1. FOR THE love of GOD please check out this website everyone https://www.compared.edu.au/
Somehow, nobody knows about it! You can EASILY compare course statisfaction/income 3/6/9 years after graduation (note, not only income from employment, there is a different website for self-reported income from employment cited on the website)
and employment rates.
THIS IS BROKEN DOWN BY BOTH DEGREE AND UNIVERSITY.
Also, check out your degree's retention rate, the mean graduation completion rate of engineering undergraduates in Australia has been identified as approximately 54%.
Also check out this:
https://qilt.edu.au/surveys/graduate-outcomes-survey-(gos)
It is a Graduate outcomes survey. Yes this is important.
It's unbiased data. Don't get your infomation from the marketing department of universities, and, don't forget when you talk to a university representative you are talking to the marketing department.
2.
Should've known more about university pathways and alternative opportunities.
Eg. TAFE, doing a Masters degrees without a bachelor's degree.
TAFE basically has no marketing budget, so, no one knows anything about it - especially relatively high achieving students.
Should've done a direct financial analysis on the opportunity cost of going to university (~50k) & X years lost wages compared to not going to university. Known about how to investing into the stockmarket and the average yield on capital (important for the above calculation).
I was basically extremely lucky and recieved a very large scholarship during my first semester of university (recieved after I started) which made it worth it and no regrets, however, if I didn't recieve it, in retrospect, I believe the chance I would've dropped out been too large due to essentially poor living conditions due to having no money.
So, ultimately, given the information I had at the time, I believe it was the wrong choice to go to UTS - especially as it is Sydney-based. Even though, in my case, ended up being extremely advantageous monitarily and being by far the best choice. Possibly going to Southern Cross University (closer to my home) would've been worth it.