Catching up with Nick W.

We had a chance to catch up with Nick Woollcoombe ’20, who is currently enrolled at the University of Western Ontario in a dual degree program of a Bachelor of Science and the Ivey Honours Business Administration.

 

HM Newsletter: Has it been a lot of work?

Nick Woollcoombe: It’s hasn’t been as much as I was expecting. I think RSGC prepared me well. I would say, on average, I spend about two to three hours a day doing school work, unless I have a project or something. There’s also about three to four hours of extracurricular stuff. I’m involved in a few clubs related to investment club.

 

HM: Are all of your classes online?

NW: We have one in-person economics tutorial, but the rest of my classes are virtual. Mr. Donnelly’s economics classes prepared us very well for my classes here! The virtual classes are really different. One class is a case method, which means that we have a business problem that we have to work through. It’s a lot of work and it takes up the bulk of the time. The rest of the classes are usually reading textbooks or watching pre-recorded videos or lectures. We have weekly quizzes and homework, and most of it is done on our own time.

 

HM: This probably isn’t how you imagined your first year would be?

NW: No, I was expecting it to be a lot worse. We had an outbreak in my residence, so we’ve had to tone things down, but it’s really been a lot of fun. Obviously, it’s not like it would have been in a normal year, but I’m grateful that we’re able to be in residence.

 

HM: What kind of rules are in place in your residence in terms of physical distancing?

NW: There are so many rules and they have a lot of police around enforcing them. We’re not allowed to go to other residences, we’re not allowed to go into other people’s rooms and the common areas are closed. We have to wear masks if we go get food.

 

HM: Have you been able to make any new friends or has socializing been difficult?

NW: I’ve made a lot of new friends. I went into this expecting that we’d be locked in our rooms, but it hasn’t been like that. Overall, it’s been better than I thought it would be. Western has dealt with it pretty well.

 

HM: What do you miss most about RSGC?

NW: It was nice to be able to know your teachers. I only know one of my teachers here. For business, it’s one class that they split into 50 students. Right now, I couldn’t tell you the names of any of my teachers except for one.