i'm a little bit stressed out. it's term 2 of year 11, so like almost halfway through my preliminary HSC and i still don't know what to do
- i currently attend a public school that is ranked very poorly (none/very few band 6's a year) and i plan to apply to a higher-ranking school to move into for year 12, but i'm unsure if i should actually move schools because it has detrimentally affected my studies in junior years and i'm not sure how i would adapt to a new social/educational climate. i moved a lot when i was younger, which led to me being extremely lonely and failing those junior years
- i want to get a job for financial independence and to help fund some educational stuff (tutoring, etc), and i have worked for 2 years prior, but i'm not sure how that will affect my studies now that i'm in year 11 and facing a greater workload. if anybody is juggling a job and prelims/hsc, pls give me advice
- idk what to study in university. i want to study medicine, but i just don't feel like i'm smart enough for it or that i'll achieve a high enough ATAR/UCAT for it which is really discouraging me. additionally, i don't have the financial ability to purchase UCAT tutoring sessions. that's why i feel like i should study engineering (possibly bioinformatics) or something relating to pharamacy/physiotherapy because i really like science and maths, but i want to dedicate myself to one path
- i'm not sure of what extracurriculars i could pursue right now to facilitate the early entry process. it feels so nebulous to me; how to apply for early entry and what you can do to boost your chances of getting offers. i'm just trying to pursue as many activities that i think are enjoyable as i can like choir, student council, managing my school's farm etc.
any help is greatly appreciated
touching on the uni question, i was pretty confused on what i wanted to do for a while, and considered everything from physics to engineering to medicine before deciding on math as my final option. all of this is to say that most people don’t really know what they want to do at uni up until either year 12 or even afterwards when they start a degree and realise it isn’t for them. but these are some of the things i did that helped:
- ignore external pressures: forget atar, parental expectations, etc, when making ur decision. it’s easy to have the voice in the back of your head tell you that a degree isn’t as valid as another or that you won’t make the cutoff, but it’s better to do your best and if you really want the high atar course then u can either gun for it if the atar is high or transfer later. also don’t underestimate ur atar prediction, no way i thought i was gonna get 99, even up until the day that atars came out. plan for the worst obviously but also believe that you can reach that goal
- convince yourself that you’re 100% set on doing the degree, how does it make you feel? do you feel fulfilled or not? personally once i imagined myself actually doing a med degree i realised it was not for me, i simply don’t have the memory for the content or social skills necessary to succeed, and overall i realised i wouldn’t be feeling very fufilled if i neglected all of my academic interests that med didn’t address. this is just a quick test that can help to decide if something is for you
- try drilling down into the uni subjects you’ll have to take. everyone has a couple of subjects that they’re forced to take that they’re maybe not that interested in, but go into the curriculum/ course outlines and see if you think you’ll actually like the topics. for example for engineering, while i really liked the physics and maths aspects i realised that i wasn’t very interested in the design subjects and that engineering jobs are basically focused entirely around this aspect, so it wasn’t really for me. sometimes you can have a slightly false perception of what a degree / job would actually involve and going into these details can give a bit more clarity on what you would actually be doing
