Happy Spring! For those of us at Western, the academic year is quickly drawing to a close. Midterms, for the most part, have completely wrapped up, and we now seem to be gliding through a lighter stretch of the term. While my schedule is less hectic than usual, myself and many of my friends have begun to feel the weight of summer falling upon us. Soon, we will all be back in our respective hometowns with four months of time to fill. The big question is: what do we do next? Which job offer do we accept? What travel opportunity do we take? Where do we want the wind to blow us? Life, as a young person, seems to be full of such questions. We are smart, eager, and bubbling with potential. All we want, is to make decisions about our future that will make us happy and successful, by our own definitions.
Those of you in your final year of high school are likely under a similar sort of stress, struggling to decide where to spend the next 3 or 4 years of your life. In this post, I’d like to detail my experiences with selecting Western as my choice school, and the Health Sciences and Business as my choice faculties.
In high school, I was interested in everything: science, drama, math, english, geography. You name it. Choosing a university program was terrifying, because the process seemed so limiting. I felt like I had to commit to one path, and that that one path would determine my entire life: where I was going to work, what I was going to do, and who I was going to be. Naturally, I was scared.
Despite my confusion, I was surrounded by so many kids who were completely confident and sure of what they wanted to be. Doctor. Teacher. Lawyer. Engineer. Everyone seemed to have it together.
When it came time to apply to schools I submitted applications to 12 different programs at 6 different universities across Ontario. In the spirit of procrastination, I thought that applying to a broad range of faculties would allow me more time to make my decision.
Although the selection process was equal parts extensive and frustrating, come March 2011, I finally decided on a program that best suited my needs: the Ivey Dual Degree program. I chose Ivey because it would allow me to ‘test the waters’ of two different fields of study that are of great interest to me: science and business. The dual degree program is a five year program in which students are able to complete two undergraduate degrees, an Honors Business Administration degree from Ivey, and an honors degree from their home faculty (which is Health Sciences in my situation). This program creates a unique opportunity to set yourself apart from other applicants in the job market.
Of course, may people may not want to do a five year undergrad. In that case, Ivey is a great option in that the first two years, you study in a different faculty. If, after two years I didn’t want to pursue health sciences, I could switch into the business program and solely pursue business. Likewise, if the business program was not of interest to me after two years, I could stick with health science.
As I come to the end of my second year in Health Sciences, I couldn’t be more happy with my decision to attend Western and pursue the Dual Degree. For more information on the dual degree program, check out this link: /hba/program-road-map/dual-degree.htm
I wish you all lots of luck in making your decisions! Please feel free to post any comments or questions that you might have!
Best Always,
Melissa