Sophia has a slightly unconventional goal for first year.
She wants to be stressed.
Not badly stressed.
Not crying-over-a-midterm-in-Robarts stressed.
More like: so many opportunities, so many people and so many things she genuinely wants to do that her calendar becomes mildly concerning.
“I hope university can teach me to actually be grateful for the stress and to be happy that I’m all over the place,” she tells The Row. “Because I get to be all over the place. I get to be stressed about these things.”
There are worse problems to have.
This fall, Sophia is starting social sciences at U of T and moving from Oakville to downtown Toronto.
She wants to rush.
She wants to join clubs.
She wants to work.
She is already thinking about internships.
She would also, presumably, like to pass her classes.
The operative word here is balance.
By the end of first semester, Sophia does not necessarily want to have university completely figured out.
She just wants to feel grounded.
And judging by the number of things she plans on squeezing into the months before December, getting there may require a little experimentation.
Moving is kind of her thing
For some incoming students, university will be their first real experience walking into a place where they barely know anyone.
Sophia has been practising for most of her life.
She was born in Dubai, lived in the United States and Malaysia, and eventually moved to Canada in 2013.
“I lived in the States, Malaysia, kind of everywhere,” she says.
It has given her experiences she is deeply grateful for, but constantly moving around did come with one childhood wish.
“I yearned for a close childhood friend.”
Still, there is an upside to repeatedly being dropped somewhere new.
You eventually learn that you can survive it.
“It’s definitely helped me get more comfortable with adjusting,” Sophia says. “So I’m not as nervous to go into university just because I’m used to moving around and being thrown into a place with a bunch of people I don’t really know.”
Her travel era is also very much not over.
At some point during university, Sophia would love to do an exchange and keep adding countries to the list.
First, however, she has to conquer Toronto.
The plan is to stop being one-dimensional
Sophia describes much of high school as academically focused.
Very academically focused.
“Study, study, study.”
Then Grade 12 arrived.
Senioritis arrived.
And the scale started tipping in the opposite direction.
University, she hopes, will be where she finally figures out the middle.
“I want to be able to find a balance,” she says.
That means having friends without letting school implode.
Doing well academically without making grades her entire personality.
Potentially working while studying.
Joining organizations.
Actually going places.
Having time to enjoy the city she moved into.
Easy.
Sophia already knows exactly what would help her achieve this.
Time management.
The only minor issue is that her current system is not particularly successful.
“I’m kind of old school. I have a journal, and I really like physically writing things,” she says.
Promising start.
“But the thing about me is I’ll make a bunch of schedules, and then I’ll just cross them out because I never follow them.”
Less promising.
“My entire journal is just full of schedules, schedules, schedules, and they’re all crossed out.”
Thankfully, she has tried technological intervention.
At one point, Sophia used a productivity app that rewarded completed tasks with points she could use to grow and accessorize a virtual pet.
Apparently, the threat of disappointing a fake digital creature can occasionally accomplish what a handwritten planner cannot.
University Sophia’s goal is simple:
Make the schedule.
And then, revolutionary concept, actually follow it.
Her emotional-support objects are LEGO and rhinestones
Some people pack framed photos for university.
Some bring stuffed animals.
Sophia is bringing LEGO.
“I brought a lot of them that I still have to do,” she says.
Building sets gives her something increasingly rare: an activity that does not require staring directly into her phone.
“It gets me off my phone, and then I’m still actually doing a hobby.”
She also bedazzles.
Friends have been previous recipients of Sophia’s rhinestone work, and she can apparently sit for hours with music or a show playing in the background while turning an ordinary object into something significantly shinier.
“By the time I’m finished, three hours have passed and I feel really good because I actually accomplished something.”
Between the LEGO and the bedazzling kit, Sophia may accidentally become the most useful person to know during sorority craft season.
Convenient, because—
She’s rushing
Sophia is entering U of T genuinely excited about recruitment.
Also nervous.
The actual idea of walking into recruitment events, speaking to chapter after chapter and figuring out where she feels most comfortable is a very different experience from reading about it online.
Still, everything she has encountered so far has only made her more interested.
The people she has spoken to seem welcoming, and for Sophia, Greek life fits neatly into her broader first-year goal: meet people she otherwise never would and see where she feels at home.
She is not necessarily looking for a total personality reinvention.
