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For students, the “peak-end effect” kicks in around this time of year. These final, waning moments of the traditional school year influence how you view your past accomplishments – and set the stage for your future motivation.
Our goal in this article is to ensure that you view the past school year positively. We want you to practice constructive self-reflection. We want you to practice effective present strategies for navigating the end of the school year. And lastly, we encourage you to look bravely toward the future as you complete graduation requirements in Ontario.

As you might have gathered in your physics or chemistry courses, energy is governed by laws of thermodynamics. And the first of those laws states that energy cannot be created or destroyed – only transferred.
The same principle applies (albeit with some creative license) to your studies. You are an isolated system, possessing a finite amount of energy in the form of academic focus and stamina. You can transfer that energy to your schoolwork, and indeed you should! But you have to give yourself the time and space to regain your energy elsewhere: with friends, family, quiet time, mindful practices, sleep and extracurricular hobbies. Or else you run the risk of depleting your energy. You run the risk of burning out.

In this article, we explore what CEGEP is, how it poses a challenge to some Quebec students, and what OES can do to help students circumvent the non-standardized system and enter university sooner.

Summer is so close you can practically taste the ice cream dripping down your wrist. But before we hit the beaches, cottages, outdoor concerts and family trips, there’s just one pressing item on the docket: finishing the school year.
Sometimes, it’s a cruel by-product of circumstance that the last few weeks of a course are the hardest. You have massive final exams to study for, final assignments to turn in and heavily weighted group projects to execute. At the same time, you feel like you’re running on fumes.

It’s sort of a cliched rite of passage to warn outgoing high school students about how challenging university is. “Buckle up, because university math might as well be taught in Greek,” some might say. And while that’s clearly an over-exaggeration meant to scare incoming frosh, there’s some grain of truth in it.

As Ontario’s leading academy for online high school courses, we at OES tend to naturally sing the praises of online learning. When you see the success stories first-hand, every day like we do – the students who flourish in a self-paced environment, the students who reach a potential they didn’t even think possible – it’s hard not to be full-throated in your praise.

In the history of education, online learning is an incredibly recent addition. As such, there isn’t quite the same volume of “instructional resources” behind it, like tips, best practices guides, etc. Traditional brick-and-mortar education has enjoyed centuries of self-betterment deliberation – with thinkers creating a veritable cottage industry out of how-to guides and student advice. It’s high time online learning did the same.

The history of education is a long one – but not an especially varied one. For centuries, the epicentre of secondary school education was the physical classroom, a purpose-built space for synchronistic, tightly scheduled learning.

There are several ways to measure the success of a school. The traditional way is to define it according to academic performance, particularly on standardized tests. This is the way school headmasters of old benchmarked success, and it remains in practice today. Conversely, some educational experts prefer to define success through a “student happiness index,” arguing that contentment – not a test – is the hallmark of a prospering school.

The new year can be a roller coaster for grade 12 students in Ontario. After years of settling into the high school groove – perfecting the cycle of semesters, mid-terms, projects and finals – students take the first months of a year to look toward an unknown future. Many prepare for the next stage of their educational career: post-secondary school.