How does studying in Uni differ from studying in VCE?

[bully3000]

Are the requirements to doing well in uni roughly the same as the requirements to doing well in VCE?

Anyone care to highlight the differences of their experiences when it comes to approaching these two things and doing well in them?

Which did/do you prefer (VCE or uni)?

Why?

[pi]

Are the requirements to doing well in uni roughly the same as the requirements to doing well in VCE?

Depends on the course. For mine, "no". If you study like you did in VCE you will probably fail.

Anyone care to highlight the differences of their experiences when it comes to approaching these two things and doing well in them?

In VCE, you don't have to work consistently to do well (ATAR) and you have a lot handed on a plate to you. You have a fixed curriculum with set textbooks, ample practice exams, and teachers bugging you to hand in work or whatever. In uni, none of that happens.

People tell you in school: "Don't worry, it's not on the course", in uni it's more like: "Hey, even if it's kinda related to the lecture it's in the course". It's hard to get around that imo.

I'll leave the "doing well in both of them" to someone who is actually doing well in both of them.

Which did/do you prefer (VCE or uni)?

Why?

VCE for the marks, uni for the lifestyle. As for why, it should be self-explanatory

[MJRomeo81]

You can get away with rote learning in VCE. You can't in uni.

The material in uni is simply more intellectually stimulating/challenging. Hence I prefer uni more. I was bored throughout VCE and it ultimately affected my ATAR (scored 85, was aiming higher). In uni I'm actually interested in the content and now I have a 4.0 GPA after first year.

[michak]

People tell you in school: "Don't worry, it's not on the course", in uni it's more like: "Hey, even if it's kinda related to the lecture it's in the course". It's hard to get around that imo.

Kinda off topic but with this does that mean you could get asked questions or such from topics that arent in the lecture notes or in the required readings?

[QuantumJG]

I found uni to be different to VCE in the sense that (as pi said) in VCE it's about getting the marks required for the course you want to get into, whereas at uni it's about learning about a particular area. Getting 80% at uni is (well for me at least) MUCH harder than getting 80% in VCE. There's a saying that P's get degrees, and that's right, but that's all P's will get. If you're wanting to do postgraduate studies, you need higher marks.

[pi]

Kinda off topic but with this does that mean you could get asked questions or such from topics that arent in the lecture notes or in the required readings?

I'm not familiar with other courses, but my exams had all sorts of seemingly random things haha

[MJRomeo81]

Kinda off topic but with this does that mean you could get asked questions or such from topics that arent in the lecture notes or in the required readings?

There's a lot of "random" content in uni. As in random powerpoint slides that just look out of place, but you don't know whether its examinable or not (unless the lecturer is kind enough to explicitly state something). However I've never had an exam question that wasn't covered in a lecture or readings. It's just that there's so much content in uni it's hard to stay on top of everything (as you would typically do in VCE).

I think the main point is there's no study design. Sure, you receive a subject guideline but it doesn't specifically state what is examinable and what isn't.

[michak]

There's a lot of "random" content in uni. As in random powerpoint slides that just look out of place, but you don't know whether its examinable or not (unless the lecturer is kind enough to explicitly state something). However I've never had an exam question that wasn't covered in a lecture or readings. It's just that there's so much content in uni it's hard to stay on top of everything (as you would typically do in VCE).

I think the main point is there's no study design. Sure, you receive a subject guideline but it doesn't specifically state what is examinable and what isn't.

I'm not familiar with other courses, but my exams had all sorts of seemingly random things haha

ALright makes sense, thanks guys

[yearningforsimplicity]

I've found studying in uni to be a lot harder than vce and I can safely say that I STILL haven't struck a proper "Uni Study" routine! I think it's mainly because of how broad things can be (i.e. you no longer have a study design to restrict what you learn) and also because the uni lifestyle is so much more different from school (you'll get what I mean when you start uni haha). I think Uni study is really dependent on the individual - for some, the lecture slides suffice as notes, others summarise lecture notes in their own words and you have to go crazy on whatever practice exam Q's they give! The percentages for assessments in uni can get way crazier than vce...like one of my assessments was worth 65% !! (this was a breadth subject though). Also, marking schemes in uni are very different from vce...like getting a H1 feels a lot more difficult than getting an "A+". Rote learning can get you by to a certain extent (i.e. if you have to cram during swotvac) though it's obviously not going to help in the long term at all - and it really depends on what subject you're doing. Personally, I liked vce for the 'structure' it had but I like uni a bit more because it feels less stressful and you don't have to go 5 days a week! haha

[b^3]

To be honest, for me learning in Uni is a lot different than learning in VCE. In VCE I basically learnt everything out of the textbooks on my own, didn't learn too much off the teachers, as I'd covered it before the class did (I learnt a few things here and there, but not the majority). This meant that I wasn't as good at listening and learning on the spot, as others had been as they'd learnt most of their VCE off the teacher that way. So when I got to uni, it was a bit of '.... oh... I haven't learnt this way for a while... how am I going to.. hmm..'. My old methods wouldn't work since there was just not enough time to do that in uni, since you cover heaps more, a lot more than VCE. And as said above you're not spoonfed the information, you have to go out in search of it sometimes. It took me a semester to adjust the way I learnt, and to pick things up on the spot better, without having to go to a textbook and learn out of it. You get used to it after a while, even worked out a way to do maths on the train on the way home with a clipboard Despite putting more effort into semester 1, I feel I did better in semseter 2 (well, my average for both sems was about the same, but besides one subject my marks were higher in the second semester). Some people say the first semester is the 'hardest' (not content wise, but more how you lean wise), since that is the time that you are adjusting everything and settling in.

For engineering the key seems to be 'know how to do tute questions and have a shallow understanding' to be able to do well (at least so far anyways). Despite all this, uni is definitely better than VCE

EDIT: I probably should add that this is coming from the perspective of someone who generally puts a lot of effort into things, and throughout VCE had to do things the hard way on their own. Everyone will be different, I've seen some friends who were spoonfed during VCE, who did well (99+) and go and not know how to learn properly on their own and fail units in first and second semseter. It's really all about motivating yourself and working out what works best for you

[iamtom]

Kinda off topic but with this does that mean you could get asked questions or such from topics that arent in the lecture notes or in the required readings?

I remember semester 1 I had somethign we covered for 10 minutes in lectures and 0 minutes in tutes, cover 1.5 pages of the exam.

[bully3000]

I remember semester 1 I had somethign we covered for 10 minutes in lectures and 0 minutes in tutes, cover 1.5 pages of the exam.

How'd you go in it?

[iamtom]

How'd you go in it?

Botched that part completely. Still passed overall.

[TrueTears]

kinda the same for me both in high school and uni, the best teacher is yourself; it's true

[#1procrastinator]

if you truly like what you're doing then you should be trying to learn as much as you can anyway and not just studying what you need to know to do the exams/assignments