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March 29, 2024, 01:10:23 am

Author Topic: If you weren't studying what you're studying, what would you be studying?  (Read 7553 times)  Share 

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Joseph41

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I always find this interesting. Very often, students are torn between courses at the end of Year 12. It makes me wonder about the whole "sliding doors" thing. Like, if your decision went the other way (if you chose that other course), how different would your life be? ???

Anyway, I'm interested in your second options.

For me, I studied a Bachelor of Arts at Monash - and then did Honours in Linguistics. My second preference at the time was Arts/Education. Makes me think that had I gone down that path, I probably wouldn't have my job now. I think I probably would have wanted to "use" my Education degree and, y'know, become a teacher.

Until very late in Year 12 (night before preferences were due lol), all of my preferences were design based. That thought amazes me now. I really love design, and I can sort of imagine myself doing it as a career, but eugh - I'm so glad I made the choice I did.

How about y'all? :)

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K888

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Interesting thread!

For years, I have been keen on doing physio (I did initially want to do med, with physio as another option, but changed my mind ~year 10). I was one of the very few people in my friendship group at high school who knew from the get-go what they wanted to do once they finished high school.

For me, if I ended up doing a different degree, I think it would still be in healthcare - it's what I'm extremely passionate about :) Part of me still wants to do med, because I think I could also be happy with that as a career - but ultimately, I think physio is the profession for me right now.
I'd also be really interested in prosthetics & orthotics, and paramedicine.
I think that if I ended up in any of these courses & subsequent careers, I'd be happy.

One of the reasons I didn't pick paramedicine, however, is because I think I'd need to be more mature and have more life experience to be able to deal with all the pressures of the job and prolong my career. I think I have a similar reasoning behind not doing medicine - that, and the fact that it can be a somewhat "invasive" thing - I like that I can improve people's health as a physio without being invasive :)

Joseph41

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Interesting thread!

For years, I have been keen on doing physio (I did initially want to do med, with physio as another option, but changed my mind ~year 10). I was one of the very few people in my friendship group at high school who knew from the get-go what they wanted to do once they finished high school.

For me, if I ended up doing a different degree, I think it would still be in healthcare - it's what I'm extremely passionate about :) Part of me still wants to do med, because I think I could also be happy with that as a career - but ultimately, I think physio is the profession for me right now.
I'd also be really interested in prosthetics & orthotics, and paramedicine.
I think that if I ended up in any of these courses & subsequent careers, I'd be happy.

One of the reasons I didn't pick paramedicine, however, is because I think I'd need to be more mature and have more life experience to be able to deal with all the pressures of the job and prolong my career. I think I have a similar reasoning behind not doing medicine - that, and the fact that it can be a somewhat "invasive" thing - I like that I can improve people's health as a physio without being invasive :)

Were all of your preferences physio-related in the end?

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K888

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Were all of your preferences physio-related in the end?
Yes - although I think I ended up running out of physio courses around number 5/6 so put prosthetics and paramedicine as my last few preferences :)
All of the courses I applied for in NSW were physio too, although I didn't fill up the whole list of preferences as NSW was more of a back up plan than anything else.

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Good thread idea to be honest. I never really thought about this myself. My preferences for VTAC though were commerce based from 1-12 LOL so even if I didn't get into Melbourne I would've gone into RMIT economics or business.
Actually my lowest preference was aquaculture at the maritime university because the clearly in hovered around 35ATAR and I thought it was funny to put it in there. I was close to going to ANU though to study international security/commerce. I drove up to Canberra for open day and everything and had the accomodation offer + a free anu tshirt in my hand, but I knew I was getting a Melbourne comm offer so I rejected it. I'm pretty happy with my choice I guess but if I could go back in time I think I might've gone to ANU. Living on campus in a hall would've been so cool !

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Always wanted to teach, it was just a matter of what system and what path i'd take to get there.

I guess if I wasn't teaching at secondary level, i'd probably be lecturing or in IT.

In Year 12 my careers person told me to do a BEd instead, but I rejected that and went with IT first. Initially I saw it as a backup degree incase teaching fell through, but i'm glad I did it anyway because the knowledge I gained.. so useful now.