She is looking for range.
The fear is not meeting nobody. It’s missing the right somebody.
Sophia knows U of T has tens of thousands of students.
Statistically, there are almost certainly people somewhere on campus she will love.
Her concern is more logistical.
“Honestly, I’m nervous that I won’t be in the right place at the right time.”
She knows compatible friends exist.
The scary part is wondering whether she will actually cross paths with them.
Which may be the most U of T-specific friendship anxiety imaginable.
Your future best friend could be 300 metres away.
Unfortunately, they are in Sid Smith and you are in Brennan Hall.
Sophia is trying not to overthink it.
“At the end of the day, if it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”
She is also not exactly leaving things entirely to fate.
Before classes have even begun, Sophia has been attending welcome events, connecting with other incoming students and meeting people through programs like Open Vic.
She estimates she already knows around 10 people going into the year.
And she has plans with several of them before September.
Not bad for someone worried about meeting people.
She wants friends who can lock in and go out
Sophia does not want first year to result in one enormous friend group where 28 people share a group chat until someone inevitably starts a civil war.
She wants layers.
“I want to be able to talk to everybody and get to know everyone,” she says.
But underneath that larger social circle, she hopes to find a smaller group she can genuinely rely on.
People “that I know I’ll always have in my corner.”
And there is one essential requirement.
They need range too.
Sophia wants close friends who “can both lock in and also have fun.”
In other words: people who can meet you at the library at 2 p.m. and somehow still be getting ready with you at 10.
Multipurpose friends.
The cornerstone of any functioning university ecosystem.
She is entering her elevated-basic era
Sophia’s style philosophy is relatively simple.
Wear things more than once.
Accessorize.
Look like you have your life together regardless of whether you actually do.
“I’d say pretty basic, but an elevated basic.”
She likes staple pieces she can rotate with different bottoms, then uses rings, bracelets and other accessories to make everything feel more intentional.
Mostly, she wants to look “clean.”
“You walk past [some people] and you’re like, ‘Wow, they just look so organized and clean and put together.’ So I try to appear that way.”
The operative word is appear.
“Fake it till you make it.”
A philosophy applicable equally to fashion and first-year university.
Sophia is already predicting that she will coordinate outfits carefully during the first week of class.
Then September will pass.
Midterms will arrive.
And the elevated basics may become substantially more basic.
“Sweatpants again, hoodies.”
The natural university lifecycle.
The summer soundtrack is apparently the Beatles
Every summer since around Grade 8, Sophia returns to the Beatles.
“It’s a yearly tradition for me.”
Her discovery story began with an Apple Music Beatles Essentials playlist, an admission she immediately followed with, “don’t judge me.”
We won’t.
Much.
From there, she fell into the catalogue.
“The Beatles is just summer.”
Recently, the Beach Boys have joined the rotation, along with Drake and a broader musical range inherited partly from her dad.
Sophia jumps from Pink Floyd to contemporary artists without much difficulty.
Pink Floyd, however, requires commitment.
“You can’t casually listen to them.”
Her favourite song is “Echoes.”
It is over 20 minutes long.
So if you ask Sophia for the aux, understand that you may be surrendering control of the vehicle for the foreseeable future.
Her film taste is suspiciously solid
Sophia’s movie rotation leans heavily toward classics and films that require slightly more commitment than whatever happens to be trending on Netflix.
The Matrix trilogy.
Pulp Fiction.
John Wick.
Inception.
There is, however, one important disclaimer.
The fourth Matrix movie?
Does not count.
“I’m gonna pretend the fourth movie doesn’t exist.”
Shows are different.
Sophia primarily watches sitcoms because television usually serves as background noise while she does something else.
The Office.
How I Met Your Mother.
The Big Bang Theory.
Forty-minute plot-heavy episodes requiring undivided attention are significantly less appealing.
She tried The Vampire Diaries.
It did not survive.
She is excited to stop wearing the GTA high-school uniform
One thing university offers Sophia that she did not feel she had as much of in high school is room to experiment.
With clothes.
With interests.
With people.
With how she spends her time.
“Everybody can just comfortably be themselves,” she says. “They can dress how they want, they can act however they want, they can prioritize what they want.”
High school, by comparison, had a fairly identifiable default aesthetic.
“Air Forces, leggings, and different coloured hoodies.”
