This is an excerpt posted from forum member “blasonduo” in their University Journey Journal, which can be found here. A list of all journals and information on how to get involved can be found here. For more university resources, check out uninotes.com.

blasonduo is a first year university student, studying a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Education. Here is their first entry, giving an insight into what O-week and the start of university life has been like.

Entry #1

“Whew! What a hectic couple of weeks! O-week started out with a bang with a good ol’ AN meetup, with the wonderful Rui as our leader. With this being the first proper time being on campus, and with so many people there, it was quite overwhelming and took a while to take in; this was my home for the next 4 years.

That day was spent soaking up the uni, the areas and people that it consisted of, whether it was finding lecture halls or social clubs that would give you free stuff just for writing down your name. With the AN crew, this was very calming and reassuring. Even though we all basically had no clue what was happening, we were brought together by this, and it felt like a little family. Thanks, guys!

Wednesday consisted of the day of whole new people and friends, meeting new faces and trying to understand independently what I need to be doing day by day. Starting off with Peer-mentoring, I was introduced to a small group of people, not really sharing the subjects, but sharing the same new experience, and it was this that allowed me to slowly relax into this new uni life.

Later that day was the international night markets, where at the time, oblivious to the fact that I would meet two unique and very special people to whom I’d be sharing classes with for the semester. Although I only ate 1 kebab, I met a large number of new people, and for me, this is a huge accomplishment, something about that day scared me to the core, but I felt so alive and accomplished walking away from it.

💡 UNIVERSITY SUBJECT REVIEWS 💡

Then came next week, and boy did it hit hard. The lectures themselves were exactly as I expected, but the contrast between my lectures are unbelievable. On one side I have physics and maths where I am just writing notes and making sure I don’t fall behind (especially in maths) and lowkey panicking about the like 15 individual assessments they have over the semester and how the tutes are something that I don’t want to miss.

On the other side, there is the EDST lectures/tutes where everything is really going quite slow, and to be honest, the content (so far) has not been too great. Half of one of my tutes was discussing to the person next to me the similarities and differences we had between us; it really feels like a bludge. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll 100% be learning in these courses, I’m just not sure if it’ll be 13 weeks of learning.

Now, travel times. Looking forward to the next 4 years with 2.5 hours travelling to and from uni each day. From my experience right now, it’s actually not too bad when you are able to get a seat and its relatively quiet, I am able to pull out my laptop and get quite a bit of work done, and the travel time does not feel that long, it’s just when it is absolutely packed and you are forced to stand, it feels like forever, and you get no work done, very tedious.

Oh woah, this is quite long already, this is probably very rambly and I hope it makes sense, and I’m quite curious if this is actually interesting to anyone reading this and if so…

See you in 2 weeks time!”