Rob goes (back) to school

It is strange, leaving a career I’ve been at for over ten years to pursue education and (eventually) a totally new line of work. But the opportunity to go back to school came along, and my family and I TOOK IT! And hopefully, some day, all of the pieces of this weird life change will fall into place and it will all have been worth it. Until then, at the very least, I’ve got some good fodder for comic making! 😉

It was actually the first year the university was back in full swing after COVID, so after the initial orientation, it did actually feel quite normal.
I soon discovered the joys of on-campus student work! Research assistant for the win!

Want to know the biggest difference between attending college as a young adult and attending university as an old guy? EXTERNAL RESPONSIBILITIES. It isn’t easy reading 30 pages of educational psychology about learning differentiation for students with behavioural challenges while your kids are bouncing off the walls and exemplifying the words on the page that you’re trying to read. Or is that an advantage? A chance to put it into practice? Hmm… For real though, what did I even do with my free time the first time the first time I was in college? Either than try to date my now wife? And make music without interruption? And play a copious amount of Starwars Battlefront (PS2)? Hmm. I’m beginning to think youth is wasted on the young.

To be fair to my prof, he knew that pre-reading everything months in advance would be a horrible way to interact with the class content, and so he took matters into his own hands.
And yet I still order it probably once a month thinking ‘surely it isn’t as bad as I remember!’ it is. It is worse. Far worse. Every time.
I never actually said this. Can you imagine? The reality is, sometimes the fastest way to communicate info is by communicating that info, even if it isn’t a great way for students to actually retain info. One of education’s little inconsistencies I guess: in order to be a good teacher, you gotta learn in a way you hope your students will never have to.

The University of Saskatchewan has a beautiful campus, way nicer than all of the places I’ve studied previously. That being said, the sheer number of Tim Hortons locations is excessive. How many Tim Hortons does the world really need? Why does our campus have at least SIX of them? I will say this though: the coffee at a campus Tim Hortons tastes WAY better than the coffee at off campus locations. My theory is: it’s because they actually have to brew new coffee constantly and you never get an old cup.

Poor guy. I saw him again this semester- dude definitely walked past me as fast as he could! hahaha

It’s all about finding that sweet sweet life balance. All work, no play, etc etc. My friends had a saying: ‘C’s get degrees’ and I find myself saying it quite a bit- I don’t actually believe it, mind you. I always try my best. However, there is a certain point in each class and every assignment where you just gotta submit the assignment and move on. I think I could recognize that point a bit better when I was younger. When I was working, the more effort you put into something, the better a result you’d get for everybody. It doesn’t always work out that way with a university assignment.

This is actually something I think about quite a bit.

Thanks for reading my first collection of “Rob goes (back) to school” comics! I’m sure I’ll make the odd ‘life as a student’ comic from time to time over the next few years while I finish up my degree, so you’ll probably see another one of these collections at some point!

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