University life - what’s it like?

[EEEEEEP]

//Some of this may not apply to you yet, but it will =)//

University life in a nutshell is independent, supportive, busy, about compromises and challenging. It’s also fun, eye opening and can be the greatest time of your life.

In university, you choose where to study, when to study, if you want to turn up to class and so forth.  There are many places to study at university (rooms, theatres), you can pick an afternoon or morning classes and you can skip some lectures. You make the decisions that you see fit for yourself and deal with the consequences. For some people they turned up to all classes, but for myself I turned up to the occasional class and skipped a good number of classes.

Busy. Full of Compromises.
At university you will be “adulting” (studying, working and family things). If you aren’t doing work stuff, you will be studying or spending time with family. For myself, if I am not at work, I am at university and only have about 1 or 2 days off (where I study). This also brings in a thing called compromises…..

You can’t do everything at once and you only have so much time in a day. If you work more, you can’t go out more. If you study more, you cannot spend as much time with your friends. You pick the compromises that are needed at the time =).


 
Challenging.
University challenges yourself academically, professionally and personally.  At university, learning how to express things in a more academic way was challenging and I had to learn things like expression, structure and referencing. Essays went from 500 words in high school to a few thousand.

Additionally, if you mention something, you will be challenged and rebutted by your peers and tutor in public. One moment that stands out for me was when the tutor said "stand up, come to the front and give me your reasoning for your judgement". I was absolutely petrified.

Personally, and professionally, I learnt how to network, work under pressure, manage groups and to deal with stress (which is important when everything is a balancing act).

Supportive
Even though you experience these things, there are people that support you! There’s the university counsellors, mentors, academic staff and lastly, your peers that are maybe going through the same things. It's even free too! They're multitudes of levels of support, that makes sure that you will never be alone in this journey.

At every university, the academic staff will be happy to give you extensions if you are unwell, assistance outside classes and organise alternative exams if you cannot attend on specific exam days. Counselling is also free at many universities!

The good stuff.
As I said before it’s fun, eye opening and can be the greatest time of your life.

There are societies and clubs (where you can join a group of your interest), volunteering opportunities with the faculty (for open days and tours) and campus events. Hundreds of clubs exist and you just turn up to events, followed by a lot of mingling and chatting. There’s also the bit where you hang out with people before class (which is fun when there’s an empty room and everyone’s just being silly).

As for the eye-opening bit, you learn things about the world that you never knew. What was a truth, maybe turned out to be a lie? In my first year of class, there was an elective called “ethics”, where I learnt about right from wrong. I thought that there was only one “truth”, and then found out that for some things, many different perspectives existed.

Good luck with everything and don’t stress out too much =)

[AngelWings]

You make the decisions that you see fit for yourself and deal with the consequences. For some people they turned up to all classes, but for myself I turned up to the occasional class and skipped a good number of classes.

Note: Be very wary about what these consequences are when you get to this. Some units now require lecture participation for a decent amount of assessment marks and will affect the final grade. Others will have attendance-based classes, where if you miss a tute, workshop or lab for a non-valid reason e.g. you are not sick, you might be deducted marks from your grades. These are very easily avoided mistakes by actually checking your unit guides and attending where necessary.

[sweetiepi]

Note: Be very wary about what these consequences are when you get to this. Some units now require lecture participation for a decent amount of assessment marks and will affect the final grade. Others will have attendance-based classes, where if you miss a tute, workshop or lab for a non-valid reason e.g. you are not sick, you might be deducted marks from your grades. These are very easily avoided mistakes by actually checking your unit guides and attending where necessary.

Ditto this.
To add: some units may also exclude you from sitting an exam if you have not attended a certain percentage of labs, tutes, or other classes. Some units do make exceptions for absences however, if you submit a special consideration form; but best to consult the unit guide/check with the unit coordinator first.