
therapy as my next passion
which is a post post-grad and i needed a
bachelor's to apply
to it and and i actually i love my
bachelor's it's very
relevant too it will add to my ad
therapy practice
thank you kate and alan back to you
we'll go to the next question what was
your experience as a mature student at
york
um you were a transfer student and a
mature student so if you could speak to
that please
well uh after i quit when i went to york
in 1971 i quit after two weeks
and then about a year later i went to
centennial college and i
i took a three-year course in
communications creative advertising
um and then fast forward the 40 years
later
i got transfer credits from the
centennial college years
uh i just got 15 transfer credits but
that that was fine um and my experiences
as a mature
student um well it's interesting i
i was thinking people were going to give
me a double take
you know you know oh look at this old
guy he's not even a professor
who is he where is he why is he here but
actually people seem to accept me more
than i accept me
so um i just uh it
it it felt pretty good and um as a
mature student what i did was
i i just like maybe because of my age i
just i was not afraid to ask questions
in class
and i engaged the professors and i took
advantage
of their office hours which i find that
younger students didn't do
so i kind of had sometimes the
professors to myself
um and basically those are the high
points of me as a mature student
i like to hang out at coffee shops and
just talk to people and get to know them
thank you alan and kate what was your
experience as a mature student
so um it is a it has been very
fulfilling um
i find that i enjoy uh school
a lot more than i did when i was younger
and i thought i loved it
back then but it really adds uh
to learning having left life a little
bit um
it's so relevant to the learning
experience
but at the same time it's been a bit
isolating because
of the generational gap with most of my
classmates um
i would say the majority of my
classmates uh want to go to teachers
um college and uh they're really young
they talk about the parents making
dinner
meanwhile i'm thinking what am i gonna
you know make for dinner for my kids
tonight so
it's uh i mean we get along but uh yes
i'm a the older student that's a mom and
a wife and
had things happening before then
yeah juggling those roles it's hard
okay so what would you say i'll go back
to alan alan what would you say are some
positive aspects of being a mature
learner
um i i suppose uh uh
being a mature learner um one of the
positive aspects is i could corroborate
certain things um
for example when i was studying the
bible in
a secular context they were talking
about moses
parting the red sea and i i i concurred
with that i said well i
i he was a nice man i was there and he
did part the red sea
and um you know i i could confirm it
people and also uh you know abraham
lincoln
he did grow up in a log cabin and i was
in the log cabin right next to him so
anyways things like that were beneficial
uh being a mature student i'm sorry i
forgot the question what was the
question
what are some positive aspects of being
a mature student
well positive aspects one of the
negative things is my memory is going
uh my short-term memory is going my
short-term memory is going
uh so um anyways uh
no the positive aspects are uh just uh
i suppose not being uh not being
inhibited
and i think that comes with age you know
and
and you just feel free to like i said
before engage with the professors
and take advantage of their time and
that's that
that's basically it thanks alan and kate
what would you say are some positive
aspects of being a mature
learner so i would say like learning as
a mature
learner has been richer and more focused
of an experience than in my early 20s
like i mentioned before
when i took uh art in college um
i would say like your priorities are
different uh you uh
you know yourself uh better um i will
echo on some of
uh alanza um comments on corroborating
things maybe not as far as moses maybe a
little bit
more modern times but so for example
like i'm taking
um one of my electives is uh intro to
gender woman studies
and i remember that second wave of uh
feminism like i was a kid
and my mom was a single parent and you
know it's just like
the collision of you know the old school
and the new school
i remember these things so when i go
through the readings so when we make
discussions sometimes i can refer to
my personal experiences so and and then
you know with that children childhood
and youth studies
not that you are an expert at children
and youth as a parent
but there's just some things when they
talk of it it's like yes
you know i i can relate to that
you know from um practical knowledge so
anyway
thank you thank you kate um so alan back
to you as a mature
student learner time management plays an
important role while at post-secondary
how do you deal with juggling various
roles and manage your time
well regarding managing my time
for me it's very simple um i don't look
at it as a whole i look at it bit by bit
a day by day
say i have a hundred pages to read in 10
days well i don't just look at it as
i don't want to do the hundred pages of
the day before so what i do is i
i read maybe 10 pages a day and then i
get it done
it's it it's like anything in life you
just you you
you parsh uh what's the word uh
partition partition i guess yeah
gee i've been here four years and i have
to think of that one so you you
partition
things you know you you balance it and
you just don't leave things
all to the to to the last minute in fact
right now i'm studying uh
for my fall term i'm i'm i'm doing some
pre-reading
so i can be prepared and and i like to
um time management wise
before the lecture starts you know i
like to be as prepared as i can
for the lecture so i read i read as much
as i can
for that particular lecture rather than
going to the lecture first
and then reading so that i can
understand everything and then ask
