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Author Topic: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal  (Read 2208 times)

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jazcstuart

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Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« on: December 21, 2018, 08:19:51 pm »
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Hi everyone!

Yesterday morning I recieved and accepted an offer to study a Bachelor of Renewable Energy Engineering at the University of Newcastle (my first preference), so I thought now would be a perfect time to start a uni journey journal so I can record my thoughts in the lead up to the start of uni! I have lived in Newcastle my whole life and knew I wanted to stay here for uni (for convenience, family, and I just love it here, plus UoN seems like a good uni, with a nice campus!) The stars seemed to have aligned, with a degree I am interested in starting for the first time next year, one of the only degrees of its kind in Australia starting my home town, and an amazing scholarship starting the year before me (more below!).

In this journal, as with many other people's journals, I hope to document the academic side of my degree, but also my thoughts, feelings and experiences regarding all aspects of uni life, in this huge change from high school. Hopefully it is at least slightly interesting to read, or is useful for people interested in this field ;D

My degree
I said above this degree is one of the only ones of its kind in Australia, because it deals with a wide range of different renewable energy technologies, rather than just solar and wind, and covers renewable energy in more depth than some other degrees which are just adapted electrical engineering degrees. One technology I'm particularly interested in learning about is bioenergy. The degree is a combination of electrical and chemical engineering, as well as specific renewable energy units. One thing I'm slightly nervous about is having to do Advanced Physics in second semester, as I didn't do physics for HSC, but I did do extension maths so I'll see how I go. I am thinking of doing a bridging course for physics before the start of semester.

Ma and Morley Scholarship
I was incredibly fortunate to be awarded this scholarship for the duration of my degree. As mentioned above, this scholarship only started last year as a result of the philanthropic donation of Chinese entrepeneur Jack Ma, to honour his friendship with Novocastrian Ken Morley. It is based on values including justice, equity, peace, ethics, workers rights and environmental sustainability. There are 20 scholars, for academic excellence, educational disadvantage or Indigenous. The benefit is $10 000 a year for up to 4 years, plus a program to connect with the other scholars and develop leadership skills to create positive change, so all tound an absolutely incredible scholarship.

I had to submit an application about what it means to be a globally aware and socially conscious leader and how I have demonstrated the values of the program, then there was an interview last Thursday. I was really happy with how the interview went, and was incredibly excited to find out on Monday that I had been accepted!!! I was way more nervous to find out about this than my HSC results and ATAR haha, and I literally had to stop myself from crying on the phone when the person told me I was in. So yeah super super keen for this, we have a 2 day welcome event in early Feburary which will be really exciting.


Anyways this post is long enough, but I'm keen to keep updating this journal in the future! Merry Christmas everyone!
Thanks for reading  :)
Jaz
HSC 2017 - Mathematics, Music 1
HSC 2018 - English (Advanced), Maths Extension 1, Chemistry, Geography, Earth and Environmental Science

2019 - B Renewable Energy Engineering @ University of Newcastle

aspiringantelope

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2018, 08:26:27 pm »
+7
-snip-
Wow!
Congratulations on the amazing achievement!

kauac

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2018, 08:30:37 pm »
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Hey Jaz,
I am keen to follow your journal and hear more about this revolutionary degree! Renewable energy is definitely an area that needs more coverage these days, so that's awesome that you have decided to study it.

And big congrats on that scholarship - an incredible achievement!  :)
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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2018, 08:53:11 pm »
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So keen for this!!

Renewable energy is incredibly important and I'm interested to hear about the types of training you receive to prepare you for your altruistic future careers :)

Massive congrats on getting in and the scholarship - it sounds incredible! :D

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2018, 09:46:26 pm »
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So excited to follow your uni journey!! I hope you have lots of fun learning about something you're really passionate about!

Huuuuge congrats on that scholarship -- it sounds amazing (and can probably get you out of HECS) which is a huge plus! Very deserving :-)
HSC 2017: English (Standard) // Mathematics // Modern History // Legal Studies // Business Studies
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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2018, 11:33:18 pm »
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Hello !! Super nice to see you finally in the university journey journal board. Congrats on that fabulous scholarship !! ;D
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jazcstuart

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2019, 01:06:28 pm »
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Hi, hope you all had a nice Christmas and that 2019 is off to a good start!

