Hey guys,
It's been a while since I've updated. It's almost been a week since I've dropped Extension Math and I've actually been sleeping earlier (my earliest was probably 10.30pm on a Friday night lol). Since my class is going through all the 3U content, I've been spending time in class finishing my math assignment (yes, a math assignment) and I actually started to go through some HSC past papers. Let me just say I didn't realise that the Section 2 of the math paper went up to 16 questions- our exams only went up to 10 multiple choice and 15 short answer questions. I feel like the day where I'll be sitting two 3-hour exams for Trials (2U Math and Modern) will be like a plane trip (tbh a plane trip to Indonesia is 7 hours so my two exams will almost be like me flying overseas :/).
Last Wednesday was also Parent Teacher Interview and I got my report that night. I found it amusing that my math and physics teacher essentially said the same thing how they know I know the content, it's just not showing on the paper welp :/ With the rest of my teachers, all of them are concerned that I'm gonna burn out before the HSC. Well, been there done that. At this point, stress is an integral part of my life that it's just become background noise- even though I'm smiling, I'm stressed on the inside. I find it funny when teachers are like "Oh you're smiling that's great to see." Meanwhile these teachers are fooled because I have no clue what's like to go through a day without stress. If anything, not being productive makes me even more stressed because it makes me paranoid that I missed something, yet being productive stresses me because time goes so fast I don't have time to do anything.
Saturday was Career Expo. I was actually amazed I got to speak to two aerospace engineering students, one from UNSW and one from USyd (though he also did physics). I kinda figured that UNSW was my first choice but Career Expo consolidated my choice. The difference between the way these students sold aerospace to me was that the guy at USyd liked to talk about USyd's reputation. He was going on about how all the degrees are the same but where you get the degree from is where it matters and talked about how USyd has great connections with places like the Defence Force. I also asked him about dropping Extension Math and he recommended me to do a Bridging Course and said his friends who only did 2U wasn't doing so well. And then my friend mentioned about how our physics teacher mentioned that you don't use all the stuff in 3U and then he went on about how in his lab there was a circle-related question (don't remember if he actually mentioned circle geo) and said perms and combs are important. I brought it up to my teacher today and he scoffed at that comment because he said that you only use some parts of 3U/4U (e.g. a bit of complex numbers, mechanics) but not the whole thing.
Meanwhile, the students I spoke to at UNSW (one was a student ambassador and one was a space engineering student) mentioned that they're totally cool with me doing 2U math. I even asked them about the 3U math on their undergrad guide and they said it's just a guide but 2U math is also fine. The space engineering student also told me that they'll assume knowledge up to Year 10 and reteach everything from that point, which is reassuring for me. Although this was the main reason why it consolidated my choice for UNSW as my first preference, just the way the student sold UNSW as an university to me was something I preferred than USyd. I would say your typical stereotype of USyd students are those from rich schools who still liked to talk about their ATAR even though they're in their final year of uni and like to talk about the elitism in USyd (this is coming from my visits at USyd and I have a friend who's doing Law at USyd so he's told me the stories), and the student ambassador at USyd kinda reaffirmed that stereotype, even though one of my house parents from Engineering Camp is also doing aerospace engineering at USyd and is one of the nicest people I know. But the way the UNSW student promoted his uni to me made UNSW more appealing.
The first student ambassador referred me to this aerospace student and when I told him I was referred to him, he looked really happy and asked me what I enjoy about aerospace and we had a great conversation on Bernoulli and Newton's theories in relation to flight. Even when I was asking for his recommendation on double degrees and not making the ATAR cut off, he was quite respectful in telling me alternative pathways and even mentioned that it's not his place to recommend anything to me but just weighed the pros and cons of double degrees. Meanwhile, when my friend was asking about Medicine with this other UNSW Med student, she was asking alternative pathways and the girl explained how it takes an extra year (making it 7 years) and completely said she won't recommend it, which was quite discouraging to my friend considering how she's already not confident in her UMAT. Anyway, I was actually shocked that work placement was mandatory- the student even mentioned that his friend had work placement at Qantas, which actually settled a bit of my stress on Coop because I would've assumed that if you don't make it into Coop you don't really get work placements. Anyway, I had a great conversation with the UNSW students and it actually reinforced UNSW as my first preference. USyd will probably will be placed second but there's no way I'm getting that 99 ATAR to get into space engineering.
I also met Adam (Mada438)! Beatroot actually created a Facebook group chat on this but she caught a fever and wasn't able to make it. I found this amusing because he was messaging me if I was at the Modern History seminar (which I was) and it turned out I was sitting right behind him and we didn't realise lol. It wasn't until the end of the seminar when he called me out and we actually talked. Now that I think of it, I barely talked so that kinda reinforced how I severely lack in social skills :/ We hung around at the AN stall and talked to Susie, Jamon and Isaac (sometimes).
Speaking of the Modern History seminar, let me just use this opportunity to fangirl over the fact that I met Bruce Dennett! Susie has mentioned how he's a really good speaker, especially at the HTA HSC lectures but I didn't expect to see him speak on Saturday. It was kinda funny because when I sat down, I didn't realise he was the speaker but he was having a conversation with a family. When I sat down, he asked me what year I was in (which I responded Year 12). He was going about how the old syllabus was better because he wrote the old syllabus- that caught my attention so I asked him if he was Bruce Dennett and he nodded. I was like "Omg I have your textbook!" and he responded "Oh she has my textbook! Bless you." During his presentation, he was talking about the old syllabus and looked directly at me in the eye and said how the HSC papers are already printed and kinda repeated this over and over as he moved closer to where I was sitting (since I sat in the second row at the end). Can't wait to see him again at the HTA Day!
This post went on for waaayyy too long so see you soon!
- Olivia
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Topic: HSC Journey- From Prelims to HSC (Read 71294 times)