This is my Frosh Week (2015).

"Ohhh I think that I found myself a cheerleader!" You have no idea how many times I heard that line during frosh week. From move in day to welcoming week, that song was repeatedly blasting all over campus! I want to tell you about my Frosh week. My frosh week was split into 2 different categories; the first one was the residence frosh for all students and the second one, and certainly the more fun one, was the engineering frosh. Orientations for both residence and engineering froshes are mandatory because of guidelines and certain information that we needed to know for the first week of school.

Residence Frosh Events

During that week, I really got to meet the most amazing and diverse individuals that I had the opportunity to live with for 8 months. The first picture on the left is actually our very first official residence frosh event after the mandatory orientation the night before. For this event, we went around in a circle and introduced ourselves to each other. We also got free food (that was very important)! We then proceeded to play soccer and threw the Frisbee around the quad later on. The second photo here is an event where students of different faculties went head to head in a dodgeball tournament (intense! I know). I think the picture says it all but the engineering faculty took the gold. I would just like to give a quick shout out to two leaders that played an important role in my life during my transitional year from a clueless high school student to a stressed out university student; Mac Smith (guy in blue on the first picture) and Geordan Cox ( the guy on the front laying on the ground). These two have helped me find the available resources I have on campus to help me with my day to day affairs as well as my short and long term goals.

Engineering Frosh Events

Engineering frosh was a little more involved. The events ran long, they were both physically and mentally demanding, they were loud and obnoxious BUT it was completely worth all of that because I had the time of my life. Man, they hype you up before they break you down! The events that encompassed the EngFrosh are actually filled with traditions, awareness, and also just plane ol' silliness. The key points that I want to highlight are Shinerama, the continuous hand signs, and as pictured above, purpling. Shinerama is actually not an event specific to the Faculty of Engineering nor it is specific for Ryerson University but it is nonetheless well emphasized during Frosh.

1. Shinerama raises awareness for Cystic Fibrosis, the most common fatal genetic diseases affecting young Canadians and currently, there is no cure. Considering that frosh week is very well documented, they are extremely popular, and are sometimes televised, including these types of awareness bring us one step closer to hopefully finding a cure.

2. During that entire week, we would always raise our dominant hand with our pinkies sticking out. Are we having tea? No. But we were giving the ultimate sign of being a Canadian engineer, and that is the iron ring. Yes, Canadians do have traditions! At this point, it is just a symbol as we do not obtain our iron ring until we graduate but let me tell you why this is important. The iron ring came about due to a piece of the Quebec bridge that collapsed in 1907 killing 15 men. Negligence, poor judgement calls, and miscalculations were the culprit of this collapse. The iron ring, originally gathered from the collapsed bridge, worn on the pinky finger of the engineer's working hand serves as a reminder of the obligation he/she has for keeping the code of ethics and conduct.

3. Purpling was a full day of fun and I got to explore Toronto for the very first time. Purpling is another Canadian tradition that includes dying with the color purple. The use of the purple dye vary on different campuses but here at Ryerson, we like dyeing our people. The are numerous explanations as to why we do it but there is no one absolute reason. We do it because its been done for so many years, it doesn't hurt anyone, and let's face it, it's fun to be purple (not the kind when you're losing oxygen and your body is literally turning purple due to blood not circulating it).

I had a fantastic time during this frosh and I would definitely mind doing it again. It definitely balances out the pain and suffering that I experienced later on once I started getting into the actual academia. It's all fun and games until its not.

#frosh #Toronto #Ryerson #Engineering