I applied for the UoM MTeach program but got knocked back, so Monash got me instead. Their loss :P
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keltingmeith

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Interesting question! Tbh, I'm actually really not sure how it would've gone. O.o Although I most certainly wouldn't be at Monash. Que massive list of all the many millions of things I was considering up to year 12~ (ignoring pre-year 10. I wanted to be a writer because I loved reading. Then I realised writing is hard lol)

Science was actually a late love for me - I despised it and maths up until about year 10, when I was more disgusted by it. I couldn't understand why anyone would do that kind of shit - the problem being that I was good at it. Less so science (probably because I did psych and am horrible at rote learning), but maths whenever I spoke to my teacher, she would just complain about my wasted potential. It got to the point that I used to hand in my tests early without doing the extended response question, because I couldn't be bothered with it and knew I'd already passed anyway. I did, however, enrol in methods because I could do it, and only needed 1/2 methods to do teaching, which at the time I was weighing up. As opposed to general, which I'd have to go all the way up to further to do if I wanted to do a teaching course. Also stats was my worst topic (actually failed it because of my laziness awks) and my teacher told me that methods was more algebra, which I could do fine.

Potentially teaching is where I'd go? I really enjoyed music and drama, and I definitely would've gone that way, but I was more interested in teaching as an after-thought, and would've done a masters in it. I knew I enjoyed helping others with things, but wanted to try other things first. However, I was limited by my lack-luster musical ability (brought on my lack of care for practice - I actually enjoyed the theory side a lot more than the performance side. I did enjoy the performance, but if I had to choose between reading about how the use of counterpoint was employed in Somebody That I Used to Know to commune with the listener to actually practising the song myself, I would've done the former). For this reason, I also very seriously considered being a composer, and was the only person to get an A+ in the past three or so years for an arranging assignment my teacher gave out every year, and even won a small competition once for one of my compositions (the output was a shit midi tho awks). I also liked Japanese and languages and thought about that, probably would've added to my teachable subjects if I went that path.

Then, I had to repeat year 10, because reasons that aren't academic that I don't want to go into. However, the school wouldn't let me repeat units, with the exception of units 1/2 Japanese (for the simple reason they wouldn't let me jump up to 3/4 in year 10 awks). Repeating 1/2 Jap destroyed my love of the language (still love learning about the culture, though, and try to keep what I do know in-tact), but I also decided to take chemistry and physics. Originally the school wouldn't let me do either of those because I chose them in year 9, but somehow managed to skirt the system with the repeat. I also took general maths advanced, because I refused to do year 10 maths again, but they wouldn't let me do methods (also I wanted to keep myself as much a year 10 as possible at the time, and my school didn't do methods in year 10, but would do GMA). My perceptions changed dramatically - I suddenly loved maths, and didn't mind science all too much. I still loved music and drama, though. At this point, I still thought education, but thought I might be a maths teacher instead of Jap to increase employability.

Then year 11 came along, and I was doing music, drama, finishing Jap, methods, English, and something else. I had no idea what to do - originally, my plan was lit, but I had decided I didn't enjoy reading anymore, so that was a no. But, a friend convinced me to do chem. I figured, it was alright in year 10 - I wasn't particularly enthralled, but she was a good friend, and we could suffer together. Then I had the best and most exciting teacher ever - she wasn't particularly special, but she very obviously cared. Whereas before if I ever got confused by something (because they simplified it too much and then something broke the rules), the teachers would ignore it, she'd go the extra step and explain why we simplified the thing we did, and why it broke down for this particular case. All of a sudden, science was this elegant, carefully balanced thing, with mystery and wonder. One problem - I didn't do biology, and couldn't find a career for just chemistry. My careers councillor was also no help ("Have you considered medicine?").

Then, I went on this wondrous camp just before year 12 (NYSF - if you're in year 10 reading about this, and like science, apply for it. You'll love it.), which opened my eyes to the world of science. The first thing it taught me was that I could do research (my current path), but there was something else it taught me about - the idea that I didn't have to go a uni in my state, and that there's also this large field in science communication that's poorly lacking.

