What's the best VCE/studying/life advice you've ever been given?

[Joseph41]

So I was thinking today about life and stuff. And I realised how much one very small conversation I had in 2011 has influenced the way that I've studied through both VCE and uni. I'll elaborate below, but I thought it would be interesting to hear other pearls of wisdom that people have been given over the stretch.

• What's the best VCE/studying/life advice you've been given?
• How did it impact you?

My story below.

Spoiler

My favourite teacher through high school taught Art and VisCom. He was actually an artist before becoming a teacher (and whilst teaching, now that I think about it). He was one of those dudes that just never got angry - he never had to, because everybody respected him too much to fuck around in his classes. Anyway, he pretty much had me hanging off every word. I respected him so much, and basically just wanted to be like him in every way haha.

*A*n*y*w*a*y*, I was curious one time about how he managed to consistently pump out such fucking sweet pieces of art. I asked him something alone the lines of, "What do you do when you don't feel like painting?" And he was just like "... I don't paint." Such a simple response, but it actually really resonated with me. It makes so much sense - it's so simple. Why try to push yourself to paint when you don't feel like it? You'd just be more likely to use a wrong brush, or stuff up the colours, or accidentally step on the canvas. To paint well, you need to be in an appropriate painting mood.

How is this relevant? Well, from then on, I didn't push myself when I really didn't feel like studying. If I'd had an awful day, I gave myself permission to take that night off. After all, I would probably succeed only in making myself more stressed.

So the best VCE/studying/life advice I've ever been given is: If you don't feel like painting, don't paint.

Your turn!

[wyzard]

Hey great post! Love to see how one little advice has such a deep meaningful impact on your life

After giving it some serious thought, my vote will go this advice that is the best I've received not only in high school, but also life which I still use to this day:

- You can either cry and accept your adversity; or you can get out there, do everything you can in your power to change it.

This is a really powerful advice as it gives me the power to change things and not get defeated by the situation. Very often you'll have to step up and confront the adversities that constantly tries to beat you down to your knees. Crying and whining about it will get you nowhere.

Sometimes life can sometimes be unforgiving, giving you things you don't really want. For my case, low self esteem and crippling shyness in my high school school years; punishing and (can't think of a better word) cruel educational system when I studied in Singapore, and many more.

But did I let them beat me down? Of course not. Sometimes it's hard to rise up, but what other alternatives do I have?

Very often what you'll find is that such problems you've encountered can be a blessing in disguise; as overcoming them teaches you plenty of valuable lessons, and strengthens your character. For my case, experiencing such painful educational system back in Singapore gave me a first hand experience on how not to teach, and the drive to improve the way mathematics and sciences are taught.

[pi]

My school's unofficial motto: "more than just marks". Didn't believe it one bit as a foolish VCE student, but swear by it now. Sure, you might lose a bit not being getting a specific high grade or rank, but you will lose much more if you let life sit on the sidelines because you're so preoccupied with it.

[Joseph41]

- You can either cry and accept your adversity; or you can get out there, do everything you can in your power to change it.

I like it! Taking charge of your own education, and all of that. I think that's the thing, too; there is an increasing number of free resources that assists in self-directed learning. Thanks for sharing.

My school's unofficial motto: "more than just marks". Didn't believe it one bit as a foolish VCE student, but swear by it now. Sure, you might lose a bit not being getting a specific high grade or rank, but you will lose much more if you let life sit on the sidelines because you're so preoccupied with it.

And yeah, I'm really passionate about this. There's obviously a balance to be found, but you're right - VCE and education more generally is so much broader than that. Thanks.

[HopefulLawStudent]

• What's the best VCE/studying/life advice you've been given?

Don't forget the stupid negative sign (probably the only reason I managed to pass my math subjects okay).

• How did it impact you?

For one of my math SACs, instead of my name, I accidentally wrote "NEGATIVE SIGNS", much to the amusement of my teacher. Thank God she happened to pick up on the fact that I hadnt written my name when she was collecting our SACs.

[Alter]

For one of my math SACs, instead of my name, I accidentally wrote "NEGATIVE SIGNS", much to the amusement of my teacher. Thank God she happened to pick up on the fact that I hadnt written my name when she was collecting our SACs.

And this year's Mathematical Methods subject prize goes to...

NEGATIVE SIGNS?

