Watching the evening news on Labour Day there was a feature about parents dropping their kids off at school – the annual move-into-the dorm weekend.  Most of the kids interviewed were excited and nervous about living away from home for the first time.  Which reminded me that it has been exactly 50 years since my parents moved me into my first-year residence.  I was used to sharing a room with my sister, but our bedroom in the old white farmhouse was so big it took up practically the whole upstairs.  What a shock when I saw the dorm room – how was I expected to live in this 6 X 12 space?  And mine being at the far end of the hall was one of the larger  ones, having an extra alcove and a second window, although the view was hardly scenic facing a row of old houses which bordered the campus.  My residence was a relatively new building, and utilitarian in it’s modernness, despite being on the historic downtown campus. 

There was a set of bunk beds, a built-in desk with two chairs near the window facing the quad, and a small built-in closet with two sides.  The aisle was so narrow you could almost reach across from the bed and touch the closet.  I quickly nabbed the bottom bunk by spreading my new orange and yellow quilt over it, as I couldn’t envision climbing down the ladder to go to the washroom in the middle of the night. 

 After a teary goodbye my parents left.  My poor mother, but she had previous experience with my older siblings moving out and dealt with empty nest syndrome by signing up for art classes and getting a puppy.  My dad was stoic as usual – no doubt worried about the drive out of the city as we had gotten lost on a one way street going in. It was the first time I had ever been to Toronto or seen skyscrapers.  Toronto was a four-hour drive from my hometown and most of my high school friends went to school closer to home, but U of T was the only place that offered my course.  The downtown campus was large, (68,000 students now) with the green space of King’s College Circle at it’s centre, but seemed isolated from the city surrounding it. It was an old school, with King’s College first established in 1827 by royal charter, and research based, being the birthplace of insulin, (I had some lectures in the old Banting and Best building complete with rows of narrow wooden desks), stem cell research, and cardiac pacemakers.

 After they left, I started to unpack.  The closet was small, but miraculously seemed big enough to handle my wardrobe, which was basically a few pairs of jeans, some sweaters and polyester shirts (I cringe at that), and a winter coat.  I had worn a uniform in high school and didn’t have a ton of clothes, and everyone lived in jeans back then.  There was a four-drawer bureau in the corner, upon which I placed my record player and small collection of albums, none of which I remember other than Gordon Lightfoot, a Canadian folksinger.  I claimed the desk nearest the window, another uncharacteristically bold move for me, but I had lived under the shadow of an older sister for too long.  The window overlooked the quad which separated the girl’s residence from the boy’s, which was full of engineers and so noisy it was called The Zoo. A decade later they made both buildings coed and my coop students told me it was impossible to get any work done.  

My roommate arrived about an hour later.  Her relatives were out the door so quickly I barely saw them. The first thing she did was set a picture of her father on the ledge over the radiator. He was wearing a black robe, and she told me he was a judge.  

We had both filled out the residence survey as non-smokers and Catholic, but other than that we had nothing in common.  She was a rich city kid, (I had encountered plenty of those at my Catholic high school, as it charged tuition after grade ten not too many poorer kids attended), whereas I had grown up on a farm.  She commented about the upper bunk, (in retrospect I suppose we should have flipped a coin) but she was somewhat mollified by the fact that our quilt colors did not clash, although mine was from Zellers/Target (see photo above) and hers was hand-made by Mennonites – but really what could you see of it anyway on the top bunk? Although she did give her stamp of approval to the orange Poly-Perk coffee maker which my mother had bought me (my mother, always a generous soul, had fun that summer outfitting me for school). 

We had a full residence plan, mandatory for first years, but did not have a fridge, but I’m not sure where you would have put one anyway.  I lost ten pounds first year as residence food was not my mother’s cooking, and I had not yet developed a liking for pizza, being unaware you could order it without pepperoni.

