(Forgot to say in the last post, huge thanks to everyone who commented, it's incredibly motivating to continue writing this journal seeing all the support here! It's also been great reading other people's journals, and seeing how you are going with your own journeys)
This read a bit recount-y so I don't really expect anyone to read it all, but making my journal public motivates me to actually update it, and I will be interested to look back on it myself as I get further through my degree!So I thought it's about time I updated this journal again! (I got the 30 day warning, whoops
)
I officially started uni this week, but going back since my last post:
- I had my first gathering for the Ma and Morley scholarship in early Feb, which was an absolutely incredible experience. All the scholars spent 2 full days together at the uni, discussing the values of the program and just generally getting to know each other. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to really connect with people, and it's such a diverse groups which is awesome. It was also really valuable to start making friends before the semester even started, and I've been able to say hi to many of them in my first week. I can't wait for our next gathering, which is this Friday!
- I ended up enrolling in a second physics bridging course because the first one was really basic foundation stuff (which was important but only covered a small aspect of physics). The second one was much faster paced, and I didn't understand a lot of it, but I hope I at least absorbed some things. It also helped ease me back into study and what to expect at uni, so I guess it was useful overall. It was during O-week, so I couldn't go on Thursday because it was my orientation day.
- So orientation day. Overall I had a great day, although mainly because I got to meet new people rather than the actual informative aspect of the day. We started with a session in the Great Hall for the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, which was fine but not overly exciting. After that we moved to specific degree information sessions, which I was looking forward to to meet the other people doing my degree. The information was pretty dry and straightforward, but I did talk to some people and I (kind of) made a friend so I was excited about that! Apparently there are 26 people doing my degree, and out of the 20 people at this session, 5 of us were girls (just interesting, I was curious to see what the percentage would be, but all the guys I talked to were really nice as well). I think having a small cohort will be good because it will be easier to get to know everyone and it could be pretty tight knit, especially because we are the first year of this degree (at least that's what I hope).
- I also met a couple of people in the Women in Engineering session in the afternoon, including a girl who went to my primary school (year above me)! She was super nice and we were both excited about seeing someone from primary school. She is a second year chemical engineering student, and this degree has pretty much the same first year as renewable, so she said to hit her up for notes or other help. It was also great to make a connection with someone who actually knows how to do this whole uni thing haha.
- Starting uni! Although I knew that there would be heaps of people, it was pretty overwhelming arriving at uni this Monday and seeing people EVERYWHERE. I don't think I've ever seen this many young people in one place, or at least not in this sort of environment. All of my subjects for this semester are huge (500+ people) because they are all general engineering, science or maths courses, Despite this I have been surprised at how many people I know from various places, so that's comforting, and I try to introduce myself to the people sitting next to me in lectures. So far I prefer the learning environment to high school, although it's only been three days and the workload hasn't really kicked in yet so I'll see how I go. I've also been pleasantly surprised at how social it is, and it's not as hard as I thought to strike up a conversation and meet new people.
So overall it's been a pretty decent start to uni life for me! I'll leave this here and maybe review my subjects another time (there is still one subject I haven't had year). Hope everyone else's study/life is going well! Jaz