Ch 17: To University

UČENÍ JE MUČENÍ (Learning is torture) 

When the Russians put the first SPUTNIK satellite into orbit, the US and its NATO allies discovered to their horror that the Communist countries had better educational systems and were producing more scientists, engineers and doctors than the West. The Western governments responded by pouring money into education.  Many new universities were established, students recruited and were offered generous student loans.

The University of Waterloo was born in that era. When I arrived on campus, construction companies were still at work, putting on the finishing touches. The secretary in the Admissions office pulled out my file and checked it over.

“You have all the requirements to be admitted as an adult student. Unfortunately your application came too late. We can only admit 480 students in the first year. We have a bottleneck in the drafting classroom, it can take only 120 students and the four classes are full.” she told me. “Drafting course? I am a draftsman, it is my job, I don’t need to learn drafting again” I told her.            

 She called her boss. He read my application. “You finished college in Czechoslovakia and I see that you went to a night school, took calculus, physics, English and history courses  and passed with A’s. Was it difficult?”  “It was not easy but I studied hard and managed” I lied.

OK, we will make an exception, you don’t have to take the drafting course. Congratulations, you are accepted into the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering as an adult student. See you in September.” he said.

I was stunned. I could not believe my ears. I would be going to university.

I was slowly getting used to the fact that I would be going to university when I received bad news.  “I think I am pregnant” my girlfriend Margo told me. I was shocked, what should I do? The worst part was telling her parents. Don, Margo’s father, took it well, remembering his army days.

 “Knocking up a girl, I thought you were smarter. Don’t say anything to my wife yet, she may take it really hard. I will talk to her first,” he told me.  

But Margo’s mother Jill took it with an English stiff upper lip and started to sort things out. “You should get married, the sooner the better. The United Church minister in Shallow Lake is a good friend of mine.   I am sure he will marry you. And you, Jerry, should go to university. It will be hard but you can do it. Margo can stay home. You need a degree for better life. Look what happened to us. Don was a medic in the army. He wanted to be a doctor after he was discharged. We moved to Ontario and he was accepted into the medical school at Mc Master University. Unfortunately he met some army buddies and they spent too much time playing cards. He failed the first year and took a job as a drug salesman. He likes his job but he is on the road all the time. What kind of family life is that?”

My head was spinning, getting married, becoming a father, I could not imagine that kind of life. Until now I had been in charge of my life, suddenly I became a spectator. A wedding date was set, a couple of friends were invited and I listened to lectures about family life.

Then Margo got sick and went to see a doctor. She came back with surprising news. “I have German measles. It is very dangerous during pregnancy. There is a big chance the baby would be born retarded. The doctor recommended to have  an abortion and I agreed.  ”

Suddenly my life took yet another turn and my memory is fuzzy about what followed. There was no reason for a naive, eighteen-year-old high school girl to get married. Her mother always stressed education and could stop the wedding. Instead she allowed her daughter to head into unpredictable future with only a high school diploma. I didn’t mind, getting married, it would be better than lonely university life.

                                                                                                                     

Happy or petrified ?

So the marriage went ahead and we spent the wedding night at the Chalmers’ hobby farm. On Monday Margo went back home to go to school and I stayed in the boarding house. We enjoyed married life on the weekends at the farm. On the last day of school Margo created a sensation in her class, wearing a wedding ring. Shot gun marriage, she is pregnant, was the verdict. But months went by and she stayed slim. Eventually the busy-bodies blamed the wedding on an eccentric English mother. We started out married life in a couple of rented rooms and I remember watching men landing on the moon on a small black and white TV.    

  

I had no knowledge of university life and was in for a surprise. Most lectures were in big halls, professors speaking with different accents, not giving a damn whether students grasped their lecture or not. Lectures in calculus, physics, chemistry, electronics, labs and more were being pounded into my brain. Fortunately there were other adult students so a few of us stuck together. We were an odd group. Harindar was a Hindu, smart as a whip. Lewis was a draft dodger from Alabama, slowly falling behind. Two gay students joined us because we didn’t care about their sexual orientation. I was hanging on to Harindars’ shirt tails, copying home assignments from him.

