Need Advice?

The Western World Advice Column:

Adolescence is a life stage whose defining characteristic is, unfortunately, confusion. Teenagers find themselves asking many questions: Why do girls expect guys to be telepathic? Why can’t guys ever pick up on incredibly obvious hints? Why is trigonometry so difficult? These questions plague us daily with their unanswerability, mocking us with the profundities from which we remain forever inaccessible.

But fear not! Write to the Western World Advice Column, which will have a name that slaps you across the face with its ingenuity, but at present cringes with embarrassment at having been given a moniker that could never be accused of anything remotely resembling originality. This section of the Western World is dedicated to answering your questions and showing you how to do those things that are worth knowing how to do. Queries will be answered and ignorance will be vanquished!

If you have a question that you’d like us to answer, or a topic you’d like us to explore, send us a message at advice.westernworld@gmail.com. All submissions will be kept anonymous, but if you would prefer not to have your question published, let us know in your message. We’d like to think of ourselves as honest and open-minded, so even if your questions is: “Help me find my baby sister before my parents find out that I’ve lost her,” we will not judge you but instead suggest that you hire a babysitter in the future, because honestly, what kind of DECENT human being loses a SMALL CHILD? (In all seriousness, though, we have put ourselves through more self-inflicted humiliation than you may have thought humanly possible, so, no need to be embarrassed.) We’ll be answering some of your questions soon, but in the meantime, we will post a few of our own just to prove that we are, in fact, capable of answering questions. Soon, we will see the confusion of being a teenager will become less and less as your deepest questions get our own deeply considered answers.

Planning For Your Future

By: Chloe A. and Thea H.

University application time is quickly coming upon us. It is a stressful, but exciting time of year. Grade twelve students are nervous about which major to choose, where to apply, and whether or not their marks are up to par. As you may know, our school recently had a post-secondary fair that featured many Canadian universities. Hopefully, students now have all the information they need, but if not, there are always student counsellors who can help to fill in the gaps. It is sometimes hard to decide whether to go away to university, to stay in Calgary and go to school, or to make a big jump and go abroad for post-secondary education. However, the application process is quite similar for any university. Here is a short summary of all you need to know about planning for post-secondary education.

The first step is to choose a school. Since it costs money to apply, it is best to choose only universities that really appeal to you, which will require research; this could include campus tours, university information booklets, and, of course, word of mouth.

One perk of staying in Calgary is having the comfort of knowing your surroundings and living at home. A lot of students stay for their first year of university or for their first degree and transfer for the rest of their education. This can save both a lot of money and a lot of stress compared to moving to a new city right away and living on your own. Nonetheless, some people want a change after high school. Moving to a new part of the country can give you a new experience that you would never get living at home; it forces you to be independent and to make a new life for yourself. While it is true, that it is more expensive than staying home, going away to another province to school can offer a lot of benefits to you as an individual. Additionally, going abroad to another country is an option. This can be stressful due to the new environment, and can also require extra testing like the SATs in the US, but that is a small price to pay for the unique and enlightening experience you can have. It is up to you to weigh the pros and cons and decide whether the comfortable life back home or the exciting world of a new country is the right place for you.

Once you have picked the few universities in which you are really interested, it is time to start applying. This can be done either online or via mail. Online application is much more efficient and allows you to keep up with the latest updates. You can also track the status of your application online, and some universities will even give price discounts if you do it this way. You will usually hear back by November, at the earliest, and at the latest, in May, depending on when you apply. Once you have been accepted, it will be time to make the final decision on where you want to go.

These and other factors will play a huge role in your post-secondary planning, but no matter what, remember that you are doing this for yourself. We’re talking about your future, and these are some very important steps in the journey of the rest of your life, so don’t be afraid to pick that which is best for you. Remember to have lots of fun and surely, it will be a great experience!

Student Speak: Making New Friends

By: Hailey S.

The Student Speak section allows you to gain a sense of what your peers at Western Canada High School feel about particular issues or activities that interest them in our school or around the community. Particularly, this article explores how four students felt when transitioning from junior high to high school!

Question: 
Has it been easy this year to make new friends at Western? Have you kept up previous friendships from other schools? How have you been introduced to new people? In your opinion, has everything gone the way you thought it would?

