Reflections - Vaike's Univeristy Journal

[Vaike]

Introduction
Having received an offer yesterday, I thought this may be a good opportunity to begin documenting my forthcoming university experiences. Lately I’ve noticed that I really don’t remember much as far back past two to three years ago, and to be honest, it’s been a bit unsettling. All those memories seem so distant and blurry, as if they were a lifetime ago. In response, I’ve decided to be more mindful regarding the rate at which time passes (and at which memories can pass), and I figure writing something like this over the next four years will help.
Offers day
Offers day was an uneventful experience (and probably one I’d forget if I didn’t write this). I knew I’d be happy my offer as I was well above the clearly in ATAR requirement, so I enjoyed a nice sleep in, but it was still such a great feeling knowing that all my hard work over the last two years had paid off. I landed myself a spot in my preferred course, the Bachelor of Science Advanced – Research (Honours) at Monash Clayton.
Choosing my degree
My decision was only ever really a binary one, BSc at Melbourne or BSc at Monash. Although I did, at times, consider Biomed, Engineering and Computer Science, I never put any serious thought into it, as I’ve always known, somehow, that science was the place for me. The decision to choose Monash, surprisingly, didn’t end up being as arduous as I initially thought.

Going into 2017, I was undecided, but leaning towards UoM. I had been involved in the Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars program that helped me get a little more comfortable with the UniMelb campus, and I grew to love its location (being in the city is so much fun!) and the beautiful architecture.

However, over the year my preference began to shift quite rapidly. UoM progressively became a less attractive option for me.


•I began to grow tired of the idea of travelling 1.5 hours on PT each way to University every day, and although I did recognise that the location is amazing once you’re there, I also noticed that a lot of the buildings were, shall we say, failing to age gracefully? I know this is a bit superficial but I’ve always been a sucker for modern architecture.
•I didn’t like and still don’t like the ‘Melbourne Model’. I think that it’s a great structure for some people (and for UoM’s pocket!), and that the variety of units is more diverse and interesting than available at Monash.  But the restrictive nature (i.e. mandatory breadth) and the huge cohorts really didn’t appeal to me. There are so many people at Melbourne, it was slightly overwhelming.
•The real nail in the coffin, however, was my open day experience. I don’t know if anyone else felt this was, but to me, it just felt ‘cold’ , ‘uninviting’ and rather ‘corporate-like’. I understand they’re there to make money and that it may be difficult to judge campus culture from a single day, but I just felt uncomfortable.  Those presenting didn’t make attempts to convince me ‘why’ I should study at Melbourne, instead they explained what I could. Frankly, I could have read the brochure and been just as informed. I left that day with the impression that perhaps UoM where relying too much for me on their ‘prestigious’ name.


Don’t get me wrong, I think UoM is still an outstanding university, but at the end of the day, I felt that it just wasn’t the right one for me.
I had almost the complete opposite experience as I researched and attended the Monash Clayton open day.


•It was much closer to my house, only taking a half hour or so drive. I still wish there was public transport (cars are expensive _eeeek), but I would save 2 hours a day in comparison to UoM, and that was really important to me.
•I really enjoyed my time on the Clayton campus. It just felt homey and inviting for some reason. Not to mention some of the Science buildings *looking at you Green Chemical Futures* are gorgeous! (again, this probably isn’t the best reason to choose a university but whoops)

Spoiler

•The BSc Advanced degree appeared to be significantly more flexible than what I could do at Melbourne, and it also seemed to be more individualised too, in that requests to accelerate subjects would be taken more on a case by case basis, perhaps due to the smaller cohort size?
•The open day was impressive. All the speakers I heard sold their faculty extremely well; it wasn't just informative, it was persuasive too. Everyone was so friendly and willing to answer questions; I felt like I could assimilate more easily into the community they presented in comparison to that of UoM.

