Laying it down

University-type blatherings to follow. I really think I'm starting to get things worked out, but somehow, setting things to paper (or, in this case, in the unstable fabric of cyberspace) always helps make them clearer in my mind. Especially because talking to my parents about it doesn't exactly provide the desired reaction.

There are three probably options of where I'll be next year.

1) University of Toronto; Industrial/Systems Engineering
2) Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario); Engineering Physics/Honours English (six years, two degrees)
3) University of Saskatchewan; Engineering Physics

Now, these each have their own distinct sets of pros and cons. 1 and 2 both involve my A) getting in despite Ontario's double cohort; and B) coming into some sort of scholarship. Some *large* sort of scholarship. 3 involves continued close proximity to my family. Make of that what you will.

Toronto would be my first choice, simply for the industrial/systems engineering program. I haven't found its equivalent offered elsewhere. I've been thinking long and hard about it, and it just seems to fit with my interests and aptitudes. It's basically setting up systems so that they *work* with humans, and vice versa. There is a design element, so you get to be creative. You design, streamline, and modify things as varied as hospitals and banks, the consoles of vehicles and airline cockpits. You will most often (and this is all what sites have told me) be working on and at the heads of teams involving people from various disciplines. After graduation, the career opportunities are just so broad. You can work pretty much anywhere you want to - information technology, healthcare, aerospace, power generation, finance and business consulting, banks, hospitals, government, factories, universities, warehouses and airports. I mean, talk about unlimited possibilities.

Queen's is supposed to have the greatest spirit of almost any university in Canada. It's engineering program is supposed to be wonderfully broad, and hard as hell to get into. It has the bonus of a common first year, to assist its students in making a choice of discipline. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the Industrial program. What it *does* have is a well-established dual degree program with their entire arts and sciences department. You can do engineering plus a B.A/B.S. in five years, with honours in six. It also has location going for it. Kingston is a nice size. Clean air, low crime rate, smaller population, lots of parks, and the university is right on the lakes.

Saskatchewan is less expensive. I know I'll be able to get into the University of Saskatchewan. I don't know about the others. It also has a common first year, and it's a pretty campus. Their labs, the ones I've been in, are nice and clean. There's also a common first year before you split off into different disciplines, and the class sizes are smaller. Fewer girls in them, though. The university also has the Synchratron, which would pretty much kick ass if I decided to do engineering physics.

I say engineering physics right now if I can't get the industrial, but that is really a placeholder of a sort. Both Saskatchewan and Queen's have a common first year, so I'd have the space to maneuver. Mechanical engineering might bring me closer to the industrial goal, but engineering physics is, again, just so broad.

Plus, ever since I was little, I've just wanted to know how everything works. No kidding. *Everything.*

I just want to know it all, you know? And the knowledge that I never will just makes me want to learn that much more.

I just wonder if I'll get into engineering, only to discover that I only ever wanted to do it because it's 'prestigious' and it's not the thing that girls flock to. I worry that my English teacher is right (and I adore the man, really. How can you not adore someone who consistently says nice things about your writing? And he's just one of those kick ass teachers) and that if I go into engineering, I'll make some money, and I never will quite get around to writing anything.

But. No angst. Just trying to figure this out. I'm not going to have any of my final grade 12 marks by Toronto's application deadline. I'll only have my first term marks for Queen's and Saskatchewan, and I take four of my engineering prereqs next term - Physics, Chemestry, Calculus, and English B30. I'm just hoping they'll look at the four math credits I have so far and see that they're consistently 91-93. My chem and physics last year were both 91s, and my four english/media credits are mid-nineties. I've got four marks in the eighties over three years and twenty-four credits, but the rest are nineties or hundreds. I'm decently consistent, so I'm hoping this will help for grade projections of courses I won't have marks for when they're considering my application.

I'm thinking I'll be able to get into Saskatchewan without a problem. I've got a load of extracurriculars, sports and arts, and leadership experience, so I'll probably pick up some sort of scholarship, but Saskatchewan is kind of notorious for low funding to their scholarship programs. I think I've got a chance at getting into Toronto and Queen's, but I have no idea of my chances of picking up a scholarship, which, unfortunately, I'm going to need in a bad way.

::Head on desk:: Can I stay in high school, please? Just for a few more years?



And thus ends this particular whine.