After battling through the confusion of the uni's online systems and various admin tasks, I have enrolled in 3 of my 4 subjects for semester 1! For some reason I can't enrol in the maths subject, even though I have completed the prerequisites (extension 1 maths), so I need to follow this up. My other subjects are Introduction to Proffessional Engineering (which includes academic skills, career opportunities and stuff like WHS), Introduction to Procedural Programming, and Introduction to Chemistry.

I also enrolled in the physics bridging course I mentioned in my first post. This is the week before O Week, four hours a day for four days. It seems really short, but I think it should be helpful.

Today I recieved an email inviting me to a "Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment Day on Campus" on the 17th Jan. This will be interesting to go to the campus again with the knowledge of exactly what I am studying.

I also recently got an email saying I can send in a photo so that my student card is ready for pick up during O Week. So now I have to take a decent looking photo of myself, which as you can imagine I am really looking forward to  :P At least you can smile, unlike license pics. I am keen to get my student card though so I can get student discounts haha.

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays!
HSC 2017 - Mathematics, Music 1
HSC 2018 - English (Advanced), Maths Extension 1, Chemistry, Geography, Earth and Environmental Science

2019 - B Renewable Energy Engineering @ University of Newcastle

jazcstuart

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2019, 06:28:49 pm »
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(Forgot to say in the last post, huge thanks to everyone who commented, it's incredibly motivating to continue writing this journal seeing all the support here! It's also been great reading other people's journals, and seeing how you are going with your own journeys)
This read a bit recount-y so I don't really expect anyone to read it all, but making my journal public motivates me to actually update it, and I will be interested to look back on it myself as I get further through my degree!

So I thought it's about time I updated this journal again! (I got the 30 day warning, whoops  ::) )

I officially started uni this week, but going back since my last post:
 - I had my first gathering for the Ma and Morley scholarship in early Feb, which was an absolutely incredible experience. All the scholars spent 2 full days together at the uni, discussing the values of the program and just generally getting to know each other. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to really connect with people, and it's such a diverse groups which is awesome. It was also really valuable to start making friends before the semester even started, and I've been able to say hi to many of them in my first week. I can't wait for our next gathering, which is this Friday!

 - I ended up enrolling in a second physics bridging course because the first one was really basic foundation stuff (which was important but only covered a small aspect of physics). The second one was much faster paced, and I didn't understand a lot of it, but I hope I at least absorbed some things. It also helped ease me back into study and what to expect at uni, so I guess it was useful overall. It was during O-week, so I couldn't go on Thursday because it was my orientation day.

 -  So orientation day. Overall I had a great day, although mainly because I got to meet new people rather than the actual informative aspect of the day. We started with a session in the Great Hall for the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, which was fine but not overly exciting. After that we moved to specific degree information sessions, which I was looking forward to to meet the other people doing my degree. The information was pretty dry and straightforward, but I did talk to some people and I (kind of) made a friend so I was excited about that! Apparently there are 26 people doing my degree, and out of the 20 people at this session, 5 of us were girls (just interesting, I was curious to see what the percentage would be, but all the guys I talked to were really nice as well). I think having a small cohort will be good because it will be easier to get to know everyone and it could be pretty tight knit, especially because we are the first year of this degree (at least that's what I hope).

 - I also met a couple of people in the Women in Engineering session in the afternoon, including a girl who went to my primary school (year above me)! She was super nice and we were both excited about seeing someone from primary school. She is a second year chemical engineering student, and this degree has pretty much the same first year as renewable, so she said to hit her up for notes or other help. It was also great to make a connection with someone who actually knows how to do this whole uni thing haha.

 - Starting uni! Although I knew that there would be heaps of people, it was pretty overwhelming arriving at uni this Monday and seeing people EVERYWHERE. I don't think I've ever seen this many young people in one place, or at least not in this sort of environment. All of my subjects for this semester are huge (500+ people) because they are all general engineering, science or maths courses, Despite this I have been surprised at how many people I know from various places, so that's comforting, and I try to introduce myself to the people sitting next to me in lectures. So far I prefer the learning environment to high school, although it's only been three days and the workload hasn't really kicked in yet so I'll see how I go. I've also been pleasantly surprised at how social it is, and it's not as hard as I thought to strike up a conversation and meet new people.