About BSc Advanced – Research (Honours)
From what I understand, this degree is quite similar to the standard BSc at Monash, the main difference being greater flexibility in subject choice and ‘more’ opportunities to pursue research projects. Also, the course is four years instead of three due to a compulsory honours years, which I’m very much looking forward to. There’s also a dedicated study area for students doing this degree, which is shared with those doing the BSc Advanced – Global Challenges, which is nice I guess. I also heard there is some sort of camp being organised, but I don’t know if it’s still going ahead. The idea of having a smaller cohort was one the resonated with me (apparently last years was 40 or so, much smaller than standard BSc courses); I felt like I’d have an easier time finding people who could assist me in figuring out exactly what I want to do and how to get there in a ‘smaller’ course.
Units and Career aspirations
Despite not having much difficulty figuring out what degree I wanted to pursue, figuring out what I want to get out of it is a different story. I presume this course is targeted at students hoping to pursue a career in research, but I have no idea where I envision myself in coming years. I don’t understand what real scientific research entails, so it’s difficult to say whether it would be something I’d enjoy; I guess that’s what the next four years are for.
Not only do I have no idea what career I’d like to pursue, I don’t even really know what units I want to take first year. During high school, I really enjoyed biology, chemistry, physics and spesh, and have since developed quite an interest in computer science. As of now, I’m leaning towards a mixture of chemistry, computational science and maths, but I’ve got some hard decisions to make in the coming weeks! _{(If anyone has any advice about such decision its more than welcome!)}

That’s all for now I guess. I’m hoping to keep this updated over the foreseeable future, as I see how this next chapter unravels 😊 

[Vaike]

07/02/2018

^{I'm putting of some work I really should be doing now by writing this instead}
Well timetables came out yesterday, so I now know which units I'll be undertaking this semester! Upon receiving my timetable, I honestly was a bit disappointed. Almost 5 days from 9 until around 5, with a ton of one hour breaks, which I can imagine/have heard are a pain. Luckily, after some a little bit of tinkering, I managed to get a couple days where I finish at 1 PM, and another that doesn't start until 2 PM, eliminating most one hour breaks in favour of slightly longer ones (or no breaks at all).  Much happier with how it's looking now that I'll have a day to sleep in and some afternoons off, and no 8 AM starts!

The units I'm doing this semester are:

• • Chemistry I (advanced)
• • Classical physics and relativity
• • Techniques for modelling (advanced)
• • Algorithms and programming fundamentals in python

I don't know what I want to major in yet, but that's why I've got such a wide range of subjects. Originally I was in a bit of a dilemma, as the programming unit requires a supporting study (discrete mathematics for comp sci). However, after a few e-mails with the subject coordinator, he said it would be fine to waive the supporting study, so I could instead do MTH1035 (techniques for modelling) instead

That being said, I am a little nervous about the programming unit. I never did any computer science/ software dev during high school, and have only really dabbled in the basics of python/programming (functions, variables, loops & recursion, lists & dictionaries, etc.) over the holidays. I'm hoping studying it at uni will give me some motivation to learn a bit faster, but on the other hand I'm worried it might be a bit overwhelming.
The next step now is o-week and orientation camp! I'm super excited for both, particularly the camp. Keltingmeith has advised me it might be a bit weird/different from what you'd usually expect from a school/uni camp, so perhaps I'll have something interesting to report back when I get back  . I'm looking forward to meeting the cohort there, as well hopefully meeting a few AN members if a Monash meetup ever gets off the ground

[Bri MT]

Hey, you don't happen to be doing the adv chem lab that starts Monday 2pm do you?  (I'm doing CHM1051 too)



Hope you find the energy/will to do that thing soon, and I'm glad that you could make your timetable a bit better even though it's not really ideal

[AngelWings]

hopefully meeting a few AN members if a Monash meetup ever gets off the ground

I might just start this real soon, however, I will need a volunteer to host, as I won't be able to stay for long.
Maybe some of the second year uni Monashians or the slightly more experienced third years will be willing to host?

EDIT: Done. Just need people to start with the ideas.

[Vaike]

Hey, you don't happen to be doing the adv chem lab that starts Monday 2pm do you?  (I'm doing CHM1051 too)

What a coincidence I actually am I guess I'll see you there!

I might just start this real soon, however, I will need a volunteer to host, as I won't be able to stay for long.
Maybe some of the second year uni Monashians or the slightly more experienced third years will be willing to host?

Awesome! Hopefully someone is willing/able to do so.

[Vaike]

11/07/2018

Whoops, it’s been a while. So my first semester of uni is truly done and dusted, and the next semester isn’t too far away now. Having recently received results, I thought now would be a pretty good time to reflect upon how everything has gone thus far this year.

