#FAOW: Arts Orientation 2014-15

This week the Faculty of Arts held orientation events for its class of 2014-15 incoming students, including a Wednesday-morning presentation and Q-and-A session. Here’s a gallery of images from that morning.

One of the themes that emerged from the audience questions was that many students felt overwhelmed by all the on-campus resources, curricular and extra-curricular: Study Abroad, Co-op Programs, student clubs, and so on. This is a nice problem to have, but it’s still a problem — and makes me think that next year, I could do a shorter presentation and leave more time for questions.

Here’s what we covered in the presentation:

• The Dean’s Welcome
• How to be an Arts Student
• Why Arts is Awesome
• The Arts Students’ Centre: Advising, Co-op, + Academic Integrity
• Study Abroad / Group Study
• Your SU Arts Reps

If you want more information about any of the material covered here, click the image for the PDF. It has contact info for the various programs — or just leave me a comment below.

So why is Arts Awesome, you ask? That was the title of David Kang’s video, which you can see here:

And in the section about How to be an Arts Student, here’s the gist of what I said:

• Read books. In print. No matter what your field. Explore the library shelves, esp. on the 5th and 6th floors of the TFDL. Buy paperbacks, and write in their margins.
• Ask questions. Pursue them until you fall down exhausted. Get up the next morning and return to your desk. Pursue them further.
• Pursue ideas. Take an intro class on a subject for its own sake, not just for the grades. Because you want to know more about anthropology, or religion, or linguistics. Talk with other Arts students. Have a debate with someone who sees the world differently than you do, who disagrees with your opinions.
• Make things. Spend part of every day making things, not only consuming information. Write an editorial, start a novel, make a collage, post to WordPress, write a sonnet.
• Think powerful thoughts. Read everything, learn to write powerfully convincing words and to think cratively, critically, originally, and for yourself.