The GTA uniform.
U of T’s size can be intimidating, but Sophia sees the advantage.
With that many people, being different stops being a particularly notable event.
“You’ll find people that won’t judge you for it.”
There is freedom in becoming one person among tens of thousands.
Oakville is comfortable. That is kind of the problem.
Sophia knows she will miss home.
Especially the people.
But she will also miss something less obvious: predictability.
Oakville is familiar.
She knows where things are.
She understands how the city moves.
Toronto feels completely different.
“I’m just hit with, ‘Wow, there’s so many people here. They’re all going somewhere. Everyone’s rushing.’”
Oakville, by comparison, feels slower.
Things are familiar enough that Sophia generally knows what to expect.
And that comfort is exactly what makes leaving both scary and exciting.
“At the same time, it being comfortable and predictable just makes it boring too.”
Toronto should solve that problem fairly quickly.
Academics are not optional in this family
Sophia wants balance.
That does not mean school is about to become secondary.
Far from it.
Her sister attended U of T before eventually completing a master’s at Oxford.
Her dad has a PhD.
“It’s definitely not in the family to put academics on the end of priorities.”
No pressure!
Sophia also connects her drive to her family’s experience immigrating to Canada.
She has watched how much work her parents put into creating opportunities for her and her sister, and she does not take those opportunities lightly.
“With my parents fighting and actually putting in the effort to move here and to give my sister and I these kinds of opportunities, it’s definitely made me appreciate these things a lot more.”
That gratitude has translated into pressure, but also motivation.
Even senioritis could only accomplish so much.
“I was like, ‘It’s okay if I get a bad grade. It’s okay.’ And then I think, ‘That’s not possible.’”
Academics will remain near the top.
The challenge is making sure there is room beside them.
Apparently, U of T might not be completely miserable
Sophia had already received one review of U of T before enrolling.
Reddit’s.
The summary?
Everyone is depressed.
Everyone is studying.
Nobody does anything.
A classic.
But the closer Sophia has gotten to actually starting school, the less accurate that picture has begun to feel.
She has connected with students.
Looked into organizations.
Explored sororities.
Received support through Victoria College.
She will also be taking Trinity One courses, where an upper-year mentor has already been available to answer questions.
“There’s definitely a lot more support than I initially thought.”
And socially?
Also less apocalyptic than advertised.
People do, apparently, leave the library.
Her first-year philosophy: say yes before you say no
When Sophia imagines speaking to herself three months into university, she already knows what she wants future Sophia to remember.
“Don’t be nervous and don’t immediately say no.”
She wants herself to recognize nervousness for what it is rather than interpreting it as a sign to retreat.
“Be excited. Be happy that you’re in this new environment and you’re getting to know these new things and you’re in a new city around new people.”
Then comes the thesis statement:
“Change is good. Change is growth.”
She wants to actually investigate opportunities before deciding they are not for her.
Move things around.
Make things fit.
Try.
“Embrace any opportunities that come your way.”
That includes work.
Sophia already hopes to find a job during first year and, ideally, begin positioning herself for an internship next summer.
Because apparently orientation has not even started and LinkedIn Sophia has already clocked in.
By the end of first semester, I hope to...
When The Row asked Sophia to finish the sentence, there was one word she kept coming back to.
“Be grounded.”
“I don’t know what the right word for this would be, but be grounded.”
For Sophia, grounded does not mean settled in the boring sense.
It means she has started finding her people.
She has a better idea of what direction she wants to go academically.
She knows which courses genuinely interest her.
She has explored enough of university to start recognizing which parts feel like hers.
“Have found my place, have found my people, or at least have started to find my people,” she says. “Have kind of started to figure out what direction I want to go in, what classes I’ve enjoyed the most so far, what I’m most interested in.”
That feels fitting for someone whose childhood involved so much movement.
Sophia has already learned how to arrive somewhere new.
First year is about learning how to stay long enough to build something there.
The journal will probably contain several crossed-out schedules.
The LEGO will slowly get finished.
Something will inevitably be bedazzled.
Rush will happen.
Toronto will stop feeling enormous.
And somewhere between wanting to do everything and realizing she physically cannot, Sophia will hopefully find the balance she has been looking for.
For now, though?
There are worse things than being a little all over the place.
She gets to be.