commute (1 Viewer)

[hellohowslife]

sup people how normal is it to have 2hrs travel time to uni (and 2hrs back)

 

[Anaya R]

I think I'll be having 1.5 hours if I'm going to USYD and use public transport (which my parents are hesitant about... because COVID)

 

[totally_screwed]

sup people how normal is it to have 2hrs travel time to uni (and 2hrs back)

2hrs isn't unheard of but it's a very long commute you might suffer ..

 

[hellohowslife]

 

[Anaya R]

One way to compensate may be to do some work on the commute. It'll be a good thing.
Another thing is to check if you can catch a shuttle bus from the campus to a station. It may help in shortening the distance.

 

[vishnay]

Western sydney problems

I myself will be travelling 1 hr 20 mins each way and up to 2 hrs each way once i move to my new home but so are all my friends

We're all in this together

 

[totally_screwed]

lol it's ok you'll manage

idk if you've sorted out your timetable yet, but try to fit all your on-campus activities across 2-3 days so you don't have to go to uni like all week. sem1 I'm going to uni mon, tue, wed so I've got the rest of the week to rest up

try to find short routes and shortcuts

also at some point (much later I imagine) you'll have a driver's license and a car that could rlly shorten your trip but this isn't gonna help you rn

 

[Anaya R]

What uni are you going to?

 

[Ledepressedrightnow]

How many days a year are you going to uni and for how many years just out of curiosity?

 

[hellohowslife]

What uni are you going to?

unsw

 

[Anaya R]

How many days a year are you going to uni and for how many years just out of curiosity?

If I get into the advanced (honours) stream, then 5 years
IDK how many days; since it's full time, I assume 5 days??

 

[hellohowslife]

How many days a year are you going to uni and for how many years just out of curiosity?

5yrs and idk how many days (I'll try for as few days as possible idk how it works)

 

[icycledough]

I'd say that's quite a long time to spend going to uni; I probably spend around 45-50 minutes (at most an hour if any delays) commuting ... but for some people who live in specific regions, it just may be the case that commuting may take more than an hour.

 

[enoilgam]

sup people how normal is it to have 2hrs travel time to uni (and 2hrs back)

Two hours is a lot - can you do a similar or equivalent degree elsewhere, or live on campus? Honestly, I cant imagine that kind of commute being worth it unless you are doing something high level with little equivalent alternatives (i.e. Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Science etc).

 

[Eagle Mum]

Two hours is a lot - can you do a similar or equivalent degree elsewhere, or live on campus? Honestly, I cant imagine that kind of commute being worth it unless you are doing something high level with little equivalent alternatives (i.e. Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Science etc).

WSU med is a more convenient commute than UNSW for anyone living in the west or southwest and it is also one year less of study. The commute probably isn’t as bad with the other degrees which allow arranging contact hours to fit into a maximum of three days on campus, but the degrees you listed don’t provide that flexibility.

 

[zizi2003_]

how many days a week would you have to go? that also makes a difference

 

[Ledepressedrightnow]

Assume that you go for 200 days a year. That is 4000 hours on travel. That is a bit less than half the time it takes to master something. I guess you could try to learn a valuable skill during those trips or dedicate those hours to getting hw done, organising your life, catching up with friends but I guess, a lot of that time is easier to manipulate when you don't have to travel.

 

[jazz519]

Yeah I feel your future suffering being someone who lived in western sydney (castle hill area) and had to make the commute to UNSW around a similar time of 2 hours each way. It is very long I can't deny that and quite tiring and is the primary reason for my phd I've moved closer to the uni.

It's quite normal for students to have a long commute and most of my friends going to UNSW also had to travel quite far. There are some strategies that I used to make the best out of the situation:

