Five years ago, I began working towards an English and Professional Writing degree at York University. As a student fresh from high school, I had built these expectations in my head about what university was going to be like. As I found out quickly, most of them were quite far off from reality.

Here are some expectations I had during the first few years of my writing program and how they compared to my own experiences.

University classes are massive, and I’ll hardly ever have one-on-one time with instructors

Class sizes vary for every program, but given that the Professional Writing side is relatively smaller, I got used to being in classes of 10 to 20 people very quickly. As a rule, mandatory courses and lecture-tutorial courses tend to be bigger, while optional courses and seminar formats tend to accommodate fewer people. Additionally, the English program tends to be more popular than the professional or creative writing programs, so naturally English classes will have more people. Try to experiment with class sizes that work for you; I found that I thrived in smaller classes, so I found myself very comfortable with most of the courses in my program.

Even in larger classes, professors are almost always willing to help you with course concepts and essay drafts. Most of them have office hours when they allocate a specific time slot to help students, so take advantage of it. It’s helpful to build a professional rapport very early with your teachers and peers, especially if you’re part of a smaller program.

Because I spend less time in university classes compared to high school, the overall workload is less

In high school, the amount of time you spend in class is often more than the amount of time you spend doing homework. By contrast, university courses require most of the work to be done outside of class. Writing courses at York often have both a theoretical and a practical focus, so not only will you be spending a lot of time writing assignments, you’ll also be spending extra time reading and understanding theory.

Thus, you should prepare to spend considerably more time doing schoolwork at home than you did in high school (for reference, I spend at least five hours a week on each course). I recommend keeping a schedule to standardize which work you do on which day of the week; courses move very quickly so it’s easy to get confused.

Just like high school, each course ends with a final exam

Most writing courses value cumulative projects, assignments, and essays over a final exam. There are even several courses where each assignment is weighted equally (think 20% per assignment). Thus, time management becomes essential, since most assignments are due before the designated exam period. Often, you can find the syllabus for an individual course on your university website to see which course suits your examination preference.

Don’t be afraid to ask for extensions for your assignments, particularly during the exam period. Some professors are not opposed to giving grace periods at the end of the semester (though some may require a valid reason).

Course selection in my program is limited

The first year of my program had many required courses, to the point where every first year English and Professional Writing student had nearly identical schedules. While the first two years felt limited because of the many prerequisites, the program opened on my third year. For example, they allowed me to choose two of four specialization courses: organizational writing, digital authoring, periodical writing, or book publishing.

Don’t be discouraged during your first or second year if you find yourself being limited to only a handful of courses. Make sure you do research into specializations and options throughout your program (something I did not do). The program office will be happy to answer your questions.

My one piece of advice to any aspiring writing student planning to attend university is to do research on programs you want to take and to make use of any resources provided by your university regarding course selection and handling your courses.