I'm GRADUATING!!! Woo Hoo!!

On Friday I got a letter in the mail from the University of Guelph letting me know that my application for graduation has been accepted and I am officially a graduate from their biology program.

It has been a grueling 5 years but I'm finally done!!!

When I was first accepted by Guelph I was off my rocker excited about the prospect. I had every intention of going through with my bachelors and then making my way through another 4 years of vet school so I could be a large animal vet. I was so stoked but into my first year I started to second guess my decision.

The biology program at the University of Guelph was not at all what I expected. One memory that really sticks out was a bio lab where we were testing the respiration rates of lab mice. It really felt like kindergarten. There were different stations set up in the lab room that each group would take turns visiting. One where we, sorry not we but the lab TA, would handle the mouse and immerse them in some kind of environment (can't remember) and we would collect data about the mouse respiration and then truck all that data to the next station where another lab TA would input our data into some computer program that would provide us with the info we needed. It was really like kindergarten... So first collect your paints in all the colours you want then truck them down to station two where you will be provided with all sorts of brushes, then station 3 where you are given your choice of paper colour and finally station 4 you got to paint. So stupid. I don't recall learning anything in that lab. To be fair though I did some awesome labs too later on in my uni career one where I actually got to produce an Aspirin and another where I got to stick my arm shoulder deep into the stomach of a live cow and collect digestive data. Those labs were awesome!

I also quickly learned that at Ontario's greatest agricultural school I was not learning the sort of biology I was interested in... horses, dogs, domestic animals, but I was learning solely about the biology of meat industry animals. WTF?? I am a vegetarian and have absolutely no interest in learning about the inner workings of animals that will be put to slaughter or be held in close quarters for production purposes only. I fucking hated that. In fact I remember a class handout that was explaining the parts of a cow, not their biological parts but only the meat industry parts such as t-bone etc etc... I stopped paying attention right away. It really was fucking bullshit.

There was a class that was somewhat required to acquire my degree. It was called... let me think now... oh The structure of farm animals. It actually had a slaughter lab that you could opt out of but you still had to watch the video. I understand that the industry is a large part of animal biology but c'mon... as if everyone is there to learn that shit.

There were only a few classes that I truly enjoyed. There were two horse-y classes; horse nutrition and horse management. I loved those classes and excelled in them but then we're not in the habit of eating horses in this area. I tried to take other nutrition classes because nutrition is something that really interests me but cow, pig and chicken nutrition were based solely on the proper nutrition to make the best meat/eggs/milk possible. STUPID!

Other classes I loved had nothing to do with biology at all. They were the few electives I was allowed. I took a politics class in first year and thank god for that because everything else was science 100% of the time. I also took an english class and a sociology class and I really loved those. If I could do it all over again I would have gone to Uni for sociology because that really peaked my interest. And for the amount of effort that I would have put into a science paper and got a 60% on, I got a 95% in soc! Geez.

All in all though it was a good experience and I'm glad that I have the paper to prove that I actually completed it.

So, I was adamant about not attending my convocation as I have had just about enough of the cowboy boot, huge belt buckle, cowboy hat wearing peers of mine jeering at me as if I was weird but I think I'm gonna go as a way finalize that part of my life.

I learned a hell of a lot that I'm glad I now know and I also learned a hell of a lot of shit I don't really care about but I'm glad I persevered and finish it. It proves a discipline I wasn't sure I actually had in me.

I have two extra guest spots at my convocation. Who wants to come?