Monday's Featured Non-Fiction: What's Wrong With University by Jeff Rybak

What’s Wrong With University: And How to Make It Work For You Anyway is by Jeff Rybak, a recent graduate of University of Toronto Scarborough. You can watch Jeff and other noted panalists debate the pros and cons of the university system in Canada at Hart House Library (7 Hart House Circle, University of Toronto) on Thursday, September 27 at 8:30 p.m.

What’s Wrong With University: And How to Make It Work For You Anyway
By Jeff Rybak
ECW Press, 2007
288 pages
$19.95

The university system has its problems. Students invest a lot of time and money in education but all too often don’t get what they came for. In What’s Wrong With University, Jeff Rybak addresses the most pressing concerns for undergraduate students, and helps them cope with the university system.

He illustrates the university as having five distinct functions, which are often in conflict with each other. Students often find themselves at cross purposes with those with different goals and motivations, and also with institutional features designed around the needs of those other students. As a result they are frequently frustrated by their experiences, lost in a system that isn’t suited to them. Jeff explains how university really works, and provides advice on how all students can overcome these internal conflicts to get what they most want from the university experience.

Jeff Rybak graduated in 2006 from the University of Toronto Scarborough, where he served in the students’ union as Vice-President Academics and within campus governance as Chair of the Academic Committee. He spent many hours counseling students on how to deal with all aspects of university, and was responsible for the production of several resources for students, including three editions of the campus Anti-Calendar. Jeff is currently a director on the board of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), and lives in Toronto.