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

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owidjaja:

--- Quote from: mango8 on May 12, 2019, 06:35:24 pm ---Hi Olivia! I whizzed through your journal because it was incredibly fascinating and reading it makes me sooo pumped for uni to start next year! And your course sounds really interesting, I don't know much about it so I'm keen to see how it goes through your eyes. Is it easy making friends? 

--- End quote ---
Hey there!

As stressful as it is, engineering is quite fun. Honestly though, making friends was easier than I thought (coming from someone who was stressing about this the day before my first day of uni). The easiest way to make friends is literally being like "Hey are you here for class ____"- that's honestly how I made friends. A girl asked me that, we talked for a bit, a girl nearby also stopped by to chat and now the three of us (plus two other girls) are hanging out as much as we can. On top of that, ENGG1000 (which is your typical first year engineering course) is literally where you make friends, all the older engineering students agree with that. I was lucky I had a good group (even though I was a bit annoyed with them about the report) but we were quite close and we've never really had any conflicts. And our weekly Maccas run was fun as well. Plus, it's really cool to meet people doing different engineering degrees. Like, I've met people doing software, biomed/mechatronics, civil to people doing interesting combinations such as law/electrical, electrical/advanced chem, aerospace/finance.

Apart from that, there are a lot of societies that help you make friends. I did the Protege Program with WIESoc and they put me with a group of first year girls who are also doing aerospace and a fifth year aerospace student and we are quite close (we went to see Endgame together haha). So yeah, there are so many ways you can make friends at uni!


--- Quote from: mango8 on May 12, 2019, 06:35:24 pm ---Where are you planning to work/volunteer? And what movies are you going to watch? What's your fav part about uni?

--- End quote ---
I'll be volunteering for the RSPCA Million Paws Walk next Sunday (which I'm excited for because doggos), Run2Cure and Red Cross Pop Up Shop. It's mostly because part of the EngSoc Volunteer Development Program (which is what I'm completing), I need to do 15 hours of volunteering for it to be recorded to my AHEGS but I do genuinely like volunteering so I can't wait to help out during the holidays.

As for work, I actually work for ATAR Notes haha and the HSC career expo is around the corner so I'll be hanging out at the AN stall ;)


--- Quote from: mango8 on May 12, 2019, 06:35:24 pm ---And what movies are you going to watch?

--- End quote ---
Re-watching old Marvel movies haha. After seeing Endgame, I just felt like going back and watching how these characters have grown up over the past 10+ years. I also haven't watched a few Marvel movies like Doctor Strange, Thor Ragnarok and Captain Marvel so I'll definitely need to catch up on that.


--- Quote from: mango8 on May 12, 2019, 06:35:24 pm ---What's your fav part about uni?

--- End quote ---
Part of it is the freedom. Like, you don't need to go to lectures, or you can leave campus in between your lectures and go for a bubble tea run. The other part is that there are so many ways you can get involved. I was always annoyed in high school that the only ways you can get involved is either be an SRC member, do sport/something creative like choir or do debating/public speaking and there were never enough opportunities, especially leadership opportunities. But at uni, there are so many societies trying to get you to join. My fb feed is filled with societies promoting leadership/exchange programs. You can also get free healthcare at uni (i.e. free vaccinations, counselling sessions etc). In fact, one of my friends (from engg) sprained his wrist when he was drunk during O-week and he was able to get a free consultation and everything (his parents still don't know about it lol).


--- Quote from: mango8 on May 12, 2019, 06:35:24 pm ---Have a fun week and excited to be on this star trekking journey with you ⭐️

--- End quote ---
Can't wait to see you around!

owidjaja:
Hey guys,

It's still the holidays but I just came back from volunteering with RSPCA today. So today was the Million Paws Walk and was held at the Cathy Freeman Park. They said in the email to get a good night's sleep, especially since I had to be there at 6.30am. Holy smokes did I not sleep well. I had about 3 hours of sleep because I just couldn't sleep (my dark circles were so bad this morning). My dad drove me to Sydney Olympic Park because I would've had to catch the 5.34am train and it was still very dark.

