Strike Three For My Education?

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Written by: Jed

College students across Ontario have probably received notice from their school warning them of a potential province-wide strike.

I’m an Ontario college student.

If this were four years ago, I would have welcomed it. It would have been an extended vacation from a program I had little interest in. But it isn’t 2006.

The reality is, I’m an arts degree graduate; now mature student who’s a semester into a media communications program I’m actually enjoying.

A forced school-stoppage, will force me to find a full-time job I have no interest in – and reintroduce me to an acronym, I didn’t think I would be seeing so soon in, OSAP.

Admittedly I know very little of the issues between colleges and their faculty; but it doesn’t take an expert to know that money is a part of it.

For students, it’s about more than lost money, it’s lost time.

The president of Humber College sent out an email to students this past week, unsurprisingly biased against its faculty that ended,

Given the current situation, the college will have to begin to prepare for the possibility of a strike. Again, I would prefer not to be making strike preparations, but in order to protect your interests and preserve your academic year, I have to do everything possible to minimize potential disruption.

Of course if both sides truly cared about the interests of its students, the strike vote would have been scheduled at some point last summer, instead of right in the middle of an ongoing school year. But then again, there’s nothing like working/buckling under the pressure of thousands of angry college students – at least that’s what both sides are thinking.

If I were a betting man, my money would go towards an uninterrupted winter term. But there’s a reason I don’t bet.

I never thought the city’s civic workers would strike, let alone go on for five-weeks. I never believed that York University would make history with the longest strike at an English speaking Canadian university (12 weeks). Nor did I think that Kevin Garnett would get a championship ring.

And if Kevin Garnett has taught me anything, it’s that anything is possible.

I just want to go school. Unlike KG, I didn’t have the option of going straight to the pros out of high school.