Program Highlighted | English
Introduction by | Professor John Baird
Interview with | Kandice Ardiel
Date | January 2002

Interview | Kandice Ardiel

Kandice is an Innis College fourth year English Student.

Innis: Would you introduce yourself?
Kandice: I'm Kandice Ardiel and this is my third year at Innis College. I'm doing a Specialist program in English literature and hopefully I'll be graduating this year.

Innis: What attracted you to study English?
Kandice: I think it's something that I've always wanted to do, but because I had bad experiences with English high school teachers I was a bit put off. So when I applied to U of T I initially wanted to take Russian Studies and Russian Literature, but then I switched around a bit. I knew that I wanted to study literature, so I thought it would be more practical to study it in my own language.

Innis: What role, if any, did advice/influence from peers, mentors, relatives, or others play in your decision?
Kandice: Everyone has always told me that I'm a good writer. I don't know if that's really true since parents tend to be encouraging. Writing has always been something I've liked to do, so people's comments on writing has been what encouraged me the most. I knew that I need a good background in literature if I wanted to write, which is just what I might want to do.

Innis: Did you consider combining English with any other program when you were making your decision?
Kandice: Not really since I really wanted to focus on it because there's so much to do just with English, different time periods, different genres, …..

Innis: Of all the courses in this program that you have taken so far, which one have you enjoyed the most, and why? How did the class size, frequency of interaction with the professor, quality of tutorials and other factors influence your opinion of this course?
Kandice: I really like Modern Drama (ENG338Y1), which was a surprise to me because I did not like drama before. I didn't get it, because up until then all my experience with drama was Shakespeare and you have all that commentary that makes it appear so difficult, and really it isn't. Modern Drama had a great professor, Professor Leggatt who was so enthusiastic, and so knowledgeable, and so amazing. I loved that course.

Innis: What approach did you use when planning the sequence of courses that you would take for your English program and your degree?
Kandice: The department has a rigid schedule that should be followed if you want to graduate. Also I like to take poetry because I never know how much time I have to read and I enjoy poetry, so basically I lean towards poetry for practical reasons and because I like it.

Innis: Did you take any English courses during the summer session? If so, how did this compare to taking English courses during the fall/winter session?
Kandice: I took summer courses after my first and second year, and they were all English courses. They seem to be more laid back in some sense but they are also accelerated. It's summer, so I guess everyone is pretty calm and relaxed and most people don't take a lot of courses so there isn't that extra pressure. I also seem to get higher marks in the summer. I'm not sure if that's just because I'm a better worker in the summer or because it's easier. But it's basically the same material and the same kind of assignments.

Innis: What particular aspect(s) of the English program do you find fascinating or inspiring - professors, tutorials, etc., and why?
Kandice: We don't really have tutorials. In fact I don't think I've ever had a tutorial in English, but what really does it for me are the professors. There are a lot of really good professors in the program. They have a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of knowledge and experience, and most of them are older, so they've been researching their particular field for a long time and can tell you anything about it. I think I'm drawn to the personalities of the people who like the same kinds of things that I do.

Innis: Do any of your classes include any seminars or research opportunities that you thought added to the course?
Kandice: The higher you get the more the lecture is like a tutorial because they're really small classes. Actually fourth year seminars are pretty much a tutorial and you don't get a lot of lecturing. I took a course last semester in Canadian Literature and the whole course consisted of students giving presentations. Depending on the presentation there would be around thirty minutes for the professor to talk and usually even less. In fourth year you don't get a lot of "lecture" courses, third year you get a bit, and first and second year you have mainly lectures. We also have a "senior essay" which is a fourth year course and it's similar to an independent study. I'm doing it right now and I have an advisor who's not teaching this term for health reasons so that complicates things, but what I have done so far I've really enjoyed. Basically I do research on my own and hand in a 60 page essay at the end.

Innis: How would you rate the facilities and opportunities offered by this program here at the University of Toronto?
Kandice: I've never had any problems, and it's something that you use unconsciously so I can't really think of any particular thing. The English department has always been really helpful and they have counselors to talk about courses that you need to take in order to graduate. They're always very friendly and helpful and as far as facilities goes that's all that I have really used.

Innis: What extra-curricular activities, if any, have you been involved with on- or off-campus since coming to U of T? How have you benefited from participating in these activities? (e.g. skills developed, opportunities for interesting experiences, etc.)
Kandice: In first year I submitted a few things to the Innis Herald, and I did copy editing which I really like. Currently I hold a part-time position at a local Member of Parliament's office as an Executive Assistant.

Innis: Are there any connections between your job and the program that you're in?
Kandice: The job that I have right now has a direct correlation to my program of study because it requires a lot of writing. This is the reason my boss likes me - I can write really well. Plus I work in politics, so as long as you sound good you don't have to say anything, and its better if you don't say anything. Which is bad because I have that habit of doing that in essay and that's a whole different thing, but it's helped me with my flow and my style of writing.

Innis: Do you think that the writing you do at work has in any way influenced your style of writing in general?
Kandice: It changes the tone of it. I don't know how much it changes the style, I think they influence each other because if I want to be really powerful in an essay I'll go with the same kind of rhetoric and just sort of try to propagandize my professor.

Innis: Given your course load and the part-time position that you hold, how do you manage to organize your time?
Kandice: It's pretty hard. I work Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and I have class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It's good in the sense that the days are separated and I don't have to come to class after a ten-hour work day like last semester. As far as homework goes, I have class from 10-12 and then 6-8 so I do a lot of reading during that time. On weekends I do the actual project. I'm planning a lot of stuff for reading week and I did a lot of extra work during the Christmas holidays so that helped me keep on track.

Innis: What is one piece of advice that you would give to someone who is considering doing an English program?
Kandice: Make sure you get your program requirements. I have a friend who just found out last week that he couldn't graduate because he didn't get one requirement. So that's the major thing.Don't get discouraged, because inevitably in the beginning you are not going to do as well as you would like, but then in my case I've bounced back and you get over it. You get used to the style and the lectures and just go with what you like. Don't take stuff because you think 'oh I need to know Milton'. Take it because you like it, otherwise you won't get out of it what you should be getting out of it.

Innis: Of all your achievements here at the University of Toronto, which one are you most proud of?
Kandice: When I was in first year I wrote an essay on Coleridge. I discovered that I loved Coleridge. I'd never read his work before, but I got a great mark for it. The professor was so nice, he wrote this commentary about it and I look at that now and I think "yes I can do this". That's something I did. He gave me really good praise on it, so as far as academics go that's the best thing.

Innis: As a student in this field, perhaps you have started to research job prospects for the future. What kind of employment opportunities are there?
Kandice: For an English student there's so much that you could do. I've learned not so much through researching, but through people who work in business or government who are always looking for people with good backgrounds - not really in literature but people who can communicate. For example in communications, media, media relations and government, it's so wide, it's not specialized. You can pretty much do anything as long as you have the personal skills and go out there and try for something.

Innis: What type of a career are you interested in developing in the future?
Kandice: I like writing, so in my ideal, perfect world I would be a writer. I don't know if that's practical. Right now my plan is to stay where I am for a while and pay back my OSAP loans and then I would like to do something internationally either in the foreign services or along those lines, but it's kind of fluid right now. I'm not exactly sure what direction, but writing is going to be a big part of it.

On behalf of Innis College I would like to thank you for coming out and sharing your experiences with us ...

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