You just started university. Congratulations. O-week flew past in a blur with a hundred new names and faces you’ve already forgotten, countless free snags and drinks, an occasional information session, weird building names, people trying to get you to sign up to their club, and a bag full of brochures you might read, but probably not.
Now, it’s week one and your lecturers are already talking about assignments! I decided to look back at the things I wish I knew when I was just starting my undergrad. 1. College movies lied Wild parties every night, pranks on the Dean, meeting the love of your life, and enigmatic professors wearing waistcoats who throw the textbook in the bin as symbolism for destroying conformity. That doesn’t happen. There will be some wild parties and there will be some students who do turn up to every lecture hungover, but most people tend to hang out with their smaller friendship groups or spend the weekend in bed watching Netflix. You probably won’t even know the Dean’s name or what they actually do...I still don't. Some of you might find the love of your life but a lot of you won’t and that’s okay. Professors just want to teach you the content of the syllabus and encourage you to take their subject in later years. 2. The first semester is likely to be the hardest You’re in a new environment, surrounded by new people and have to master a new way of learning: lectures. Even if you got 95% on every test in high school, you may now struggle to get in the 70s. It’s completely normal. Getting 75% on a university assignment is good. Getting 80+% is amazing. Getting 90+% is incredibly rare. Despite doing fewer subjects, you're doing what feels like way more work than high school. And most of the learning process takes place outside of class, by yourself. You may have to create your own activities and practice questions to reinforce the material learnt in class. But, it gets easier which each semester. The content may be harder, but you’ll learn how to learn. You’ll work out how to take good notes and study efficiently. First semester is about experimenting. Try studying in the morning, try studying at night, try taking notes on your laptop or with good ol’ pen and paper and see what works best for you. Don’t worry about getting amazing grades in first year (your final year grades are considered more important anyway) just focus on learning how to learn. 3. Having one friend to whine about that annoying professor or difficult assignment will reduce stress levels 4. Bring lunch from home at least 3-4 times a week to save money and your health 5. Student discounts are everywhere 6. Take up one extra-curricular activity that looks good on a resume It might take an hour or two per week but it could be the difference between getting a job after your degree and….well, not. If you’re studying journalism, volunteer for community radio or the university magazine. Plan to do an internship in second or third year. Join the committee of a club. 7. You’re allowed to say no without needing an excuse 8. There is so much help available, but you have to ask for it From academic help, to financial help, to free counselling, and legal help. These services are expensive outside of university world, but they are free for students. Use them. Can’t quite get your head around integration by parts, your maths tutor will have a designated time when they help students outside of class. Constantly feeling sick, always worrying or find it really hard to get out of bed, it could be a sign of an undiagnosed mental illness, book a free psych appointment. Unfair parking fines or issues with your landlord can be discussed with legal experts. Help is there, but you have to go to it. I realise I haven’t painted a very rosy image of first year university. That’s because I started university with extremely high expectations about my grades and my social life and was hugely disappointed. I hated first year because my ridiculous expectations were not met. I learnt the hard way that it’s okay to mess up and not be perfect every time, it’s okay to get a bad grade once in a while as long as you pay attention to the feedback from your tutor, and it’s okay to not have an amazing social life and carpe-diem-style-realisation moments during university. Sometimes you just plod along and that’s okay. But, second year was better than first year and third was even better. I made friends, I scored well in subjects I liked, a couple of Professors knew my name and I actually looked forward to coming to university. Now, in postgrad, I love it. Do your best, but remember, it’s okay if sometimes you don't.
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AuthorPostgrad scientist. Researching rainfall and stumbling into the wild world of science research and academia. ArchivesCategories |