I knew that I was assigned the role of Entry Attendant but I had no clue what that role entailed (well, I'm pretty sure I read the role description when I was choosing what role to pick but I couldn't remember lol). Once they briefed me this morning, my role wasn't that bad. In fact, I feel like I got one of the best roles. I was talking to one of the volunteers and she was telling me how she volunteered to be the Entry Attendant again so she can see all the dogs. And boy was she right. My role was to check that all pre-registered attendees had their wristbands or an email confirming their attendance and let them in (with  2 other volunteers). I literally stood at the entrance looking out for blue wristbands or checking emails, and then pat their dogs. OMG THERE WERE SO MANY DOGGOS!!! There were a few staffies and cavoodles but then there were Great Danes, huskies, German Shepherds and Samoyeds. It was adorable seeing pugs with little bowties and chihuahuas in strollers. I even saw a Yorkshire Terrier wearing a little Sailor Moon outfit. And all the dogs came up to me and said hi. It was pretty funny how some of the dogs would jump on me while the owners are on their phone trying to find the email and they're apologising profusely but I'm just there patting and cuddling their dogs haha.

Even though the email said my shift finished at 2.30pm, we finished early at around 12.30pm because there wasn't anyone coming to the event by that time. And we didn't really need to pack up anything since most of us were either standing at the entrance or just sitting at the registers. Again, it was so cool seeing so many doggos and patting a whole bunch of them for 5.5 hours straight I feel like my cat was able to smell dogs on my hands haha.

Anyway, see you soon!

- Olivia

owidjaja:
Hey guys,

So T2 starts today and there has been so much happening during the past few weeks. Well firstly, I got my final marks back and boyy was I breaking down. First off, I got a distinction in ENGG1000, which I'll take. But then math and physics arrived, and that's when the breakdowns occurred. I already knew I failed math because I got an email saying that I can do my supplementary exams. Cool. But then physics came around and I just broke down because I couldn't even do a supplementary exam for physics. I was already getting a panic attack from seeing the email come through and when I saw my physics mark that's when I broke down and cried for probably 4 hours straight. I couldn't even study for math without breaking down after doing one question. So I spent the weekend studying for my math exam because I wasn't sure what to expect from the exam. I did my exam on Monday, and the exam wasn't as bad as I thought. The exam was on Maple TA and the questions weren't as difficult as the ones in the final exam. Thank god I passed Math 1A because if I failed math and physics, my timetable will be screwed up. So I had to push ENGG1300 to next term because Physics 1A is a prerequisite for the course (along with Math 1A). And thank god I only enrolled into two subjects for T3 just in case if I failed a course (and surprise surprise I did). I was going to do a first year elective in T3 and do CVEN1701 but since it's only offered in T2 and T3, looks like I'll need to find an elective offered in T1. I'll probably end up doing PSYC1001- I heard a lot of good reviews about it and apparently there are a lot of essays to do (which is great because I can at least make it look like I know what I'm doing).

I would've had Thursday off if I passed physics, and I guess I could technically skip my physics lectures (and thank god for lab exemptions) but I want to see if the physics lecturer is better than my previous one. I feel like at this point, it's all about making sure my notes are consolidated and I do as many practice questions as I can because I didn't do a lot of them last term. And since now I kinda know what's going on, I can use more time doing past papers.

Anyway, my lecture is starting so see you soon!

- Olivia

owidjaja:
Hey guys,

So it's the first week of uni done and I'm exhausted lol. I'd like to think I'm not as exhausted as last term (yet), considering how I have a day off. Technically, I'm supposed to be at uni everyday but because I have a physics lecture and lab (which I've been exempted from) on Thursday, I've decided to not go to lectures since I'd rather use the hour consolidating my notes and doing practice questions. Plus, I feel like this term's lecturer is even worse than last term's lecturer. At least my previous lecturer did a lot of demonstrations to keep me awake, but my new lecturer usually reads off the slides and doesn't do as many demonstrations. Plus, unlike last term, the lecture recordings are a bit more useful since the working out is done by hand and on a camera that gets projected (lmao I can't think of what it's called), so I can still keep up with any working out. As for the lecture notes, my lecturer uses the other lecturer's notes (and he's uploaded both the slides and handwritten notes) so I can consolidate my notes and follow along the working out.

I find that this format of studying is actually helping me. Like, because I don't attend physics lectures, I have more time to study and work on physics (as well as other subjects), especially since I'm not wasting 2+ hours on transport. And I don't usually work on transport because I'm either too tired (and will actually fall asleep) or it just doesn't feel like a good place for me to have my exercise book out and balance my calculator and pen etc. (although I have been using my time on the train working on some writing projects since I felt bad for abandoning them last term). I find this a bit strange because I'm the type of person who goes to every single lecture in the hopes that I learn something but doing a bit of self-learning has been a lot more productive.