Alison D.
Grade 10 Student – Yes, for me it’s been easy because I came from a junior high that a lot of people here didn’t come from, so pretty much all the friends I have at Western are new friends. And yes, as well because we share the same likes and dislikes. I’ve been introduced to them mostly through Band and IB classes.  Pretty much; everything has gone the way I thought it would here.

Matt A.
Grade 10 Student- Yeah, [it has been] pretty easy. Everybody here is more accepting then a lot of other places, so even if you come from a school where not a lot of kids came to Western, it would still stay pretty easy, especially if you get involved in many of the activities you can. That helps a lot. I’ve still maintained the old friendships I already had, because only two of the kids at my old school, not including myself, go here. The new friends I’ve made, I’ve met through sports and being introduced to other people from those new people. Everything has gone better then I thought it would, since high school hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be.

Graham G.
Grade 10 Student– Definitively, it’s been easy! I think that because it’s such a big school, everyone can get to know each other better, enjoy new people and make new friends. It’s really cool; I’ve met some really neat new people through option classes, walking around school, through trips and just talking to everyone. It’s great to meet new people! So far it’s been better then I thought it would be! Better – because I came here as a “newbie” from a school with only five new junior high kids that came, so [the experience here] has been great!

Danielle L.
Grade 11 Student- It’s been very easy for me to make new friends here. Everyone is so accepting and there are a lot of different groups so it’s easy to find new friends! I still have really strong friendships as well, from my other school, but I’ve met new friends mostly through other classes and through a lot of clubs throughout Western. There are a lot of clubs; it’s a great way of meeting people! I would say that so far, it has been a great experience for me at Western because everything has gone the way I thought it would!

From the voices of these four students, it seems that they all share the same positive attitude towards their experience at Western when it comes to forming new friendships so far. It definitely requires risk-taking skills to encounter new people; however, we all have the ability to break these barriers over which we evidently have in control. Once you venture out and take advantage of this new opportunity, it’s much easier than your mind may perceive. Make your Western Canada High School experience worth it, because seconds pass instantaneously and soon you’ll be graduating!

Procrastination: It’s Always a Bad Idea

By: Emma W.

Admit it, we all do it: procrastinate. Hey, I even procrastinated writing this article over the last five months. For most people, it’s something we’d like to change, but the problem is that some of us don’t even realize that it’s a problem. It all starts when you’re bestowed with a complicated and undesirable task: your English teacher assigns you a 2000-word essay on existentialism in Grendel, and it’s due in two months. You forget about it until the weekend before it’s due. Sound familiar?

Of course, you didn’t mean to leave it for this long. You even fantasized planning it out and finishing it a month early. However, you wanted to make it really good this time, maybe even pass the paper, but you never really had the time to spare with your busy schedule and all. How did this happen? AGAIN? Well, I have the answer. It’s really quite simple. You ready for it? Here goes...

Just write the freaking paper. It’s really not nearly as dreadful as you think; in fact, the less you think about how stressful it is, the less stress you’re inflicting upon yourself. Stop over-thinking and sit down, take out a sheet of paper, along with a pencil and your copy of Grendel, and start doing it. If you need to plan your time, schedule a realistic timeline for completing everything. Check your agenda to see when you can actually work on it. After this incredibly difficult task, start your essay. Plan an outline if you need to. Since everybody works differently, figure out what kind of a student you are. If you like listening to music, then put on some music. For big projects, like the 2000-word essay on existentialism, it may be slow and since there’s little motivation for your progress, it’s easy to give up and keep refreshing Facebook for notifications. Hang in there. Just turn off what distracts you (log off of Facebook). When you finish, (and you can, believe me) you will be surprised that it was that simple. “Holy cow, that took me only thirty minutes?” Hooray! Now you can review it twelve times (just kidding). It may take you a while to realize this, but there really isn’t much to assignments. Don’t think about how much work you have. Why stress out over something that reasonable teachers assign you and fully expect you to be able to finish in the time they give you? I know students in full IB who are involved in eight hundred school clubs and extracurricular activities, on top of FULL IB and they’re getting by (just scraping by their 99s). They’re superheroes, I admit, but the main aspect that sets them apart from underachievers is their inhuman mastery of time management. You’ll understand by the time you learn to manage time that that’s all there is to it: you will get stuff done and have virtually no stress, and let’s not forget the comforting knowledge that you can do it.

All inspired and pumped up now? Good. Go and get ‘em! Your glimmering future awaits! Now if you’ll excuse me, I should take my own advice and go and start that extended essay...