questions and
that's regarding time management was
there a second part to that question
no you met you answered it um kate what
about you
do you want me to repeat the question no
no no um
so in terms of time management and
juggling
various roles uh for me it's a moving
target
um you know i can plan as much as i can
but
i have to keep adapting to sometimes
like within a day so
i have two teens and one tween as well
as a health challenges
and i'm still trying to stay adaptable i
think that's key
when you have a complex life and keep
prioritizing
i've been open to reject all those
priorities
sometimes on a daily basis or from
morning to
afternoon sometimes it changes and i
talk to
other material students i know on how
they juggle
with many aspects of their lives so that
helps me too
okay thank you kate and as a mature
student allen were you able to get
involved on campus
join clubs volunteer experience
well i have volunteered for act maps
and what i would like to do in the
coming year is just
you know if people are
would like to talk about specific uh
things that i can relate to i would love
to
talk to them about it um and um
uh uh basically the clubs uh i i mean i
joined the tate mckenzie
uh gemini but i didn't take advantage of
it as much as i should have
um and uh
i'm sorry sort of the clubs and
activities what was the other part of
the
question just volunteer opportunities or
clubs so you were
you were a peer mentor with act maps so
that answers yeah
yeah but regarding clubs i would never
really join a club that would have me
for a member
so that's an old groucho line um but i
i actually you know what i i mean uh
obviously i've been in comedy most of my
life and i
i would say that in school
the most important thing is maintaining
your sense of humor especially about
yourself
especially not to take yourself too
seriously
um i mean my philosophy is that life is
too short and so am i
um but uh yeah basically that's it you
know just
maintain a sense of humor okay thank you
alan and kate what about you were you
able to join in clubs and volunteer
opportunities yes so um other than
volunteering for art maps as a peer
mentor for the last couple years i was
also a lounge a volunteer for yamsel
which stands for york university metro
student organization
since my first year and i connected with
other mature students
through it um i would say that
no matter how busy my life was i
dedicated one hour
of my weekly time to go to the yamsel
lounge you know
whether there was nobody there and i had
like quiet
time and a clean space or
you know just like connecting to other
mature students that totally understand
the complexities of
my life because they have it too and
they're all very interesting people like
all of you
i'm sure have many stories uh to tell
them any experiences so
that that was very valuable to me too
okay thank you kate and
thanks to both of you for being at mass
peer mentors your awesome mentors with
us
the next question i have is did your
mature student experience teach you
something that you did not know
beforehand alan
yes actually it did um when i was
younger say well like i said i went to
york after two weeks and i quit so
i had a tendency to quit things i wasn't
i didn't i didn't you know stick to it a
lot
i'm not not everything but i you know um
in fact even relationships i didn't
really stick to i the longest one i had
was six
seven hours but i won't go into that so
um
you know it's just sticking with it and
and i realized that um
you know as a mature student i guess
i've become more mature
and i don't give up i i took statistics
statistics is a hard course
and i remember getting to a point
where i just i couldn't get this one
formula or whatever it was
and i i felt i hit a brick wall but i
just kept at it i kept at it i
i would not stop and finally i broke
through and i got it so
so don't give up and also regarding the
amount of
courses you take i take two to three
courses a year
and brian you know as he said you could
take three courses a year
if your three courses a year
and that would mean that you were uh
full-time uh if you do apply as a
student with a disability which is a
whole nother thing you can take two
courses per year
um but anyways quality not quantity
and that's why i'm doing my four years
in in seven i would have liked to have
done it in six but it's it's seven
and and then that's it
thanks alan and kate what uh did your
mature student um
experience teach you something that you
did not know beforehand
so um i did not realize that i was going
to
thrive as much as i have in a university
setting
because i come from the arts i come from
image i come from film
and then jump into no pictures
only words lots of reading lots of
writing
um i i surprised myself and and i also
drew from
you know like people close to me in my
life that
were fast readers were good writers um
and uh it's been a bit of like a a
teamwork
uh thing like i thought that i was gonna
be
okay this is my thing you know i'm on my
own but
um it became like a community um thing
for me
it was very rejuvenating and purposeful
okay thank you guys um i do have a
couple more questions but i know i'm
keeping my eye on the time it's
um so very quickly for the last two that
i have is basically
we're in the middle of a pandemic
because this is a very important
question so i want to get this out to
everyone
as you know we're currently in the midst
of pandemic and york has moved classes
online
um so for alan and kate when we moved
online in march
um how are you dealing with online
classes is it doable
how were your professors helpful with
you
alan yes yes my my professor was
well he was helpful he he had a zoom
session
sort of i mean a practice session um
and uh it's it it is helpful and even
this right now
with these sessions here with zoom it's
very helpful to me
and thank you navani for for helping me
with all these little
uh things that i was trying to get used
to so i mean i grew up with a stone and
chisel so i'm just getting into the
