Being a Leslieville resident, I wanted to try one of the many new and trendy restaurants that has recently emerged in the neighborhood. My partner and I went to Edward Levesque’s Kitchen for their $20 lunch special. We had our hearts set on certain items after careful review of their online menu, but to the disappointment of our taste buds some of these items were nowhere to be found.

We revised our selection and both started with the vine tomato salad featuring cucumber, chevre, marinated red onion and tarragon. The salad was a refreshing start to a meal that took a slightly less health conscious turn with the main course, which consisted of a lamb burger, topped with a unique combination of tzatziki, cucumber and tapenade, all on a house-made sesame milk bun with a side of frites. To conclude, we indulged in a rhubarb upside down cake with whipped honey-yoghurt.

Overall, the meal was a worthwhile indulgence and an excellent kick-off to the Summerlicious season.

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MARS (Marketing, Advertising, Retail and Sales) Apprentice is a five-week intensive business program wherein two teams of six students each compete. The teams develop solutions to a new challenge that is presented to them by industry professionals each week – and they only have six days to research, problem solve and develop ideas! Each week, the teams present their solutions to a panel of industry judges, professors and an audience of 80-100 guests. At the end of the five weeks of competition, the team with the greatest number of winning solutions becomes the ultimate MARS Apprentice with career opportunities, internships, and cash awards on offer.

The competition promises to give participants a taste of the “Real World” and to honour them with “Real Rewards” if they are successful. This promise holds true not only for contestants, but also for the planners of the competition. In my third year, I was a co-chair for MARS Apprentice, and this has proven to be the most valuable take-away from my undergrad career at DeGroote. Having the opportunity to work with fellow students, professors, and sponsor companies to bring all these resources together to create the seventh season of this innovate program was a truly unique and enlightening experience.

Programs like Apprentice bring members of the DeGroote faculty and student body, as well as industry representatives together to form a sense of community that shares a passion for the school, for its programs and for marketing.

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Finding a job is hard work, especially when you’re new to the market and your competition is stiff. The only things that really separate one undergraduate B.Comm. student from another are the endeavors you pursue outside of school, your resume, and your winning personality. Notably, the additional activities you pursue outside the classroom that are relating to your desired field of business are especially highly regarded (or so I’m told!).

Recently, Sean Hurley designed this website. Having this website has given me
the opportunity to learn about using WordPress to host content, understand metrics on Google Analytics, and learn about personal branding. Managing the website has also given me incentive to learn more about online marketing and various social media outlets.

The rat race for a job that all undergrads will join upon graduating is definitely intimidating. So relieve some of that fear and up your ante by furthering your knowledge of your future field of business outside the classroom.

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I use the TTC to get around, but until recently I generally only found myself on the subway. In my efforts to explore the city more, I’ve been using the streetcar and the occasional bus. But given my not-so-great sense of direction, I have relied on the TTC Navigator iPhone app to tell me how I can get to where I’m going. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t use the majority of the apps on my phone, but this is one I now can’t live without. The app lists all the subway, streetcar and bus routes, shows all the stops, and the upcoming arrival times.

To anyone who lives in Toronto and has a similar directional conundrum, or just doesn’t want to wait around wondering when the next bus is coming, download the TTC Navigator!

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When I left for University was when I realized how much I loved Toronto. I’ve always been a city girl, and moving to a smaller city reinforced my desire to live in the constantly evolving and fast-paced environment of a big city. In recent years, I’ve made a point of getting to know different parts of Toronto and making the most of what it has to offer. One of my favourite things to do on weekends is to choose an area of the city, like Queen Street West, and spend the day walking around and exploring.

One of the best things about Toronto are the different cultures and lifestyles that are created within each area of the city. Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods; I grew up in North Toronto, which offers a family-friendly environment. I am now spending more time in the up-and-coming area of Leslieville, which is inhabited primarily by young professionals, and boasts a wide offering of independent shops and businesses.