The second thing my new roommate did was hang a poster of Van Goth’s sunflowers on the wall, a painting I did not recognize to her horror, my 18-year-old self not being familiar with art, famous or otherwise, having only taken sciences and maths in high school.  So, the room nicely coordinated, she could relax.  Except…..I never actually saw her relax. Despite her rather privileged life she seemed to live under a cloud of Eeyore-like pessimism and anxiety. She was pretty, blonde and thin, (everyone was thin then) but it was difficult to imagine someone in such a permanent negative funk ever being a cheerleader.  I stressed about exams like everyone else, but I had more confidence that I would pass if I put the work in, whereas she was always full of doom and gloom and predicting failure with every test. Perhaps she felt pressure from the weight of expectations, whereas I had none. (Looking back I really won the parent lottery – I had the nicest, most easy-going parents – they were supportive, but if I had failed or not gone at all as some of my siblings didn’t, that would have been okay too.)

It’s not like we were enemies, but we weren’t friends either, we just didn’t click.  We went to classes together the first few months as everyone had the same schedule, except for electives, mostly because neither of us knew anyone else.  But she went home EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND, to see her high school boyfriend as her hometown was only an hour away.  By then I was glad I had not given up the bottom bunk.  I grew to enjoy the privacy of a room to myself for the first time in my life, but I was lonely and as I had no one to hang out with on the weekends, I stayed in and studied.  The course load was heavy right from the start. 

I was homesick myself the first semester, only going home for Canadian Thanksgiving mid-October, and that was it until Christmas.  But I eventually got to know my next door neighbour, and through her, some girls on the third floor, who came from small towns up north and I ended up rooming with them in third year in an off-campus student flat, and later an apartment.  Two of the girls were in a new program called computer science – the only girls in their class. I was never quite sure what they did but the seemed to spend entire nights in a lab coding something called Cobal, an early computer language.  I did get back into residence second year, not one of the coveted singles, but a much larger (four times the size) double which was just as good. To get a single you had to schmooze at the dean’s meet-and-greet sherry and tea parties (like something out of a British novel with printed invitations) held in her apartment, and I was an introvert and couldn’t be bothered although I did attend once to sample the sherry – too sweet. I had a rebellious streak even then. Otherwise no one ever saw her or her husband, but they were the adults on site in the building. There was also a series of elderly male porters at the front door to man the desk, sort the mail, and run the switchboard, (and give you The Look if you came in too late). There were no phones in the rooms, so they would notify you via an intercom in your room when a long distance call came in and you would go to a phone booth down the hall. My parents called every Sunday night when the rates were cheaper, usually a short call of ten minutes or so. Otherwise there were letters. It was always a treat to get a letter from home – my mothers were newsy, but my dad’s were humorous – I kept them all.

 We went to initiation (would you even be allowed to do some of those things today?) and frosh week activities together, including a day trip to Niagara Falls. The downtown campus was particularly nice in the fall when the leaves were changing.  I remember going to a frosh banquet in the Great Hall at Hart House (think Harry Potter minus the broomsticks) in the ivy-covered Trinity College, wearing a short black skirt and matching vest and a pair of black suede platform shoes. 

We went to a bar on Bloor Street after, my roommate and I and 3 guys, and I remember walking home through Queen’s Park, (the campus was next to the Parliament buildings) in my impractical platform shoes, with the leaves rustling underfoot, as you were not supposed to walk in the park after dark.  Other than that, we seldom went off campus, other than very occasionally to the fast food restaurants on Bloor Street – Swiss Chalet, Mr. Submarine and Steak and Burger (home of tough steak and warm apple pie).

My roommate wore classics, Estee Lauder perfume and Clinique makeup, which I regarded as old lady stuff. I wore drugstore brands, Cover Girl and Maybelline.  Being so much more fashionable, she took me shopping in downtown Toronto, as she was familiar with the stores and the subway system.  She insisted we go to Fairweathers where she bought two wool sweaters, one of which I shrunk to doll-size as I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to put wool in the dryer.  I had zero laundry experience, and never wore wool anyway – it was itchy.  I don’t think she ever forgave me for shrinking her sweater, but she begrudgingly said she would give it to her little sister.  I remember her stopping to window shop at a fancy jewelry store on Bloor St. as she planned on marrying her boyfriend who was destined for the law like her dad.  We were 18 and I thought that bizarre.  I had hardly even dated, and although I was more popular in university than in high school, marriage was the last thing on my mind. Women’s lib was in full swing. Wouldn’t you want to be independent and travel first?

