Five things I wish I knew...

Parents are always right, the saying goes. While I might not be a parent, I have been in your place a few years ago, and what a different and expensive place it is. So, looking back on my post-secondary experience, here are five things I wish I knew when I was still in school.

Free and discounted stuff

As a student, there’s a lot of stuff you can get for free or discounts for. A lot. For example, did you know you can get Microsoft Office for free (tinyurl.com/pa247tt)? A $100 discount on a MacBook (tinyurl.com/ohcs8e3)? Six months of free two-day shipping on Amazon (tinyurl.com/kzty6ze)?

There are also resources available to you, such as free job search and resume workshops. Then there are free concerts and comedy shows almost every week.

So, next time you buy Greyhound bus tickets or a mobile phone, make sure you ask for a student discount.

Volunteering pays off

When the time to apply for a job finally came, I realized I screwed up by not spending more time at my school's student newspaper. Sure, I ended up with a degree in journalism, a nice portfolio and decent grades, but so did some 20 other students in my program. The students who got jobs right out of school were the ones who volunteered while in school.

There are tons of places you can get work experience from while in school, on campus and off campus: the Interrobang, Habitat for Humanity, Museum of Ontario Archaeology and so on. If you can’t find a place that suits you, ask a professor. Not only will you get experience, but you’ll also get references.

Apply for bursaries

Applying for bursaries is a lot of work. First, you have to find them and make sure you’re eligible. Then you have to write a letter telling the person or organization why you should be the recipient of the bursary. Sometimes you also have to add in your resume, an essay or a portfolio. Unless you have a 95 per cent average, have volunteered for the United Nations and UNICEF and have founded a business at age 14, it seems like a lot of work for nothing.

But it isn’t.

When I was in undergrad, I never applied for bursaries. I did look for them, but I was rarely eligible – I didn’t have the average, I wasn’t in the right program, I wasn’t the right gender, and so on.

In graduate school, I kept getting emails about bursaries specific to students in my program. I wasn’t eligible for any, but there was one I was almost eligible for. The prize was quite substantial so I figured, why not? And even though there were at least five people in my program I was aware of who were eligible for the bursary, I got it. I guess they never bothered to take the 30 minutes it took to apply, something I now wish I’d done in undergrad.

OSAP is not free money

If you’re like most students, you’ll get a cheque from the Ontario Student Assistance Program in the upcoming weeks. You’ll probably end up with more money than you need to survive, and you won’t have to start paying it back until six months after you leave school. Oh, and the interest on the loan is low, too.

So why not get that $1,000 Norco mountain bike you’ve been eying all summer? Or that $700 Canada Goose parka you wanted for Christmas but didn’t get?

Because it’s still a loan – you will have to pay it back sooner than you think. When you’re out of school, you have to start paying for stuff you actually need like rent, food, insurance and so on. And that debt.

Professors are there to help you

While in high school it might’ve been OK if you didn’t memorize the date of the first Quebec referendum, you’re not in high school anymore. Instead of dismissing an exam you got a “C” mark on, ask your professor where you went wrong. Not only will you do better on the next exam, but when you will be faced with a similar problem in the workplace, you’ll know how to properly solder that joint or fix that leaking exhaust. After all, you’re paying a lot of money to be here, and professors are paid to be helping you.