computers
right now but um yes it is very doable
the online
is is very doable but if you're a social
person like i am
it might be a little i just well i like
the in-person thing but
it's very doable and um and it's still
you can be sociable here too you know
okay thanks alan and kate
um so um i feel like online learning
feels
like twice as much work as the on campus
equivalent and i noticed that because uh
when we
quickly ramped up from on campus old
school
um in march to online
um it just felt like that this
conversational
um synergy it's a lot
more than just translating to writing so
you have to be more disciplined with it
you have to probably take few fewer
courses
just to get a feel for it and that will
be my personal recommendation
and since the global pandemic forced
great changes like uh
i find that faculty has uh been
proactively
uh learning along with students on how
to
more effectively translate their
teaching styles to an online platform so
they will be in better shape
for the fall um they're doing as much
learning as we are and
that's been a bit of an equalizer it's
been
interesting to see that and the ones
that i have uh experience have been
constantly improving
on their deliveries and on student
success so
i'm i'd like to be um hopeful and
positive and
i think this whole crisis has uh
been a platform for like innovation and
being creative
definitely kate thank you alan and kate
for being on my panelist today i greatly
appreciate it
i'm just going to start sharing my
screen quickly to do just a quick
wrap-up with you guys and
speak on yum cell um i won't show you
katelyn's video right now but we will be
sending as brian said
uh this the powerpoint presentation to
you guys and you'll be able to see that
um also if you have any questions you
can put it in the chat we'll adjust it
at the end
um yeah i'm still so i'm gonna invite
i'm gonna go back stop sharing in a few
minutes but i just wanted to bring this
new york university metro student
organization is a club on campus and
elaine
is one of the executive members for fall
winter 2020 2021
um this is their email their facebook
once we send you the slideshow you'll be
able to get that information
so i'll stop sharing again and i'll ask
elaine if um
she can speak to youngstow
elaine yeah go ahead uh thank you
no problem hello mature students and
welcome to york university
new york university mature student
organization young so for short
is an all-volunteer student club founded
in 2004.
it is the only student-run club for
mature students
at the university we have about 400
members
including students who are parents of
young children
our main goal is to help and serve
york's community of mature students
themselves provides an opportunity for
mature
students that's us who have life
experiences beyond the lecture hall
to mingle with students in similar
situations
working closely with act maps we aim to
connect you with mentors who can support
and guide you
whatever the challenges concerns and
obstacles
you may face in your experience as a
mature
university student under normal
circumstances
our home on campus is at vanier college
room 113 b on the ground floor
this comfortable room provides a place
for mature students to network
as well as to relax have lunch or simply
to socialize with other mature students
the lounge provides complementary tea
coffee and snacks
two dust-cut computers a fridge
and a microwave however because of the
pandemic
and the need for social distancing the
lounge will unfortunately not be open
this fall
we will keep you posted as to when it
will become available again
in the past we have organized pub nights
coffee meetups
as well as larger events like an open
house in september
and a holiday party in december which is
an event for the entire family
students their partners and their
children
however this academic year at least
during the fall semester
our activities will be different because
of the university's response to the
covered 19
endeavor our presence during the fall
semester
will be not on campus but online
through social media we will try to keep
you connected with one another
and with campus life we will be
communicating up-to-date information
and informing you of events that may be
of interest to you
from across the campus we also plan to
hold
a monthly virtual social social
get-together
youngstow volunteers are the key to our
success
it is thanks to the generous donation of
your time that we've been able to keep
the lounge open
for the enjoyment of all you and so
members
the role that volunteers play in our
organization is huge
since our executive team so far this
year is small
we are looking for other mature students
to join us
so if you are interested in being a part
of himself's executive
check out our social media twitter
instagram
and especially facebook where we will be
posting information
on which positions are open and how to
join
if you have any expertise or information
you would like to share
with your fellow mature students or if
you have any questions or suggestions
as to what we could do to better support
you
please drop us a line at ymsoyu
gmail.com or facebook you yum
or twitter at umso or instagram im so
underscore why you
um i understand that navani is posting
our contact information
online so you can copy it down from
there thank you
and solidarity the um team thank you
elaine
okay i'm gonna share my screen with you
guys one more time we're just wrapping
up
now so that's yum cells information
their email which you will get when we
send you the powerpoint
i just want to bring to your attention
right before we just do our quick thank
you
um york university as brian has stated
when he did um his
opening remarks um that we do have a
clovis 19 update website that students
can go to
and any information that comes from the
university will be posted there so
please keep keeping look out for this
information when you go to the main york
university websites it's usually in the
corner