Having thought about it over the past few days, I’ve been finding it really hard to piece together how I feel my first semester went. My initial thoughts are that it was pretty good, I met some cool new people, learned some interesting things and found out a bit more about myself. But the more I think about it the more I feel it was just kind of ‘meh’? It’s hard to describe, but I’m don’t believe I have any strong feelings, be it positive or negative, about my first semester. It just kind of happened.
Travelling
There were some things I struggled to adapt to, perhaps more so than I thought I would. I’d never really had to travel more than 10 minutes to school, so it was a bit of change to have around 2 hours of travelling each day to get to and from uni. Don’t get me wrong, I know that an hour each way is far shorter than what many people deal with in their daily commutes, but I don’t think I quite figured out how best to make use of that time. Sometimes I (tried) to study, sometimes I slept, sometimes I listened to music, but I just found that no matter what, by the end of the day, I’d just be drained from the travel. I’d get home between 5 and 7 most days, and it’d be dark and cold outside already, and honestly, I just didn’t have any energy to do anything after I’d arrived home. It felt like that each day, I was just losing two hours and letting them slip by.

I don’t think my timetable helped alleviate my newfound disdain for commuting either, as I had to be on campus for 5 days each week. This, in addition to working all day once per weekend, resulted in me only having only one ‘day off’ to unwind. However, since I never had any energy during the week to actually complete anything after being at uni, this ‘day off’ each week inevitably devolved into one dedicated to doing required pre-readings, assignments and cramming for assessments.

That being said, I’m pretty confident I’m going to be able to manage this much better next semester. I now know what to expect in terms of travel, and I’m going to do my best to figure out how best to use it, and try and minimise the feeling that its just lost time. Apart from that, I’ve also set up my timetable so that I’ll only have to make my way onto campus three days each week, in the hopes that in the long run, I’ll be left with more energy each week to pursue other interests outside the daily grind of work and university studies.
Subjects
I think the thing that has being weighing most heavily on my mind, and which I don’t really think I have quick fix for, is that I still don’t have a clear idea of what I want to major in, and I guess more broadly, what I want to pursue as a profession.  I took units from four different areas this semester, chemistry, computer science, physics and maths, and it was mostly a positive experience.

Physics
I’ll start with this one because so far mood of this entry has been on the negative side, and before I move onto the positive stuff, I want to get this last bit of a negativity out. I really didn’t enjoy this unit. Like at all. The thing that bugged me the most is that, in my opinion, the way unit was run wasn't conducive to actually learning things, rather than memorising them.

I dreaded having to do the labs each week, we were given 2 hours to both perform an experiment and complete a practical write-up in a log book. Albeit for the most parts practicals were relatively simple, two hours was simply not enough time to get everything done. Every single week, people ended up stressed, rushing just to try and write as much stuff down at the end in hopes of getting some marks. I never felt like the purpose of these labs was to really learn, experiment and be amazed, but rather a two hour sprint to get the marks required to pass (it didn’t help that I had a TA for four weeks who wasn’t helpful at all but that’s another story).

I also found the content for the most part to be extremely dry. We spend 8 weeks mostly reviewing familiar Newtonian physics concepts from VCE and looking at thermal physics, which wasn’t thrilling. Although, I will say, the last four weeks looking at special relativity were genuinely enjoyable and really well taught, although by this stage my motivation to invest myself into the unit was pretty much gone. So, as I’m sure you’re shocked to hear at this point, I won’t be taking physics next semester. I don’t know if it’s an overreaction, to drop an area of study after one bad experience, but I feel like I need to start making decisions and narrowing my scope at some point, and I may as well start here.


Chemistry
Unlike my physics unit, I thought this unit was well run overall, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The labs in particular I found to be significantly more manageable, we were given four hours to complete each lab, in addition to having the entire following week to complete the report write-up. The pre-lab information was also of great use, and I felt like for the majority of the labs I walked in feeling like I had some idea of what I needed to do.

I still feel like the structure of the unit could be improved though, particular in regards to the 'lectorials'. These were essentially lectures, nothing really tutorial like about them, but instead of having lecture slides or something, there were just webpages for us to read through and the lecturers to read off. They began to feel like a waste of time (except for the first four weeks were we had an amazing lecturer), so I eventually stopped going and just read the textbook instead.

The content overall was pretty interesting. It extended beyond VCE chem quite a bit, and we covered some cool concepts that weren’t touched in high school but they were also closely related to things previously learnt, which also helped everything I had already learned make a little bit more sense. All in all though, it wasn't too challenging and wasn't a crazy step up or anything.