 U of T was not a party school – other than attending a few weekend pubs, a semi-formal and a homecoming parade, I don’t remember much partying after the first month.  It was a serious academic university.   I was lucky to get in, (although my program tended to favour kids from small towns) but it was harder to stay in.  The workload was heavy with 30 hours of lectures and corresponding labs every afternoon in second year, including organic chemistry, analytical chemistry and medicinal chemistry, totally useless courses unless you were going into research.  Organic chemistry killed a lot of my classmates.  A quarter of my class had failed by the end of second year, including several of my close friends and a few others who just squeaked by. (The faculty made up for the high failure rate by accepting students with undergrad degrees and eventually that became a prerequisite).  I did okay because I was organized and had good study habits and a decent memory.  But I worked hard – I had the opportunity for an education and didn’t want to squander it. My degree gave me a good career for 40 years in a job I enjoyed, (except for the last five).  I was lucky in that my parents paid for my education ($3000/yr) so I graduated with no debt, quite a contrast to the $30,000plus/yr now with maybe no job in sight?  But I would have gone anyway, as it was easy to get loans and grants back then. They were based on financial need, the first $800 had to be repaid, the rest was free depending on your family’s income. My whole generation took advantage of that government program.

Lessons learned upon looking back:

Having an unsociable absentee roommate turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it allowed me to focus on the reason I was there.  Sometimes a bit of loneliness can be a good thing, if it forces you to do something productive or creative with your time.

It is perfectly possible to live in a very small space.  I adapted, as I really wasn’t in the room that much, other than to sleep and study.  Hello downsizing and tiny houses! Do I really need so much stuff? No wonder so many young people are minimalists today.  My elderly neighbour, a former nurse, was upset about having to go to an assisted living facility.  I made her feel better when I said, it will just be like residence again. You can socialize if you want to, but go to your room when you don’t want company.   My mother had a lovely spacious light-filled room in her nursing home, as it was initially intended to be a double but was coded as semi-private, with her own bathroom.  But when I looked at the private rooms, they were smaller than my dorm so I turned it down.  She never wanted to go to a nursing home, but once there she settled in quite well and considered it her home for the last year, enjoying the company of the other residents.

Appreciate having your own bathroom – I remember having to go down the hall to the communal washroom and that was a pain, although it never seemed very busy, but maybe I was up earlier than most of the students.

A small wardrobe can be a good thing.  I think I could go back to having a capsule wardrobe, which is all the rage these days, no more than 10-15 interchangeable clothing items.  Mostly that’s what I have now anyway, or what I wear, the same basics with an assortment of tops.  Do I really need four closets?  I remember the hours I spent shopping and coordinating outfits….which was fun then but not so much now that clothes are so ugly and utilitarian.

Mostly, I would like to thank my parents (both gone now) for giving me the opportunity to go to university.  They both valued education, and I’m in the process of arranging a high school scholarship in their name, a more complicated process than you would think.  Do kids today even appreciate a higher education?  Is it still an advantage or are you better off with a more practical college course or a trade?  The youth unemployment rate is high here right now (14%) – and I feel sorry for those who have such massive debt to pay back. Tuition for my course is now $18,000/year, and a residence room is $15,000 to 20,000 for a single. I was in shock after googling that, as just a few years ago I’m sure it was $10K. How can you make a wise decision what to study when the future job market will be impacted by AI and so many jobs possibly made obsolete?  As one of the AI developers said, maybe it’s better to be a hairdresser or a plumber.  

I had no idea tuition had gotten that expensive, until I saw this Forbes story online, about a billionaire who left 1.5 billion to a med school in New York, for free tuition ($59,000/year) for all students admitted for four years in perpetuity. What a gift! It would be nice if more of the billionaires would share their wealth that way.

Do you have any memories of your first time living away from home that you would like to share? 

PS.   I lost track of my old roommate after we graduated,  but heard she had married her boyfriend, had two kids and no doubt went on to live a perfect life.   A friend of mine attended a wedding shower she was at years ago and she had gifted the bride-to-be with a pair of silver toaster tongs, which my friend thought weird, but to me sounded just about right.  Fast forward to now. You can find anyone since obituaries went online.  And yes, there was the same photo of her father the judge in his robes, now deceased, but there was no mention of the boyfriend/hubby.  Whose life ever turns out the way they expected it to?  As John Lennon said – Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

PS. My apologies for the length of this….if you given up reading….but I’m only posting once a month for awhile. The Blue Jays are headed to the World Series!