think in the top right corner but you'll
be able to find it
and then you can find any information
that you need about coping 19 and
updates and if we're returning and when
we're returning things like that
you would go to this website um so
that's the end of our orientation
today again we just want to say thank
you very much for joining
us thanks to our panelists to our young
member brian for being our keynote
speaker um if you have any info
um if you'd like to ask us questions i
know there was a lot going on in the
chat
thank you to dilraj for managing that
our work study student that was amazing
and for the other students who
contributed and assisted as well
um but if you do have questions that we
were not able to address
please reach out to us at actmaps at
working.ca
send me i'm the one that manages that
email if you call us
at 416-736-5700
i will be the one that answers that
phone call and any which way that i can
help you or
refer you to another area on campus
another department
and we will be able to do that for you
um there was a lot of advising questions
i realized
and transfer credit questions so i just
want to address that piece of it
um if you had already seen your advisor
and you got transfer credits after
you saw your advisor my advice is that
you go back to the advisor make another
appointment
and see the advisor so that they can see
what transfer credits you've got
um and any questions about your your
credits
your courses um dropping you can always
go speak to the academic advisor but
that you'd have to go within the faculty
that you're registered in and i believe
del raj posted the advising link
to all the advising offices and you'd be
able to sort that through they are doing
zoom sessions
um and they're doing emails and phone
calls as well so you will get a response
i'm brian i don't know i'll stop sharing
i'll go back to gallery if you have
anything else to say
you can jump back in thanks navi um
just a quick note to everybody who's
still online with us
um you've uh you put into the chat a
large number of excellent questions
we've been able to respond to some of
those within the chat uh but as neboni
was saying
uh we want you to feel free to reach out
to us one of the things we are doing
today is cataloging these questions
uh to make kind of a question and answer
list for you
and uh following our session today we'll
be sending out not only the slides
but some of the information and contact
information you might need
to answer some of these questions um
understandably at this stage especially
for those of you who are transfer
students there's a lot of
specific questions about how your
transfer credit was assessed and how
those credits that are given to you
apply to the courses
that you have and should you keep the
courses you've enrolled in or should you
drop
and so on those are excellent questions
but i need to say that it's very hard to
give a very generic answer to those
because
transfer credit is a very individualized
assessment and so
we want to make sure that rather than
giving you a broad answer that
ends up being incorrect we want to make
sure we put you in touch with the people
who can
help you to get to the bottom of those
questions also lots of useful questions
about can i read ahead
how do i access my course materials when
do classes begin
and so on now we'll make sure that we
have included those
uh questions and answers in the
materials that we share with you
so you have all that stuff there um one
of the things that we should say is that
uh ordinarily when we do our
orientations
uh we do a three hour session and so we
didn't think you wanted to sit for three
hours
looking at zoom um that that could be
quite exhausting and so what we've done
is we've broken up the content into
smaller pieces
and we've started the process much
earlier in the year
so today being june 30th this is
probably the earliest we've done an
orientation
and we're delighted that you have this
engagement level with this many
questions and we're
happy to work with you over the coming
weeks to make sure you get the
information you need
um again when we when we start this
today was the introductory piece there
are two additional dates
those are not repeats of today's session
they are extensions of today's session
and we strongly encourage you to enroll
in those and attend those with us again
again i'll say we'll be sending out some
materials to those who've registered
today including answers to a number of
the questions that you've got
if ever you're not sure uh or you have
persistent questions that need
resolution
or you're just not able to contact
somebody who we've pointed you in the
direction of
please reach us at actmaps at yorq.ca
i've put that
in the group chat but i'll put that up
again
just so you have it that's our generic
email um
and you can use that to uh send us broad
questions and just
to seek information and referrals so uh
we'll be happy to respond to that
um please note with uh with nearly 100
participants today
we'll we'll maybe take a day or so to
respond to you so
if something's super super urgent let us
know
put put urgent in uh in the header line
and that'll help us to sort them but
generally it'll take us a day or so to
get around to responding to those okay
um i think that's all i have to say
except thank you so much um
also thank you to kate and
and alan for being our panelists today
and talking with our students
and all of you who've participated today
be assured that we're here to support
you
and you've made an excellent choice
choosing york and
we're looking forward to building a
relationship over the course of the
summer and into the
fall term so that you feel settled and
you have all the resources you need at
your disposal
navi back to you for a fun word and then
we'll wrap up okay then my final words
are just thank you thank you thank you
for coming out today um hope to see you
at our part two session of this on july
21st and even part three on august 24th
um thank you again
