Right out of high school, I found myself at uOttawa’s Faculty of Science, attracted by the $130 million facilities and one-of-kind biopharmaceutical science program (Charbonneau, 2023). At the time, having graduated high school with a Governor General’s Bronze medal, I reasoned I could continue pedal-to-the-metal through a four-year degree, but when the passion just isn’t there, obsessing enough about what you’re doing to achieve the kind of success I was looking for was simply impossible.

The following year, I started studying Hospitality and Tourism Management at Algonquin College. I remember having to pick my jaw up off the ground when the program coordinator brought up our career prospects during his first lecture: a career was some distant magical concept that was unheard of while studying science. But there, the real world lived and breathed in the same rooms as we did: every single lecture was something I could leave the room and use.

But as I was sitting in an economics lecture, I realized I wasn’t quite where I was supposed to be. Having a solid foundation in calculus, I could see the mathematical foundations behind certain principles, but because theoretical content was not what the program specialized in, I found myself unable to find the answers I was looking for.

It was during my first week at Telfer that everything clicked together. I was sitting in the front rows of an information session when our dean, Stéphane Brutus, addressed the first year students. And although the session was incredibly informative and featured a number of interesting speakers, I walked out of DMS 4101 with only one sentiment: “School is about more than your courses.”

Four months later, sitting in the crowd at the ADM 1300/1700 Live Case Competition the sentiment echoed. And although it had struck close to home the first time I heard it, I was moved to reflect on my first semester at Telfer.

To give you some context, ADM1300 is the Introduction to Management course taken by all first-years at Telfer. It is designed to expose students to all aspects of the business world, marketing, HR, finance, accounting, and of course leadership. I imagine, for those who haven’t spent the last two years trying programs in hopes of finding what they are passionate about, it is also an opportunity to figure out what they would like to specialize in. For our purposes, the most important aspect was that 25% of the course was a hands-on presentation component where teams of 5-6 received cases and were required to deliver a case report and a 10-minute presentation. This was starkly different from my first semester of science where real-world application was simply a side note at the end of the chapter, not 25% of our grade.

The final case of the semester was designed by Professor Dana Hyde on a local zero-waste business: NU Grocery. The business itself was an excellent choice as it combined local entrepreneurship with sustainability. By exposing students to these ideas early on increases the likelihood of them internalizing them and bringing them along when they enter the workforce in some short four to five years.

Where the previous case was clearly made up; this was a real business, with real people, and a real possibility to make a difference. When faced with these circumstances, anyone would strive to perform better than they would in a simple simulation.

Many higher education institutions struggle to endow their students with the ability to think critically and creatively, leaving the question of how these graduates would be able to tackle real world problems when they graduate (Ravi & Marti, 2023). Telfer, with its “university is about more than classes” approach, does not have that issue. As world problems get more complicated, and creativity rates drop, institutions that can consistently encourage creative and critical thinking are creating a legacy of thinkers that can enact real and valuable change in the world (Kim, 2011).

Since starting here in the fall, and considering joining a number of clubs, I’ve heard many people use the phrase “The position is what you make of it”. Typically it refers to the time commitment you’re willing to make to a certain position, but it extends beyond that: your Telfer experience is going to be what you make of it, and we are fortunate enough that our faculty prioritizes ensuring we have access to these opportunities.

For most of us, case studies or competitions are not going to result in a job offer. But those of us who choose to take advantage of these opportunities are going to achieve something much more valuable: the chance to bring our education to the real world, and create the neural pathways in our brains that allow us to use the knowledge we’ve acquired. There is a chasm of understanding between learning something in class, memorizing it, and then doing well on an exam; and applying this knowledge to a real problem in a productive and value-creating way.

Arguably, the Live Case Competition was a class, but like many opportunities at Telfer, it underscored a simple, and incredibly important underlying sentiment that permeates everything that occurs at Telfer: school is about more than your classes.