[Swagadaktal]

My best piece of advice when it comes to studies and life in genera that I received from someone else is as follows:
"stay humble brah"

Legit applies to everything

[sweetiepi]

My best pieces of advice are:

1. Don't take everything for granted
and
2. Take life one step at a time

 

[One Step at a Time]

Definitely agree, especially with the one step at a time bit 

[heids]

Spoiler

My favourite teacher through high school taught Art and VisCom. He was actually an artist before becoming a teacher (and whilst teaching, now that I think about it). He was one of those dudes that just never got angry - he never had to, because everybody respected him too much to fuck around in his classes. Anyway, he pretty much had me hanging off every word. I respected him so much, and basically just wanted to be like him in every way haha.

*A*n*y*w*a*y*, I was curious one time about how he managed to consistently pump out such fucking sweet pieces of art. I asked him something alone the lines of, "What do you do when you don't feel like painting?" And he was just like "... I don't paint." Such a simple response, but it actually really resonated with me. It makes so much sense - it's so simple. Why try to push yourself to paint when you don't feel like it? You'd just be more likely to use a wrong brush, or stuff up the colours, or accidentally step on the canvas. To paint well, you need to be in an appropriate painting mood.

How is this relevant? Well, from then on, I didn't push myself when I really didn't feel like studying. If I'd had an awful day, I gave myself permission to take that night off. After all, I would probably succeed only in making myself more stressed.

So the best VCE/studying/life advice I've ever been given is: If you don't feel like painting, don't paint.

Hmmm, don't entirely agree with that advice.  To some extent, ab-so-lute-ly - there's real danger in pushing yourself when you're really feeling terrible because you can burn out and you're not even going to achieve much that night either.  But on the flip side, you can risk becoming very lazy and getting nothing done because you 'don't want to push yourself'.

I can't remember the exact quote, but the gist of this comes from some famous author: 'I only work when inspiration strikes.  Luckily, inspiration strikes at exactly 9am every morning when I sit down to write.' 

Take a student who never feels like studying - which, let's face it, is a lot of us - there's never, or rarely, going to be a time where we feel like it.  At some point we just have to suck it up and 'just do it' - often that actually helps in kick-starting motivation, rather than just relying on motivation to appear.  But all in moderation!

[Joseph41]

Yeah, that's a good point. All in moderation, indeed! I guess it just spoke to me when I wasn't in a very good mood, and trying to study would have been veeeeerry counter-productive.

[tashhhaaa]

I was struggling with context when we started it in Year 11 English, and about a week away from the SAC I was still struggling to write anything. I told my teacher that I was finding it unusually hard and he simply told me that in life, "if it isn't hard, it isn't worth doing". I remember this day very clearly (the classroom we were in, where I was sitting etc) because it was probably the one thing he said that I never forgot. I even mentioned his little quote (without saying who it was from) in my outgoing captain speech in our final Year 12 assembly. I'm not sure if he realised/remembered/noticed, but those words definitely stayed with me through VCE and even now I see that there is truth behind them. Everything I've ever done that has been worthwhile wasn't easy, and I don't think that will change any time soon 

[geminii]

My English teacher in Year 9 told me, "people who are not naturally talented but work hard get better grades than people who are naturally talented but don't work hard."

The stupid thing is, I didn't believe him. I was naturally talented and was getting marks off that - but now I'm in Year 12, and having almost never studied, the people who were less naturally talented and worked harder are doing better than me. I used to get 90+ marks back then - now, it's normal for me to get a 60%.

I'm going to be honest, I get upset about it a lot, because I should have listened to him and now I want to get into medicine... So if there is one piece of advice everyone should hear, it's this.

[Joseph41]

My English teacher in Year 9 told me, "people who are not naturally talented but work hard get better grades than people who are naturally talented but don't work hard."

The stupid thing is, I didn't believe him. I was naturally talented and was getting marks off that - but now I'm in Year 12, and having almost never studied, the people who were less naturally talented and worked harder are doing better than me. I used to get 90+ marks back then - now, it's normal for me to get a 60%.

I'm going to be honest, I get upset about it a lot, because I should have listened to him and now I want to get into medicine... So if there is one piece of advice everyone should hear, it's this.

Thanks for posting this, geminii. Great post.

How would you advise people to actually go about it? Like, I'm sure there are a number of users here currently in Year 9/10/11 who are in a similar situation to what you were. What would you change if you could go back in time?

Work habits? Routine? Attitude?

[NAT0003]

Don't worry about the score, instead worry about how to get the score, ie, do the work, don't procrastinate, don't waste time on atar calc trying to figure out what your atar is going to be. Do your best and let the rest fall in place.