Despite the fact that I’ve lived in Toronto my whole life, I still have so many more parts of the city to discover. It’s hard to be bored in a city like Toronto – a city that has a niche for everyone – you just have to find it!

Check out what Toronto has to offer at BlogTO.

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In one of Louis Vuitton’s latest ads featuring Angelina Jolie, she’s quoted saying “A single journey can change the course of a life”. I believe that if we let ourselves be open to new experiences and take time to learn about our travel destination, a vacation can turn into a great opportunity to discover ourselves.

This summer I got the chance to travel to Asia for the first time, and it was an eye opening experience. In my travels to Europe, I found that I was able to adapt to the environment fairly quickly since the culture is not too different from certain Canadian cities like Montreal, which were influenced by Europe in their establishment. However in Asia this wasn’t the case. Every element of their culture was new to me, and it was exciting to be emerged in such an unfamiliar environment that offered so much to discover.

After having the experience of travelling to Asia, I was left craving more travel – next on the list is a graduation trip to Brasil!

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I’ve been heavily involved in extra-curriculars at DeGroote, all relating to Marketing. Between commerce classes and extra-curriculars, I got a case of tunnel vision and didn’t pay as much attention to my courses in other subject areas as I should have. But as soon as I started investing as much time in my geography studies as I do my commerce studies, I started to reap the benefits of branching out; the social and economic geography courses reinforced my understanding of demographics, as well as social and economic trends I learned about in marketing and economics classes.

Upon realizing how much can be gained from learning about subjects that at first glance may seem unrelated to your primary topic of interest, it made me rethink what the important attributes are that I’m looking for in my first job out of school.  Initially I thought that because I was interested in pursuing marketing, that meant my job should be entirely focused on learning the ins and outs of the field. But I can now see the value of being open to a job that is not necessarily focused entirely on marketing, and instead one that offers the opportunity to learn about other disciplines. Whether in school or at work, if you’re focusing on one specific area of business you may find your skills sets will be narrow, subsequently reducing the value you can gain from your education or the value you can add to an organization.

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I’ve found that every passing year at University has gone by faster than the last, and this one has been no exception to the rule. First term flew by, and I’m sure second term will do the same as us graduates are focused on wrapping up classes, finding jobs and entering this “real world” our professors keep talking about. There are so many changes that lie ahead – some may seem daunting right now, like leaving the University bubble and joining the workforce. But despite the elements of the unknown and fear that we will likely face come graduation, the excitement of discovering what’s to come trumps all.

Some say that their University years were their best, but I think the years that lie ahead are looking pretty fantastic.

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Anyone who snowboards knows how frustrating it can be when you’re learning to just get up off the ground. What seems like the simplest thing and something we think we already know how to do, standing up, suddenly becomes a new skill you need to learn before you can start attempting to make your way down the hill. The same goes for so many other situations where we’re learning something new – we often think we can skip the first few basic steps and instead dive into the situation head first because we’re eager to make it to the bottom of the hill. But learning to snowboard reinforced the importance of learning the basic steps, because as soon as I took the time to properly learn how to get up it was much easier to attempt making it down the hill.

As we begin a new year, which will surely bring forth many new learning experiences, I’m going to keep in mind the lessons I gained when I was learning to snowboard. Whether it comes to new classes at school and eventually a new job upon graduation, taking the time to learn the basics will pay off in the long run.

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New to the world of website hosting and management, WordPress has allowed for an enjoyable learning process. The minimal and simple dashboard is easy to use, and offers many great features like plug-ins, that enable you to customize your dashboard. WordPress also offers an awesome iPhone application, which I’ve been using to write blog posts.

After learning the basics of WordPress, enough to at least publish content for the site pages and write a few blog posts, I’m excited to see what else it has to offer. To anyone who’s designing a site and looking for a user-friendly CMS, I highly recommend WordPress.

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