So, the other way I would've gone after that was first and foremostly, another uni. I read. And read. And read. And holy shit, I knew so much about the HSC, SACE, the OP, etc. that I scared my friends - both interstate (because I made lots of those on NYSF) and in Victoria. Like, I wanted to know the systems inside out, so I knew what I was reading when I looked into UQ, UNSW, Curtin, UWA, ANU - everywhere. I even went on this massive "road-trip" with the little inheritance I got from my 18th birthday. I checked out UQ, QUT, Griffith, UNSW, USYD, UTS, Uni SA, UoA, Flinders Uni, UWA, Curtin, and some other uni in WA I've forgotten about, all in person, and had also learnt a bit about ANU at NYSF. I was set - in the end, I decided to do a Bachelor of Science (Advanced Maths) at UNSW, but also swapped with applied geophysics at UQ, geophysics at Curtin, and the PhB in ANU. I did look at Otago (NZ), but I needed HECS to get my degree, so quickly abandoned that idea.

However, I realised I didn't have the money to move interstate, and wouldn't be able to get any scholarships with my poor work ethic, and so decided to stick it out at Monash. The type of research I decided to do also swapped during the years, but I ended up here in chem, and haven't looked back.

The other thing I considered (which is actually still on the table) was to study a science communication degree, and ended up heavily looking at the Masters of Science Communication at ANU. This actually appealed to me because of my performing side - part of the degree entailed travelling around the country with the Questacon Science Circus, teaching the wonders of science to different schools and at various science programs during the year.


Tl;dr, I'm super indecisive and subject to change frequently lol, going from story writer, to teacher or composer, to several different types of teaching, to definitely not med and no clue, to science at like 5 different universities across the country, to research where I am now (swapping research fields monthly between now and start of uni), but might still go into science communication.

Glasses

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Living on campus in a hall would've been so cool !

Can confirm, it's pretty cool (and fun)!

If I wasn't studying Law/Arts, I have no idea what I'd be studying. I've always been set on law (and still am) - although I did consider a Bachelor of Psych at some point. I also thought about med and pharmacy - but I am not a big fan of maths or chemistry; so that probably wouldn't have worked out very well haha

Couldn't be more happy with where I ended up though!
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strawberries

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really interesting thread!

I think my first real career I wanted was to be a teacher, but I didn't know what I wanted to teach though. Like meltingkeith, I liked music and drama and languages, but yeah, I was still fairly young and didn't consider much yet.

I think around year 9/10 I did some research and decided I wanted to do a BA at UoM (cos it was ranked #1 but then I discovered that I didn't like the Melbourne model). Then I thought commerce would be interesting because it'd be cool to learn about money and business and economics. Then I thought it'd be cool to do a BA/BComm double at Monash. So around year 11 I thought that was where I'd go. But then I thought Comm'd be hard so I'd just want to do arts instead and was worried about my maths. Towards the end of y12, I was considering doing science because I wanted to keep a variety of options open (also really interested in psych at that time), so all my VTAC preferences were like arts double degrees at Monash: arts/comm, arts/sci, arts/sec ed, followed by arts degrees at every other uni  but my #1 was straight arts at Monash (already decided I didn't like Melbourne model). Also during y12 I  thought ANU'd be cool because they had a good arts faculty so I also applied to ANU too (another reason I considered ANU was cos in case I didn't get into Monash and ANU has less prereqs). Interestingly though, I didn't do any humanities or science subjects in VCE so I'm not sure why I wanted to do arts or sci but I guess it was cos they were broad? But yeah, I got VTAC and UAC offers, accepted Monash arts and ANU double degree.

Then I took a gap year cos I didn't want to go to uni. Again, I was reconsidering my options and I was considering something in the health field (more like health sci, public health or nutrition, but maybe an option for med in case I regret in the future) because I felt like health was more of a 'direct' course rather than smth broad like arts/sci, and I also thought it'd be 'cool' to work in somewhere where you could help others. I also thought something in business would be interesting, like marketing or economics, and I was considering doing a double degree at Deakin but my parents wouldn't allow me to go to a non-go8.