So overall it's been a pretty decent start to uni life for me! I'll leave this here and maybe review my subjects another time (there is still one subject I haven't had year). Hope everyone else's study/life is going well! Jaz
« Last Edit: February 28, 2019, 09:22:34 am by jazcstuart »
HSC 2017 - Mathematics, Music 1
HSC 2018 - English (Advanced), Maths Extension 1, Chemistry, Geography, Earth and Environmental Science

2019 - B Renewable Energy Engineering @ University of Newcastle

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2019, 10:24:36 pm »
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Sounds like a super exciting start Jaz!! Reading your entry brings back memories because it is exactly how I felt going to uni for the first time, it's so different!! Best of luck with everything ;D

jazcstuart

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Re: Saving the world one watt at a time - Jaz's uni journal
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2019, 10:10:36 pm »
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Hello again!
I can't believe I've already been at uni for 3 weeks, but at the same time I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks, it feels like I've been here for ages. I am enjoying my degree so far, and am loving not having to do english anymore haha. All my subjects are general first year courses, however there are slight differences between some of the different engineering disciplines, so it doesn't feel like we are all just lumped in together, which is nice.

I thought now would be a good time to reflect on how I am finding each of my subjects. So here we go:

 - MATH1110 (Maths for engineering, science and technology 1) - I have mixed feelings about this subject. The prerequisite was a band 5 or 6 in Advanced Maths or completion of extension 1 maths, so it assumes a fair knowledge of maths, however the lecturer seem to over-explain some basic concepts, for example he was surprised we knew what gradient was (this is a year 8 concept??) but gloss over things we haven't seen before. I wasn't too keen on him at the start but he has actually grown on me, mainly because he uses an iPad to write the notes as he goes which makes it easy to follow along, rather than just putting up pre-written lecture slides. The last 2 weeks we have been learning about complex numbers which I haven't done before, so that has been challenging but interesting, far less dry than the first week (which was about set notation, functions, etc.) In terms of assessment we have had 3 online quizzes with unlimited attempts (pretty much free marks if you put the effort in), and I managed to get 6/6 first go for the one yesterday which was exciting, then we have also had 2 in class quizzes. 

 - CHEM1010 (Introductory Chemistry) - this subject has been pretty cruisy so far, since I have covered pretty much everything in HSC chemistry. However it has made me realize the huge step up in pace from high school, as topics we spent weeks on in HSC might be covered in 2 hours. I have a very good lecturer at the moment, however we get a new lecturer in week five and I've heard it goes downhill from here, so I'll see how it goes. This subject also has weekly online quizzes, and Wednesday we had an assessed workshop where we had to complete a worksheet in pairs. I actually really enjoyed this because it was pretty chill, we wrote the answers on a white board and marks were allocated for teamwork and working rather than correct final answers.

 - ENGG1003 (Introduction to Procedural Programming) - This is the subject I am finding most interesting so far. I have never done any sort of programming so far so it has been a very steep learning curve, but its extremely satisfying when I make a code which works! I often find the lectures pretty confusing but then it makes more sense when I practice it in our computer labs. The lecturer is engaging however it is the first time he has taught the course so there have been a few hiccups, but overall I am enjoying it. I have my first assessment on Tuesday, an open book in class coding exercise to execute a given maths problem.

 - ENGG1500 (Introduction to Professional Engineering) - To be honest this is a very difficult subject to explain. There are 2 aspects to the subject. In the lectures where we learn about a bunch of random things like the role of engineers, engineering problem solving method, research, work health and safety, etc. We have a very charismatic lecturer and I pretty much just sit there and listen, I don't really need to take notes. There are also workshops, where each engineering discipline has a project which we have to whole semester to complete in groups of 4. The project for renewable energy engineering (the same as chemical engineering) is to build a solar desalination prototype for a Fijian family. It's pretty overwhelming considering I know next to nothing about engineering, but it's also exciting that we get a hands on engineering project in first semester. I am in a group with 3 guys also doing renewable energy engineering, and it's still early days but I think I have a really good group. We have already met up to talk through some really rough ideas, and everyone seems to be contributing but also open to each other's ideas so that's been great. All our assessment for this subject comes from the project, mainly reports about it but also our physical result. I'm looking forward to seeing what my group can come up with!


Sounds like a super exciting start Jaz!! Reading your entry brings back memories because it is exactly how I felt going to uni for the first time, it's so different!! Best of luck with everything ;D
Thanks Jamon! That's interesting you had the same experience, hope you are still enjoying it!
HSC 2017 - Mathematics, Music 1
HSC 2018 - English (Advanced), Maths Extension 1, Chemistry, Geography, Earth and Environmental Science

2019 - B Renewable Energy Engineering @ University of Newcastle