As for my other classes, I do like my algebra lecturer. He explains the concepts well and goes at the perfect pace, but because he uses the chalkboard rather than the camera, we don't really have any lecture recordings. It does record his voice though, but it's hard to follow. This means I can't afford to miss any of the lectures (not that I would) or be late to them, otherwise I need to ask someone for their notes (which might be a bit hard to follow). My calculus lecturer, on the other hand, was okay. Not as good as my algebra lecturer but a vast improvement from last term's calculus lecturer. I like how there are lecture slides and his handwritten notes (which he also uploads on Moodle). He also does his working out during the lecture so it's easy to follow along, whereas last term most of the working out is already on the slides, which makes it difficult to understand since it's done in chunks. However, he doesn't do a lot of explaining. Like, he'd do a basic introduction and then do a bunch of questions, which isn't too bad but I'd like to know what and why I'm doing the working out rather than adopting a rote learning style. As for my math tutor, he's also a great improvement from last term. Last term, I had an old Russian tutor and he didn't seem enthusiastic to help. Like, he'd say he wants us to ask questions but when we do, he kinda seems reluctant. For example, there was a student who needed help with a question and he pointed out there was a video solution but she said she still didn't understand it. His response was "I don't want to waste time." He also never gave us any contact details/contact hours, which was what shocked me with my current tutor because he immediately wrote down his email and told us he'd be at the Drop In Centre as well as other places he commonly hangs out in so we can find him easily. And he actually explains his working out quite well.

For comp, I was a bit nervous for it because I have no knowledge of computing/programming whatsoever. But the lecturer seems very approachable and passionate in what he's doing so it does ease my nerves a bit. He's also very open to questions since he emphasised on COMP1511 being a "no assumed knowledge" course. My tutor was also very nice and approachable, and also very helpful in labs. I was a bit nervous about labs because I'm scarred from physics labs being so stressful. On top of that, my tutor told us to line ourselves on a spectrum between "an expert" and "beginner" level. A lot of the "experienced" students were taken up so I partnered myself up with another "beginner" student (which wasn't too bad since we did spend our lunch hanging out at the Whitehouse). But when we did our practice labs, it wasn't too bad. In fact, it was a "follow the instructions" activity. And we also can submit our lab assignments later and can stay in the computer lab longer than the 2 hours that have been booked. And it was satisfying when the code actually works. I am still slightly nervous about coding because I don't know how to write it, in the sense of if we were given a situation and I had to write a code, I wouldn't know how to even though we wrote one in together in one of the lectures.

I'm amazed that I've been keeping myself a lot more organised during the past week. I was up to date with my physics notes and completed the homework set. I finished my math quizzes pretty early (even though they extended the due date) and I did my tute questions on time. At the moment, I'm almost done making my physics notes for next week so I have more time to do more questions in the homework set. I also finished Quiz 1 for physics early (and managed to get 100% for the first time- shout out to blasonduo for always helping me in physics!) so I can redo Quiz 1 multiple times and be more exposed to more questions in the question bank. I can also spend more time doing the tute questions for next week and have a head start on my math quizzes (although I am a bit annoyed that they uploaded the Week 2 tutes/quizzes towards the end of the week, unlike last term when they released the first 2 weeks of quizzes). I think it's because I'm cutting down my time at uni and can spend more time studying at home since I don't need to go to uni everyday. And having my classes start at 12pm onwards (with the exception of my 9am tute/11am workshop) gives me time to study in the library since I always arrive there at least 1 hour earlier than my class.

Anyway, I should go to sleep.

See you soon!

- Olivia

owidjaja:
Hey guys,

It's been so long since I've updated lol. That's because I've been busy during the past two terms - I just happened to have a bit of time now before all my assignments are due.

