Building skills for success: RGASC marks 30 years of supporting students at UTM

Meghana Malagi was used to being at the top of her class in high school, so she assumed her academic success would continue when she arrived at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Confident in her abilities, she took on extra courses, registering for six classes in her first semester and another six in her second before realizing she had made a mistake.

“I overestimated,” said Malagi. “I had a huge workload.”

Like many first-year students, she learned that university came with different – and higher – expectations compared to high school.

“I was surrounded by people who were all the most intelligent person in their high school classes,” said Malagi, who recalled also trying to balance academics with building a new life far from her support network at home.

Realizing she was overwhelmed, both emotionally and academically, Malagi sought help.

That’s when she discovered the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre.

Founded in 1996 as the Academic Skills Centre to help students improve their study habits through peer-based support, it was renamed in 2005 for professional engineer Robert Gillespie in recognition of his long-time support for UTM.

The centre, commonly known as the RGASC, is now marking 30 years of helping undergraduate and graduate students, as well as instructors at UTM.

It offers one-on-one appointments for writing, math and numeracy learning strategies, as well as community-building initiatives, such as a regular games cafe. It also has specialized programs like the Promoting Academic Skills for Success— or PASS – program and Facilitated Study Group, or FSG, program.

For Malagi, the PASS program helped her discover she was a visual learner who absorbed content better through tools such as diagrams or videos.

She picked up the habit of studying with color-coded flashcards from observing other students at the RGASC. She also took the centre’s advice to make regular use of professors’ office hours, a tip she said brought great benefits.

“Building that relationship (with professors) gives you reference letters and future directions to join their lab or research with them or get published. That's building networks,” said Malagi, who is now working on her PhD under the guidance of a U of T alum at an esteemed children’s hospital in Tennessee.

What RGASC offers isn’t tutoring, but facilitating, said Brandon El-Jurdi, a senior program assistant with the FSG program.

“Here, I'm not a content expert, a teaching assistant or a prof,” said El-Jurdi, who is graduating this spring with an honours double major in chemistry and biology for health sciences.

“In the FSG, we ‘scaffold,’ solving a complicated question by breaking them into easy questions and then slowly advancing their difficulty.”

El-Jurdi said he works largely with first-year math and chemistry students who are often taking the same courses he did.

“I remember those challenging moments,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s just about reading the textbook alongside a student, going over the information until you see that light bulb of ‘OK, now I can actually understand that.’”

Students also often help each other, said El-Jurdi.

“I've had a lot of really, really bright students from different countries, where they have learned things in different ways and they share their methods,” he said. “It becomes a mutual learning experience.”

Malagi, who eventually became a program assistant with the RGASC, said her time at the centre made her realize the benefits of reaching out for support early.

“The majority of people that come in are struggling academically – they don't have the grades that they need in order to get where they want to go,” said Malagi.

“Come in your first semester and learn proper study skills … I’ve seen it work.