How's uni? (1 Viewer)

[jskeza]

Hi all,
This is aimed more towards recent uni students, but anyone feel free to answer.
How has your transition to uni been like? I know it depends on course but how is the workload compared to HSC? Is uni less or more stressful? How is the extra freedom? Do you miss high school? Anything else that's interesting?
I am just trying to get motivation to study lol.
Thanks

 

[Drdusk]

Transition to uni: Quite good. Everyone is friendly
Workload: Definitely more than HSC. Now that I'm used to it, not too bad. Trimester 1 was hectic though as I slacked off a bit, but pulled myself up Trimester 2.

The extra freedom is AMAZING. I literally only attend one day a week even though I have lessons every day. It's so good because I can just sit at home and watch the lectures at a much faster speed as I am a fast learner in the course I have chosen.

I do miss high school =(. However I'll be clear I only miss year 11 and 12. The rest of high school I still hate because your forced to do the biggest waste of time subjects like Geography and History. What a piece of shit.

Interestingly in uni my problem solving skills have sky rocketed. I don't know how but I'm just starting to see random patterns in math that I never saw in 4u maths. I think I can attribute it to being around 4u math gods in unsw lol. Yeah you @Jonomyster

 

[jskeza]

Transition to uni: Quite good. Everyone is friendly
Workload: Definitely more than HSC. Now that I'm used to it, not too bad. Trimester 1 was hectic though as I slacked off a bit, but pulled myself up Trimester 2.

The extra freedom is AMAZING. I literally only attend one day a week even though I have lessons every day. It's so good because I can just sit at home and watch the lectures at a much faster speed as I am a fast learner in the course I have chosen.

I do miss high school =(. However I'll be clear I only miss year 11 and 12. The rest of high school I still hate because your forced to do the biggest waste of time subjects like Geography and History. What a piece of shit.

Interestingly in uni my problem solving skills have sky rocketed. I don't know how but I'm just starting to see random patters in math that I never saw in 4u maths. I think I can attribute it to being around 4u math gods in unsw lol.

I am worried that the workload is going to be too much for me (trying to get into engineering) because I find year 12 manageable but hard and not something I could do for 4+ years.

So do they record all lectures? Isn't there tutorials you have to go to or is that only once a week?

 

[sida1049]

How has your transition to uni been like?

Fantastic. It was great meeting people with similar interests.

I know it depends on course but how is the workload compared to HSC?

I'm in my 4th year of Bachelor of Science (Advanced Mathematics) at USYD. I think I studied longer and was more stressed during the HSC. The content in my courses now are magnitudes more difficult than what you see in the HSC, but the workload is very fair and I have time to take on other projects beyond my courses.

Is uni less or more stressful?

For me, less stressful. However, it is common for other students to find uni more stressful than high school.

How is the extra freedom?

Great. The rigidity of high school seems counterproductive to me now.

Do you miss high school?

Nope.

I had many good times in high school, but studying what I'm actually interested in, feeling like I'm doing something relevant to my future and being around people with similar interests and admirable maturity is unmatched by whatever high school had to offer.

Anything else that's interesting?

As long as you apply yourself, seek opportunities and look after your wellbeing, life's good.

 

[Drdusk]

I am worried that the workload is going to be too much for me (trying to get into engineering) because I find year 12 manageable but hard and not something I could do for 4+ years.

So do they record all lectures? Isn't there tutorials you have to go to or is that only once a week?

I reckon you'll be fine. No one can do year 12 for 4 years. In Uni you like what you do so it comes naturally. It doesn't feel draining like dam I gotta study.

Yeah all lectures are recorded. Rarely for math however you might have 1 lecturer who does everything on a blackboard so the recording is useless, but you can just get everything from a friend or the group chat.

Yeah na I haven't had any compulsory tuts yet. I just skip them because I already do all the problems before hand and if I need help I can just ask on the forum. Tuts are really for the people who are struggling imo.

 

[jskeza]

Uni seems great, and ye I didn't take into consideration that you'll be doing what you love so it won't be a burden to do the work. This has really motivated me to study and get into the course I want!

 

[jazz519]

Hi all,
This is aimed more towards recent uni students, but anyone feel free to answer.
How has your transition to uni been like? I know it depends on course but how is the workload compared to HSC? Is uni less or more stressful? How is the extra freedom? Do you miss high school? Anything else that's interesting?
I am just trying to get motivation to study lol.
Thanks

Pretty good overall. In terms of my course (advanced science: chemistry major) I would say there is way more work than HSC and it is definitely way harder than what high school science is like, because we have like 4 hr labs where you do everything individually (gotta write full lab reports 1-2k words too each experiment), 4 hrs of lectures a week per subject and quite a few assignments. But overall I would rather do that then half the subjects I did during HSC. The labs are pretty hard as you have to keep concentrated for the full 4 hours, but also quite fun to do because you get to do more dangerous stuff than school chem hahaha and have access to more expensive equipment and machines. But yeah in terms of that really depends on the degree, some of my friends only have to go once a week and I am in third year now and I'm still going 3 days a week If you find a course you have interest in, the study will be a lot but it doesn't seem as boring compared to a lot of the stuff in school. It's definitely more stressful if you are try to manage like doing well in uni (well this is subjective as some people are happy with credit, others want distinction and others want high distinction, but for someone like me wanting to do a PhD have to perform quite high which can sometimes be hard to do when you have to sometimes do things last minute because of less time), having a job, keeping fit and trying to enjoy life still. I don't really miss high school that much, probably caused I hated the overall random subjects you have to do. Some interesting things though at uni are extra opportunities outside of just your normal study that you can get involved in. One of things at UNSW that I think is awesome is they have summer research projects which you can do with a lecturer which is really cool considering you will have like 6 weeks of researching in a lab and get paid for it too

 

[Opengangs]

University is a lot less restrictive than high school; you get to pick and choose specifically what you want to study, and is more generally a much better environment as opposed to high school. High school feels more like a gateway to university: high school will constantly remind you of deadlines in order for you to get into your study habits, or lack thereof, because university will typically assume you have a study schedule from high school.

In terms of workload, I take a Bc Science (Computer Science) / Bc Science (Mathematics) so I'm at university almost everyday. But the workload will vary depending on the faculty you're interested in and whether you choose to take a single/dual degree. But if you aim to be studious, then university will definitely cater to those needs.

 

[blyatman]

So do they record all lectures? Isn't there tutorials you have to go to or is that only once a week?

Lecture recordings and tutorial attendance typically varies by faculty and course. At USYD, science tutorials were all optional, and all lectures were recorded. None of the lectures were recorded for engineering, and tutorials were all mandatory (at least up until 3rd year).

However, I graduated more than 5yrs ago so things could be very different now. You'd expect most courses to be recorded in this day and age, but there are some engineering lecturers who deliberately don't record lectures to force students to come in and suffer like they had to.

 

[porcupinetree]

I had many good times in high school, but studying what I'm actually interested in, feeling like I'm doing something relevant to my future and being around people with similar interests and admirable maturity is unmatched by whatever high school had to offer.

Do we really have admirable maturity?

 

[sida1049]

Do we really have admirable maturity?

nvm i take everything i said back