Maths
I enjoyed this unit more than I thought I would. I never really felt like maths was ‘my thing’, I always just viewed it more as a tool that I would need to have in order to do other stuff, but this unit changed my perspective a little bit. I think I can attribute a large portion of this change in mindset the unit’s lecturer/co-ordinator. He genuinely made the lectures and the math super interesting, to the point that I actually looked forward to going to his lectures.
 
The math in this unit (linear algebra and calculus) was quite different to anything I’d done in school, and the way it was taught was also quite different. There was less of a focus on being able to do crazy hard practice questions, and more a focus on really building fundamental intuitions and understanding of the concepts covered, which I found to be a nice change of pace from the madness of VCE math.


Comp. Sci / Algorithms
This unit was the biggest surprise for me. I came into it without any prior knowledge at all really about programming or algorithms, but I absolutely loved this unit. Although the content was a bit dry at times, and the tutorials were a waste of time, learning about algorithms and programming was something completely new and interesting to me. The lectures were great, always providing assistance when needed and were super reasonable about assessments, and the anonymous Q&A forum worked wonders in getting students to actually use the forums to post and ask for help.

Honestly, I’m a bit scared to pursue computer science further, because I’m worried that this initial interest that I’ve found might just be because it’s novel, something I’ve never learnt about before, unlike my other subjects. I’m also a bit concerned that I’m miles behind those who have already been programming for years. However, I was really surprised by how well I ended up doing (99!), which has given me a bit of confidence, and I’m going to give it a shot next semester again and see how it goes.


Positivity ~ university and personal life

Despite still not knowing exactly what I want to major in, in one semester I’ve been able to cross one of my options of the list. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to get any closer to feeling like I really know which major is 'right' for me by the end of next semester, and I won’t be surprised if I end up just having to make the hard decision to pick one or two and run with it. But I got closer this last semester, so I’m hoping that I will have a clearer idea come years end.  Although I’ve been feeling a bit neutral, and a tad bit overwhelmed by the experience so far, there have been some great moments, and overall, much more enjoyable than my 2017. The orientation camp for my course at the beginning of the year was great fun, and an awesome way to start the year and was able to meet heaps of awesome people. 

In March, I was just casually sorting through the promotions section of my email inbox, when I surprisingly found a scholarship offer from the university! I was honestly buzzing, as by that point of the year, I had assumed that scholarships offers would have been done and dusted, so I wasn’t expecting anything. It was that icing on the cake, a last, tangible reward for working so hard throughout VCE for the last two years. I was also super happy with the marks I got for my units just a few days ago. I didn’t really know what to expect, but the marks I received were much higher than I anticipated, so that was another welcome surprise. In particular, I was really thankful for my math and computer science results, as those were the two units that I tried that hardest in and it was rewarding to have the work I put in pay off 😊
Outside of university, things have been great! After pretty much neglecting my physical health in Year 12, I’ve been slowly but surely easing myself into a running routine. I’ve always wanted to enjoy running, but previously, I’d always just feel sick to my stomach (to the point of nearly passing out) after running any sizeable distance. This year I’ve been able to find ways of managing this, and I’ve now reached the point in which I look forward to running each day. And just in general, I’ve just been focusing on having a more balanced life than I did in year 12; cooking, reading, working, spending more time with friends and family, all things I sacrificed to some extent last year.
Speaking of work, it’s been going as well as I could have hoped, and I’ve genuinely been enjoying it. I used to dread every shift I was given for my last job, and although what I’m doing now definitely requires more effort, I love the people I work with, I’m really having fun with it all. Last weekend I was again given the opportunity to lecture at the ATAR Notes lectures, which is always a good time, and it was awesome to see so many people turn up for another amazing event! I really hope that those that attended found it useful, engaging and not all too overwhelming. I tried my best to take it slowly and one step at a time; especially because I remember sitting in their place not too long ago and being hella confused haha
tl;dr – This post is too long!
My first semester of uni was a bit of a whirlwind. Struggled to adapt to some things, and I am still a bit anxious about not having a clear idea of what I want to do, which I think is the main reason why I feel a bit ambivalent towards how my first semester went. Despite this, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the first half of 2018, and I’m excited to see what the second half holds.

[Bri MT]

How have you found second semester so far? 
Have you considered taking advantage of the opportunity to do research as a first year?

[AngelWings]

Vaike, it's completely okay to not know which major to pick. (Same thing happened to me, in all honesty.) Just go through the list, start crossing off everything you know you don't like and keep going from there.