The midterm exams came and I knew that I would probably fail. But it was important to pass because their marks counted in the term average. So I made couple of cheaters, small pieces of paper covered with formulas we were supposed to know. In my old country, cheaters were fair game, at exams, almost everybody used them. Many were very elaborate and tricky; some girls would write formulas high on their legs, under a skirt where it was a taboo for the teacher to look. 

The math building 

Harindar was shocked when I showed him my secret weapon. At that time university exams were based on students being honest. Instead of looking for cheats as would happen in my country, the professor would occasionally leave the class to fetch something, giving me a chance to copy a formula. Luckiest I passed the midterm, barely.  

In my class were twin brothers Molnars from Slovakia. They had spent two years at the University of Bratislava and I was impressed how smart they were. Some calculus problem I spent hours trying to solve they figured out in couple of minutes. They had a complete contempt for our university. “Even high school at home is more difficult than this kindergarten”. I passed my final exams and managed to squeak through the first term. I noticed on the posted sheet that Molnar names were missing. They had flunked the term.  

I had more confidence going into the second term, knowing that I could manage. Our class was much smaller, many students had dropped out because school was too hard for them or they spent time partying instead of going to lectures. The Molnars were allowed to rewrite some exams and were back in the class. But their attitude hasn’t changed, they blamed flunking the term on prejudiced professors. This term some courses were elective so I picked up a few that were easier to reduce my load. Also there was another big change, all exams were open book and my cheating days were over. I passed the term and the Molnars flunked again, vanishing from the university.

Engineering was a co-op program, each four month school term was followed by a four months work with jobs in various companies. It was a good system, allowing students to get practical work experience in the engineering field and make some money. However it meant that we were moving every four months. It was particularly hard on my inexperienced wife, trying to find a job knowing that it would last less than four months. Eventually she found steady work in Kitchener and stayed there while I moved to my jobs.

One day I received sad news from a climbing friend in Czecho. He had heard through the grapevine that Franta, my climbing buddy who escape with me, had been killed in a car accident. We had kept in touch through mail and Franta used to send me post cards from his climbing trips. Then suddenly all of his mail stopped and I was wondering what had happened to him.

Four and a half years in the university went by with lightning speed. I wrote my last exam and it was time to look for a job. The wall in the engineering building was plastered with lists of companies that had job openings and students were signing up for interviews. One of the companies was Alcan. I still remembered the film I had seen some six years ago at Wright Engineers about the Kitimat Project so I signed up for an interview.

“We have job openings in Arvida, Kingston and Toronto” the interviewer  told me, giving a description of each job. I was not really interested. “ How about Kitimat? You wouldn’t have a job there?” I asked. He checked his papers again. “Unfortunately we don’t. Why would you like to work in Kitimat? It is up in northern British Columbia, a hardship post.  Not many people like it there.” I told him about the film. He chuckled. “You saw one of those propaganda films commissioned by Alcan”. The interview was over; he wished me good luck, knowing that I was not interested in his jobs.

I had many job interviews, the most interesting was with the Iron Company of Canada in Wabush, Labrador. I flew  there in the company’s aging turboprop plane. The airport in Labrador City was fogged in but the pilot was determined to land. The plane was descending, circling, then suddenly motors started to roar and we were in a steep climb. It happened few times, making everybody nervous.    “Don’t worry, we have a very experienced pilot, he flew a bomber in the war” said the stewardess, trying to calm the passengers. “Well, tell him the war finished thirty years ago. He doesn’t carry bombs any more, just a bunch of scared passengers. Next time when I go on this plane I want a parachute”  half-joked one passenger. The job at the Wabush mine was very interesting and if it was offered to me, I decided I would take it.

 “The man from Alcan that interviewed you called. He wants you to call him right away” my wife told me. I was wondering why he called. He knew that I was not interested in his jobs.

Enjoying a canoe trip on Abitibi river