I think the thing that really got me into ANU in the end was actually the whole political scene of 2016 and how everything happened, especially with Brexit, Aus Federal election + especially Trump, and that's what really got me into specifically politics and IR (before I didn't know what arts majors I'd want to do, like I considered things like politics, int'l studies, languages, history etc) and especially cos ANU is well known for their politics/IR school I ended up here. To be honest, I actually love my course and I'm having lots of fun learning the content :)   

I still wonder fairly often if I'm doing the right course, what the future holds and what sort of career I'll be in, and I also wonder what I could've done. I don't have any big regrets yet, but I am slightly worried about job prospects

tl;dr always wanted to do arts. second options included education, science, health, commerce, business

I drove up to Canberra for open day and everything and had the accomodation offer + a free anu tshirt in my hand, but I knew I was getting a Melbourne comm offer so I rejected it. I'm pretty happy with my choice I guess but if I could go back in time I think I might've gone to ANU. Living on campus in a hall would've been so cool !
Totes should've ;)
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sweetiepi

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Really interesting-
If I wasn't doing pharmsci, I'd probably be doing like nanotech (which I discovered was a unit I can take next year/year after anyways :p), or something psychology based.

I've always been interested the psychology, neuroscience and nanotech side of things, but in the end, it was my interest in medications that got me hooked into what I'm doing. :)
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Joseph41

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Great responses ITT! Thanks, everyone. :) Very interested to hear from others!

Really interesting-
If I wasn't doing pharmsci, I'd probably be doing like nanotech (which I discovered was a unit I can take next year/year after anyways :p), or something psychology based.

I've always been interested the psychology, neuroscience and nanotech side of things, but in the end, it was my interest in medications that got me hooked into what I'm doing. :)

Honestly have no clue what nanotech is. Enlighten me? :)

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sweetiepi

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Honestly have no clue what nanotech is. Enlighten me? :)
Basically science, engineering and other tech that is done on a super small scale (think atom/molecular level). :)
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tashhhaaa

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probably law/science or a bachelor of science

I had an offer to law/science at La Trobe that I got way before results were out (it was based on leadership achievements) but I ended up shoving it way down my preference list because I wanted to go to UoM or Monash (LOL)
My parents didn't care which uni I went to but a Go8 uni was always my dream. I went to almost all the open days in Melbourne and none of them felt 'right' like UoM did

Looking back now the La Trobe course would have been perfect for me because those are my current interests

I also had all the requirements for Monash's BSc but ended up making it my 2nd preference because it's very far from where I live, and I didn't want to move or commute 4ish hours every day

I was one of those people who seemed certain about what I wanted in year 12, and that was Monash medicine. But when UMAT results came out and I got 79th percentile or something I knew that was over so I forgot about it immediately and focused my attention on graduate study/the Melbourne Model way. I'm glad I didn't get into medicine because then I wouldn't be able to explore different learning areas, and I doubt I'd be motivated to do further study (which is my goal now) after a long course like that

Once the UMAT thing happened I was like 'whatever, I'll do a BA'. I didn't do any humanities stuff in year 12 but that was where I naturally excelled (I only got 40+ in English). Again, I'm glad I'm not doing a BA -- I've seen what my friends in Melbourne Arts are doing and it's not for me

My current course was a bit of a random choice, even for me. When results came out I was conflicted, and I had to ask myself: "What do I actually want?!" I had no idea. So I did some research and found the Bachelor of Environments, and immediately made it my first preference. I thought I hit the jackpot because it combines so many subject areas -- science (chemistry, geology, engineering, maths), arts (politics, economics) and design (architecture, urban planning, etc).

As for now I want to do a Grad Dip of science after I finish this, and then maybe law. I'll apply for graduate law, various diplomas and MTeach when I finish, so whatever I get into is what I'll do. I'm honestly interested in a lot of things, so at this point I just want to keep learning


RuiAce

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See and then there's me.

I'm actually contemplating going into my plan B,

Joseph41

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See and then there's me.

I'm actually contemplating going into my plan B,


What's your Plan B? :)

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