1. Do some work on the commute --> it can be hard to write in a book if the bus is moving or the train is swaying and it's not I guess the best environment to think and write an essay but you can do other tasks to try make the time productive. These could include typing notes and watching lecture recordings. Those two things are quite easy to do and you can download the lecture recordings at home so you can still watch them offline if you don't have a lot of mobile data for doing WiFi hotspot.
2. Find a friend to travel with --> having a friend to talk along the way can make it less boring and if they are doing the same degree you can use that as a time to study together.
3. Schedule classes past 11am --> helps you to avoid rush hour if your class is at like 9am meaning you will have to leave around 7am. Also, kind of screws up your sleep if you aren't someone able to wake up early like me.
4. Schedule classes on the same day --> when you are making your timetable try to put as many classes in less days. This way you only maybe have to travel 3 days instead of 5, which will allow you to recharge a bit on those days you don't have to travel to go uni. Your days will probably be jam packed but overall you will save time and you will probably be used to full day classes as you just coming out of school last year.
5. Skip lectures --> this ties in to the previous one. Put all your labs, workshops, tutorials on the same day if you can and then you don't have to travel if say for example you just have lectures on one of the days. I know people say things like "you shouldn't skip lectures because you will get into a bad habit and fall behind", however this is all down to the individual and their motivation. I was someone that after my first semester I didn't go to more than 5 lectures per year in my 2nd, 3rd and 4th year due to the travel and it being a waste of time and I still graduated with a 90 WAM. I made sure to try keep on top of this by dedicating certain time each week for watching the lecture recordings. So don't feel afraid to skip the lecture, think about it in terms of you save 4 hours in travelling that you can spend doing the tutorial or practice questions.
6. Ask for help by email / moodle forums --> sometimes studying from home if you are watching the lecture recording you might need some help understanding something. Don't feel afraid to send your lecturers / tutors an email asking for help. I've did that many times during my undergrad degree and it resolved the problem of not being able to ask questions live that you could be able to do going in person to the lecture. Also, try to ASAP join group chats for the subject on facebook (some are already being made from posts I can see in the UNSW discussion group). Once you get into one people make chats for other subjects and its easy to ask them to join those as well. You can make friends through that and also get help for questions you don't understand. Uni students are quite helpful since it's not really like HSC with students competing against each other.

 

[hellohowslife]

Yeah I feel your future suffering being someone who lived in western sydney (castle hill area) and had to make the commute to UNSW around a similar time of 2 hours each way. It is very long I can't deny that and quite tiring and is the primary reason for my phd I've moved closer to the uni.

It's quite normal for students to have a long commute and most of my friends going to UNSW also had to travel quite far. There are some strategies that I used to make the best out of the situation:

1. Do some work on the commute --> it can be hard to write in a book if the bus is moving or the train is swaying and it's not I guess the best environment to think and write an essay but you can do other tasks to try make the time productive. These could include typing notes and watching lecture recordings. Those two things are quite easy to do and you can download the lecture recordings at home so you can still watch them offline if you don't have a lot of mobile data for doing WiFi hotspot.
2. Find a friend to travel with --> having a friend to talk along the way can make it less boring and if they are doing the same degree you can use that as a time to study together.
3. Schedule classes past 11am --> helps you to avoid rush hour if your class is at like 9am meaning you will have to leave around 7am. Also, kind of screws up your sleep if you aren't someone able to wake up early like me.
4. Schedule classes on the same day --> when you are making your timetable try to put as many classes in less days. This way you only maybe have to travel 3 days instead of 5, which will allow you to recharge a bit on those days you don't have to travel to go uni. Your days will probably be jam packed but overall you will save time and you will probably be used to full day classes as you just coming out of school last year.
5. Skip lectures --> this ties in to the previous one. Put all your labs, workshops, tutorials on the same day if you can and then you don't have to travel if say for example you just have lectures on one of the days. I know people say things like "you shouldn't skip lectures because you will get into a bad habit and fall behind", however this is all down to the individual and their motivation. I was someone that after my first semester I didn't go to more than 5 lectures per year in my 2nd, 3rd and 4th year due to the travel and it being a waste of time and I still graduated with a 90 WAM. I made sure to try keep on top of this by dedicating certain time each week for watching the lecture recordings. So don't feel afraid to skip the lecture, think about it in terms of you save 4 hours in travelling that you can spend doing the tutorial or practice questions.
6. Ask for help by email / moodle forums --> sometimes studying from home if you are watching the lecture recording you might need some help understanding something. Don't feel afraid to send your lecturers / tutors an email asking for help. I've did that many times during my undergrad degree and it resolved the problem of not being able to ask questions live that you could be able to do going in person to the lecture. Also, try to ASAP join group chats for the subject on facebook (some are already being made from posts I can see in the UNSW discussion group). Once you get into one people make chats for other subjects and its easy to ask them to join those as well. You can make friends through that and also get help for questions you don't understand. Uni students are quite helpful since it's not really like HSC with students competing against each other.

western sydney dilemmas , but thanks this is very useful

 

[jazz519]

If I get into the advanced (honours) stream, then 5 years
IDK how many days; since it's full time, I assume 5 days??

The initial part of a uni degree that has the honours attached to it is the same as any other degree. The honours will be in the final year of the degree where you do a big project. The honours year yeah is basically like a full time job but the amount of days you will need to go in will vary greatly across degrees. If it is for example an honours in computer science, business or law you won't need to come in 5 days a week since the project won't require it. However, if it is in science and the main part of your honours project is doing experiments that you need to do in a lab then yeah you will have to come in all the weekdays since you can't do the lab experiments at home.