Reflections on Fulbright Orientation and the First Days of Graduate School

It was 7:55 PM on Sunday, September 11th when my train stopped. To my surprise, I was greeted with an urban landscape poking through an early-evening darkness when I peered out of the window. I expected to see Oshawa, a sleepy city with a quaint train station. My nose had been buried in Alice Munro's Runaway, a collection of short stories that, at this moment in my life, hits a little too close to home. The train had stopped at Oshawa nearly a half an hour earlier.

The type of station I expected (from the trip up to Ottawa)

My train was waiting for the car in front of it to turn around at the station, so it was parked far enough away that I had a view of the northeastern face of Toronto. What struck me when I looked up--other than the fear that I may have to wait until I got home to figure out what happens when such and such character runs away with so and so's brother--was how much Toronto felt like home. I was not merely going back, but rather coming home. I have another week before my Toronto month-iversary; am I really at home here already?

I had spent the weekend in Ottawa for my Fulbright Canada orientation. The Fulbright Canada Commission funds the research of both scholars (practicing academics from one country serving a research stint in the other) and graduate students. They also support the Killam Fellowship program, which funds semester-long exchanges for Canadian and Americans. The orientation was only for American scholars and students, but for all of the Killam Fellows from both countries.

I had spent the three preceding weeks in "math camp", a 10:00-4:00 Monday-Friday, intensive review course in mathematics and statistics that is required of all first-year graduate economics students at U of T. On the first day of class, my professor described the course as "mostly math, a bit of stats, and no review." The coursework was downright grueling, and I attended my final lecture two hours prior to my departure for Ottawa. By the next morning, when I was getting ready in the uOttawa brohouse that was my Airbnb, I was simply ready to get the weekend over with so that I could have some time to myself.

I could spend the rest of this entry detailing the events of my orientation. Quite frankly, I would like to. I had an amazing time there and talked to incredibly interesting people. I met scholars and learned about their research. I met the Chief Justice of Canada's Supreme Court (!!) and toured Parliament. Intellectually, it was a remarkably fulfilling experience. Instead, I want to outline what the orientation meant to me in the abstract.

Canada's Parliament: ugly colors, disappointing shortage of Justin Trudeau

The view from the first night's reception

When in Canada: Play hockey, bleed for your cause

Moving to a new city three time zones away after spending one's entire life in the same state is, to put it generously, a psycho-emotionally disruptive event. Doing so across a border and into a heavily-populated city after spending your life in the country (and a small college town) is even more so. Until I attended my orientation, I had not spoken to anybody in a situation like mine. I met fantastic people in my program, but they all either attended undergraduate school in Ontario or grew up here. At the Fulbright orientation, I spoke to dozens of brilliant people my age who are going through the same thing that I am, uprooting themselves and moving thousands of miles away to kick off what is sure to be the beginning of their career. I am sure that it was no coincidence that the Fulbright Canada Commission placed me in a hotel room with somebody from New York (/Maryland/Virginia) who is moving to Vancouver for his Fulbright research. One of us is flowing west to east, the other from east to west. We could never stop talking to each other.

On our last night in Ottawa, I went with a group of students to a speakeasy (a legal one!) near our hotel. We intended to hop through a few bars, but ended up spending the entire night there. Garrett, who is spending a year at McGill as part of his doctorate in history, was turning 27 in the morning. After we all drank at midnight in honor of his birthday, it dawned on him that he was in his "late twenties". The rest of us tried to assure him that, in fact, 27 qualifies as "mid-twenties" and that he has another year before the dread begins. In reality, we were all terrified. We spent the entire night sharing with one another how we ended up as Fulbright Students. We were all at the threshold of adulthood, staring into the great unknown of our future as Fulbright Students, unable to ignore the fact that it has arrived, and we don't know if we're ready.

Cheers?

The Speakeasy crew