Advice I wish I was told in First Year University

January 30th, 2008 • Australia, Education, Melbourne, Personal

It’s February and uni is about to being. After being disappointed or elated by your VCE ENTER results, the reality is probably now only sinking in.

I’m now in my 5th year of an Arts/Law degree at Melbourne University and looking back there are some things that I wish someone had told me when I was just starting out. So what follows are Seven Tips for First Years. They are probably most relevant for Arts students, which I guess includes all the new Melbourne Modellers, but are also applicable for any broad undergraduate degree, and some are just about uni life generally.

My Seven Tips for First Years

1. Transferring in second year

I didn’t get into my first preference, how could I when Law required a 99.8 ENTER(!). Rather I did a year of Arts and then transferred across. That first year of Arts was fantastic, and I would highly recommend you embrace it as more than just a ’stopgap’ because you didn’t your first preference. I spent my time joining clubs, making friends and working my butt off, and it helped me to make the most of first year in my ‘first choice’ degree.

2. Pick good subjects

As an Arts student I had way too many subjects to pick from and I had no idea how to pick the good ones. I ended up picking subjects that mentioned the words ‘international’, ‘development’ or ‘colonialism’, seemed an easy mark scorer and/or didn’t have exams. When picking your subjects you should think through it a bit more than I did. Try not to pick subjects that repeat content too much, even though it’s a good way to get good marks, not only will you be a bit bored, but you’ll also be doing a lot of studying and not much learning (see point 7).

Ask friends and lecturers for their opinions of subjects and how they reflect to what you want to learn about. Sit in on a few subjects in the first two weeks of semesters and swap into the ones that interest you the most, or have the most interesting lecturers.

Most of all pick subjects that interest you but don’t shy away from a subject just because it’s ‘hard’.

3. Make friends and join some clubs

If you are doing an Arts degree, and this is especially true for the new Melbourne Model undergrad degree, and you want to make friends, you need to join a student group. Though VSU has cut off a lot of the options, I highly recommend finding one that interests you and going along a couple of times. Where it’s fair trade, more chocolate, the llama admirers or the society, there is bound to be a group out there that’ll interest you and where you’ll make friends.

Uni is about one-quarter as fun and doubly as hard without some people to share it with you. Friends are great to have lunch with, to have study groups with, to find out about the best subjects and to just moan with about how awful the exam timetable is. I really wished I had started talking to people in first year, gone on some random camps and hung out with more student groups when I started out, it would have made studying a lot more enjoyable.

4. Talk to your lecturers

I was, and generally still am, pretty awkward around lecturers. However, if you have any interest whatsoever in what you’re learning, go and talk to your lecturer. Lecturers are great people to get to know. They love answering good questions, setting you on the right path and maybe even hooking you up with job, further study scholarship connections.

This point is especially true if you think academia attracts you. The best way to get a feel for it is to talk to people working in it. If you want to work in academia you need to start to talking to your potential employers and colleagues now. It’ll make your uni experience much more fulfilling and finding a post-grad position a whole lot easier.

Most importantly, I’ve found that the majority of my lecturers are genuinely interesting. If you are studying something because it interests you chances are the people teaching it will interest you to.

5. Move out of your parent’s house and buy a bike

If you still live an hour away in the suburbs with your parents and could afford to move in with some mates close to uni (like I could have), then I highly encourage you to make the move. Independence is great and living with mates is even better. I wish I had had the chance to live with some good friends (or strangers) and bike into uni. It may just be my rose-coloured glasses on this side of the fence, but I think the hour commute I did everyday severely impacted my ability to get involved in campus life.

Don’t forget Centrelink will pay a (small) portion of your rent bill, and it’s great fun learning to do without some creature comforts.

6. Control your laptop usage

This one might be a bit obscure, but I got a laptop in my third year of uni and saw a noticeable drop in my marks the next semester. If your uni has wireless networks and you find the internet at all tempting when you get bored of your lecturers voice, you’ll need to train yourself not to start surfing.

Subjects make a lot more sense if you pay attention during lectures. Lecturers will like you a lot more if you are looking at them and not some random website. And people are easier to talk to when you aren’t in the middle of posting a blog.

See if you can turn off your wireless card for the 2 hours of lectures, or if worst comes to worst, try taking notes by hand and typing them up later. It’s sounds crazy, but you really do not want to get to fifth year uni and not remember much about any earlier subjects because you were on the internet.

7. Don’t just study, learn!

Finally, and I think my most important tip, don’t just study, learn!. By this I mean don’t just do subjects to get good marks. Don’t scrape by on the bare minimum of reading and talking in class to pass. Instead, learn something! Looking back on my first uni years, when I was too busy studying to learn anything, I really regret not putting more of an effort into learning what was being taught. Remembering important dates, theories or people; thinking through what I was writing and saying; and producing quality content that I thought actually contributed to the discussion.

University is an excellent time to expand your horizons and your skillset. Try and do some subjects that teach you practical stuff like statistics, when doing highly theoretical subjects think through the theories and their application. Attend some ‘how to do research sessions’ and learn how to make the most of your research time. Write some articles/blogposts/zines about what you are learning.

Whatever you do put some effort into learning instead of just studying.

Conclusion

So that’s my seven tips. I’ve got a few more I’ve just discovered such as: start learning a new language in first year (and actually learn it); learn how to use EndNote (or other footnoting software) early on; buy DevonThink Pro or some other knowledge management program to keep track of you notes and research (this one should be in the main list – stop wasting your research hours!). But those seven should do for now.

If you have any tips you’d give first years or questions as a first year you’d like answered, free free to drop me an email or post a comment below.

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Tags: advice, arts degree, Education, lecturers, picking subjects, studying, tips, transferring, uni life, University

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