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(Star) Trekking My Way to Space - Olivia's Uni Journal

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owidjaja:
Hey guys,

I'm here with another journal. I made one during my HSC and one during my 3 month break so I decided to make one for uni so I can sit here and ramble just to get stuff off my chest. If you couldn't tell from my horribly amazing Star Trek pun in the title, I'm studying Aerospace Engineering at UNSW, and I'm freaking excited to start.

Why Aerospace Engineering?
I know right! It is a narrow field of engineering. Long story short, I actually fell in love with physics back when I was in primary school. I would steal my sister's science textbooks and read it for fun. Yep, you read it right. For fun. (Now that I look back, it's actually kinda sad lmao) I even bought two Stephen Hawking books. Did I understand it? Not really, but it didn't stop me from reading it. Fast forward into junior school, I knew I wanted to go into engineering because it was the perfect place for me to use physics, but I didn't know which field. It wasn't until my math tutor told me one day that engineers still don't know how flight works. I was really confused. How can we still not know how flight works even though it plays a significant role in our daily lives? And that was what motivated me to go into aerospace engineering. I started reading a whole bunch of stuff on Bernoulli vs Newton's theories on flight and even bought a physics textbook. Ever since then, I knew I wanted to do aerospace engineering. It's been a long journey, especially since I didn't really perform well in maths and physics during high school (although I did perform much better in physics than math but my HSC results say otherwise). But it didn't stop me from doing aerospace engineering so now I'm here!

Why UNSW?
For a while, I actually considered USyd as well since they offered a space engineering program as well. However, their ATAR was 99. Technically, you could still do space engineering if you don't get the 99 ATAR. You end up doing mechanical engineering for a year and then you can change to do space engineering but you don't really get as much opportunities as those who got the 99 ATAR straight up (i.e. they're exposed to more challenging projects). I don't really like that kind of approach. To me, it's like their separating the students who survived high school into an elite group. This was part of the reason why I wanted to go to UNSW. Another reason was because I had a different math tutor back in Year 8 and she was bantering with another math tutor who was a USyd student, and she was like to me "Fun fact: UNSW started of as an engineering school." That intrigued me. Ever since then, I researched a lot about UNSW. I even went to Open Day in Year 9 and spoke to an aeronautical engineering student. Plus, UNSW has a really big engineering department. I was also unimpressed with the engineering department at USyd. When I went to the USyd Open Day, I was shocked that the Engineering block was an old, bricked building tucked away from the pretty law buildings and near the car park. I mean, isn't engineering all about innovation? So why haven't they updated the engineering building? Anyway, it really solidified my decision to go to UNSW. I just had to make sure I got the marks to get to UNSW.

Here are the units I'll be taking this term:
MATH1131
PHYS1121
ENGG1000

I've also attached my timetable here. It's a bit annoying that I have to go to uni everyday (and also annoying that it says there's a clash, though this issue is already solved) but hopefully my timetable get's a bit better next term.

I'm really nervous to start uni (especially over my maths and physics skills) but I am looking forward to uni! (Watch my chipper attitude change in two weeks lmao)

See you soon!

- Olivia

fantasticbeasts3:
Yay!! Super excited to see you’ve started a new journal Olivia :-) Looking forward to reading your updates and I hope you have lots of fun in uni! ☺️

beatroot:
Yay! So happy to finally see you in the uni journey journal board!!
I'm a keen bean to read your updates and all your adventures at uni !!

owidjaja:
Hey guys,

I know uni hasn't officially started and it's only O-week but stressed me has already started preparation for uni. Here I am being like "Yeah I love physics and engineering" and then I get emails about my assumed knowledge for math and that sets me off into stress-mode. At moments like this, I always ask myself if engineering is the right choice. I don't know. I knew I wanted to go into engineering for so long that I can't see myself doing anything else. And honestly, I miss the time where I actually had fun with math and get excited when I finally understand something new. I feel like high school has just drained my enjoyment in math (it doesn't help that we had a very toxic environment either). It's been hard to ignore these emails because when I get stuck with a question (as I'm preparing for uni), I start to question my capabilities in math which stresses me out even more.

So here's my plan: throughout the week, I've been going through the Student Support Scheme work sheets. The 3U topics I placed aside and the more doable topics I've been completing so I can brush up on my math and get into my "math zone" (I've been doing a lot of writing in the past month and gosh I miss doing math). With the 3U topics, since I need a bit more depth in their explanations rather than a summary, I'll take a look at how the algebra/calculus course notes have explained the topics. If I can understand it, I'll try the questions from those notes/homework booklet (plus, it also gives me a head start in homework for Week 1). If not, I re-downloaded my 3U math textbook so I'll revisit those chapters. Is this too much for me to complete in two days while still jet-lagged and recovering from a cold? Maybe. But at this rate, I'm so stressed over my math capabilities I can't walk into Week 1 unprepared.

Anyway, hope I actually complete these tasks.

See you soon!

- Olivia

strawberries:
Hey,

Just would like to pop in and say good luck with uni this year :)
take care xx

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