Term 2
Let's start with the remainder of Term 2. Well it's a miracle I passed math, especially since they got rid of supplementary exams (the exam that saved my math grade in Term 1 lol). To be honest, I was able to do one question properly and the rest I had no clue so I wrote random crap lmao. As for physics, I walked into the exam feeling a bit better than my Term 1 exams. BUT I will say that I am lowkey annoyed at the School of Physics because when I got my final marks back, it said I failed the course. At that point, I had no clue what I did wrong because I spent last term making sure I got 100% in all my weekly quizzes and went to help sessions. I cried myself to sleep that night. But then, I get an email the next day saying that they calculated my final mark wrong because they forgot to include my lab exemption mark. I was relieved but also extremely pissed off. These days, I'm more paranoid with the pre-exam marking because I would never have known that they forgot to include my lab exemption mark. Moving on to comp, boy did I struggle with that course. At the beginning of the term, I didn't think the subject was that bad until the assignments came. Because it took me so long to understand the content, I always fell behind. It reached the point where I would cry whenever I'd do a quiz or during labs, or have panic attacks in the middle of lectures. I stopped attending lectures because of that. Shout out to Jamon for helping as much as he could last term but I failed comp lmao. I'll be taking ENGG1811 next year, which is Python. I started learning Matlab and Python by myself and omg they're a lot easier than C.

Term 3
This term, I'm taking ELEC1111, ENGG1300 and MMAN2130. These subjects are quite full-on. ENGG is difficult because not only does my lecturer go through stuff really fast, but it's completely different to what I've been taught in physics and getting out of my past habits is difficult lmao. ELEC is difficult because they're expecting a lot of things such as need to pass the lab exam and getting at least 40% in finals to pass the course. MMAN is difficult because there's a 4 hour TAFE component and my TAFE class finishes at 9pm, which doesn't leave me a lot of time to study (and I have a lab the next morning).

Let's start with ENGG. I appreciate my lecturer for providing so many resources and giving us the opportunity to give as many free marks as possible. For example, we just need to complete a set of questions and show it to the tutor and that's 1 mark given to us each week (the answers don't need to be correct - you just need to have an attempt). The tutorials are also very helpful, even though they rush going through the questions because we always run out of time. The Block Tests, however, are brutal. We're given 45 minutes to do 3 questions, but these questions take so long to do. It's a miracle I passed the first test but I don't think I passed the second test because I wasn't as prepared, and also because I spent a lot of my exam time crying over how I was unsure on how to do these questions. The lab reports aren't that bad though. I thrive on any writing components so it's not too bad.

When it comes to ELEC, I like how my lecturer has provided a lot of resources and lots of practice questions. However, the mid-terms were extremely rough. Apparently the average mark was 59 but a lot of my friends and the ELEC group chat members were saying they didn't pass the mid-terms (including myself). The lab exam wasn't hard, but the fact that I needed to pass the lab exam to pass the course added a lot more pressure. I was having a break down in the middle of the exam and one of my lab demos had to calm me down in the middle of the exam, especially since by the time I had completed half of the exam correctly, he was reminding me that I've already passed the lab exam. At this point, I'm re-learning everything because there are so many parts in the course where I'm trying to understand but I take so long to understand things rip.

As for MMAN, it doesn't have a final exam (thank god) but it is a group project with 3 tests during the term (each worth like 3%). I'd enjoy the group project even more if everyone was contributing. There should be 5 people in each group but because a lot of people dropped the course, they allowed having 4 people in each group. I happened to have 4 members (two of them are my friends) but one of them doesn't contribute or put any effort. Essentially, it's a 3 person group. We had to tell him off after submitting our first group assignment. As for the CAD tests, we have to make a part within 45 minutes. The problem is, 45 minutes isn't long enough. Plus, SolidWorks is annoying. Firstly, it's only on Windows (so I had to download Windows to my Mac laptop). The fact that it's very laggy makes it difficult to prepare for these tests. Even when using the computers at uni, it's notorious for lagging and crashing. And on a less important note, the layout of SolidWorks is ugly lol. At least use AutoDesk or Fusion, where it's compatible with Mac and doesn't lag.

Apart from me ranting about my courses, I'm getting more involved in uni life. I was a bit more involved in Term 1 but because I failed physics, I decided to step back on that in Term 2. I've decided to join the AIAA Rocketry Team, specifically the media team because they're in desperate need of content lol. I also recently ran for Marketing Director for AIAA and got the position! My friends also got executive positions in AIAA. The reason why we all pushed for executive positions is because at the moment, AIAA is disorganised. They don't upload content consistently and when they do, they always upload it at the weirdest times (like 2am). We all want to make improvements to the society so that's our main goal for 2020.

Anyway, I need to finish my second report which is due next week rip.

See you soon!

- Olivia

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