I recently received a package from my mother. It was an old scarf box. Over the course of its journey, the corners had worn through its brown paper wrapping. In the middle, my mother's handwriting spelled out my newest address in large upper-case letters. My old address 2,000 kilometres away was sequestered in the upper left corner in lower-case letters. I rushed the package back to my room, cut the tape, ripped the paper, opened it and looked at the contents: a pound of almonds, 5 chocolate bars, and some newspaper clippings my mom thought I'd like.

This is the third package I've received from home. The contents are usually the same. Their simplicity belies the effort my mother puts into constructing them. Once a month, when my sister was in university, my mother would collect the contents of what would be the latest package on a forgotten part of the kitchen counter. There'd be clippings from fashion magazines, cartoons from the dailies and a Starbucks gift card to sustain my sister's chai latte habit. When she felt the collection was complete, she'd find the perfect box, wrap it and bring it to the car. It would then sit in the passenger seat for a few days until she found time to ship it from a Canada Post office. The process took a week and she now repeats it for me.

I'm sure my mom constructs the packages not just for my own benefit but for hers, as well. I'm now totally responsible for feeding myself, finding my way home and getting my work done. For my mom, that reality is not frightening but it is mildly concerning. She can't ensure that I'm looking after myself. She can only ensure that at least once a month I'll be happy when a package arrives and that I'll have enough snack food to get me through exam time. Other than that, I'm on my own.

Looking around my room, you'd think things have fallen apart. There's a half-drunk mug of cold tea on my desk, last sipped two days ago. The teapot I used sits next to it, its dark-blue enamel surface wearing a fine layer of dust. The paper innards of my binders have burst all over my room, leaving a layered chaos of subject notes on my desk, on my bed and under my chair. And my load of laundry has once again reached dreadful proportions.

At the moment I'm in the middle of a two-week period that's filled with two papers and four exams. Since September I've had this period marked off in my calendar with red ink. Yet the advance warning did little to prepare me. I'm swamped, finishing one thing only to begin another.

Since September, my stress has risen and fallen in a sinuous curve. There are moments when all pressures are removed, when everything runs well and problems are little black blips barely perceptible in the distance. Then the blips get closer and incrementally become big black blots. Little by little my stress goes up the slope, until I'm at the peak.

Right now I'm at the peak and I badly want to slide down and slip into a nice, easy Christmas break.

I've never had to do so much in so little time. I don't have much choice but to work. If I don't work, I get bad grades. Yet Elliot, a third-year on my floor, is convinced I study too much. I might, but I won't know until I write my exams and papers and get my marks back. So the objective then is to keep my stress and my anxiety under control. I do this by planning out my schedule to the umpteenth detail. I know exactly what I need to do and when I need to do it. I ruthlessly prioritize and I make sure I take breaks. I don't get upset if I deviate from my schedule; it's just a way to remove all the things I have to do from my head and see them on paper. Once they're on paper in a list that isn't infinite, my work becomes less intimidating.

The first few months of your first year can be incredibly stressful. You're plunging yourself into an environment that you know little about. You don't know how the system works and you don't know how to get the marks you want. And the only way you find out is through experience. All the upper-years I've met have this cool aura about them when it comes to schoolwork. That's not to say they don't get stressed, but they know how to write a paper and study for a test a lot better than I do. In December, after the haze of my first few months has settled and I get my marks back, hopefully all will be revealed to me. Because I don't really want to spend four years being as keyed up as I am right now.

Forget about pointy headed academics: undergraduate students are responsible for the bulk of research in psychology. For decades, undergrads have willingly become subjects in psychology experiments all for the promise of cash or course credit. Because of their good work, we now know much more about human nature than we did a century ago. A search on a database of psychology journals for studies conducted on undergraduate students yields just under a thousand results.

In September, my psychology class of 1200 underwent "mass testing". We were given an hour to fill out a 60 questions survey. The survey asked about our ethnic background, our eyesight and whether we thought people were created equal. The intent was to build a profile of who we were. The results we gave were distributed to researchers, who then selected the individuals that fit the criteria for subjects in their studies. Our professor reassured us that we had nothing to fear and that he himself, as well our TAs, had participated in studies during their undergrad years. If we were really uncomfortable, we could refuse to participate.

At least one student wasn't very comfortable with "mass testing," though. And later, on the Psychology 100 discussion board, someone posted that they were "outraged that a school like U of T would do such mean things to their students."

I've participated in three studies since September. If I participate in four, an extra 3% will be added to my final grade. I don't mind being a subject. What I've been asked to do is rather mundane: remember words in a list or fill out a questionnaire. In my favourite, I was presented a sheet of paper that told me to concentrate and imagine I was 85 years old. I was about to die and I had to write out the criteria I'd use to determine if I had lived a good life. I've never been asked to do that before. It was an interesting experience. I said the most important criterion for me was that I had loved and been loved by my family. Seeing that written out, I began to question why I was in university and not running off to get married, have babies and continue living in my parents' house. And then I wrote out my second criterion, which was to have used my talents to their fullest extent. No babies yet. 

Being a subject in a psychology study isn't the only way to get involved in research on campus. At a large research oriented school like U of T, there are numerous research opportunities. Nearly every faculty offers the Research Opportunity Program (ROP) courses 299Y and 399Y.  The former allows you to work alongside a professor or graduate student on their research. The latter is an independent study program that allows you to investigate a subject chosen by you and a professor in your field of choice. Beyond the two ROP courses, you can also participate in research at U of T through the numerous "research centres" (http://www.research.utoronto.ca/about/research_centres.html) on campus. For example, the G8 Research Group employs around 100 undergrads to investigate and report on issues important to the G8. You may not receive course credit for your work in research centres (depending on what the arrangement is) but you will get the opportunity to practice your analytical and investigative abilities while working alongside profs, graduate students and keeners. And you might even get to run a psychology study one day.

There was a dozen of us, all in our teens, watching Tuesday's election on a little TV in a little room at Trinity. We sat down at 7 p.m., ordered pizza at 11:30 and at 1 a.m., after Barack Obama delivered his speech and the excitement of the election was usurped by the onset of sleepiness, we went to bed

We watched the election because it was historic and because Obama is the perfect candidate for university students. His notions of hope and change are found on every campus, in every student club trying to save the environment or end poverty. And he demonstrates that change does occur. For university students, ever wanting to improve the world they've inherited from their parents, that's important.

Our channel was CNN, the one with Anderson Cooper and the "Best Political Team on Television." A highlight of their coverage was a hologram of musician Will.i.am.  At one point co-host Wolf Blitzer came on and declared that people across the world would remember where they were at 11 o'clock when Barack Obama was declared president-elect.

We'll likely remember where we were. We'll remember how the room turned quiet when he came on stage to deliver his speech. We'll remember watching him succeed in something he set out to do around the same age that we are now. Everyone who watched him in that room has their own ambitions, existing now perhaps only as a little kernel of thought. And three or four decades from now, hopefully those little kernels will be realized like his was Tuesday night.

Just as I fell asleep early Wednesday morning, I received a text message from a friend watching the election in Vancouver. It read "our world is so sweet." That simple statement sums up exactly the sentiment so many students felt Tuesday night. Over the next four years, as our undergraduate degree unfolds along with Obama's first term in office, it will be interesting to see whether that sentiment stays with us. I hope it does.