A Subject Selection Checklist

It’s been relatively quiet around here lately; the both of us have started a new semester, and there’s the usual mess of selecting subjects and finding our way around our respective campuses. Mine is bigger, and therefore harder to navigate, and therefore I have more reason for my lateness in posting something new. But most of all, it’s the subjects and studying that is making me so, very, busy. Being in my final semester under the Arts degree, I have to make sure I select the right subjects to graduate. But at the same time, I can’t overload myself, either on the classes, or the readings/out-of-class work, or the exams/essays.

When picking subjects, these are the rules I generally follow:

1) I’ll enjoy studying this subject. The topics sound good. How do I know this? I’ve read what brief information there is on the university website (e.g, on a course profile or a faculty page), or I’ve done some really basic reading on the subject (e.g, handy Google, Wikipedia searches), or I’ve talked to someone else who’s done the subject, and they told me what they studied.

2) The lecturer’s pretty capable. Or he/she totally rocks. This is a little harder to find out: if you’re in your first semester, you’re probably best off ignoring this rule, or asking your seniors, if you know them. But if you’ve been around a while, you’re likely to know more of the lecturers and hear more feedback from fellow students. Trust me on this: a bad lecturer, whether he/she be boring, rambling, a slow speaker, a heavily accented speaker, a too-fast speaker, a nose-in-book type, a face-to-blackboard type, etc, can utterly screw up your learning experience.

3) It fits okay in my timetable. There aren’t any timetable clashes that absolutely cannot be resolved; if there are, I’ve checked with my faculty officers/counsellors and they’ve found a way for me to bypass the

 

Outside the Box

The time in university is the best opportunity to take control of your life, to do things that you’ve always wanted to do. The only problem is, it requires A LOT OF discipline, initiative and self-motivation to get yourself going.

I remembered back in high school, there was compulsory CIP hours which we had to fulfil. I found it ridiculous that it could be reflected in my resume as ‘community service’, when it was just a mere few hours rather than a long sustainable activity like how some people have devoted themselves into. As compared to those, these few compulsory CIP hours seem so trivial.

The point is, is it possible for us to step out of the school’s set obligations and pursue our own interests? I know I wrote in the previous post about the beauty of formal education, having us to do things that we normally do not bother with. However, is it possible to challenge this notion and find enriching activities by ourselves? Indeed, it can be hard because we may be alone in our venture; it can be difficult when we meet various shut doors because we are not of authority. However, there are many opportunities available and if we dare try, surely, there is someone who must be willing to accept us.

So this semester, I am trying to find my own worthy ventures. Rather than relying on leadership programmes offered by the university that requires compulsory hours of community service, I wonder how far can I go as an individual…

 

Gearing for the Semester Ahead

I feel much more refreshed after spending 3 weeks away from Melbourne. After being sad and frustrated for one entire semester, it’s time to get back on the horse and start off the new semester and, the new academic year with the right note.

 

Glancing Back at Year One

It’s time I posted something, seeing as Sunny’s put up three of her own already while I’ve been enjoying a weekend holiday on the Gold Coast. Ahh, sunny Queensland winters. (In case you were wondering: Sunny is currently in the University of Melbourne, while I’m in the University of Queensland. Explore the About pages, linked on the top and on the right of the home page.)

So. First year. It’s transition, in many senses of the word: you’re leaving the uniform-and-timetable affair of secondary school, you may be going to a different place from most of your friends, you may be leaving home or the country altogether. Quite naturally, the first year experience isn’t going to be a breeze, especially if you’re starting uni overseas, without many family members or friends around, and you’re going to a “western” culture from a “typical” asian one. There’s so much you can say about the first year, so I’ll do a relatively quick impression of the whole experience. In a bunch of words though: drifting, freedom, loneliness, independence.

 

Perspective

I have just arrived home for the winter holidays and was sharing with my parents my thoughts on university education. My first two posts were published in a more negative tone. I will not attempt to deny it- university life is intimidating and not a rosy picture as one would imagine.

However, rather than being put forward as cynical or even, trying to be overly possimistic even if there is no reason to, I would rather just say the truth. This truth, though, does not come with all ‘woe me, my world is doom’ kind of thought, but a more hopeful one, because we have to fall in order to stand up. We have to lose something before we can truly appreciate what we have. A sense of hope. After all, this is what the journey is about- finding our own light at the end of the tunnel.

No doubt, tertiary education can be daunting, but if you are willing to take things step by step, you’ll find the experience extremely rewarding and you will become the person you never thought you could be.

 

Spin the Wheel

Accounts of people having changed their majors many a time, incurring additional years of studies, is not a rare occurrence. This is because for most traditional universities, students would already have been enrolled in a programme that is confined to a certain faculty, and set on their course where they would have to complete certain compulsory core subjects. While there may be freedom to explore other study areas, it can only be one or two subjects within the first year to do so. By the end of the first year, you are expected to already have a certain idea of what course you plan to major in. Many universities boast of ‘flexibility’ in choosing majors. Well, that is not true especially when each advance level courses requires a basic level course as prerequisite before you can even do more on it. Furthermore, being restricted under the requirements of your course in order to graduate, naturally, the space you have to explore your interest in areas other than your faculty throughout your entire degree is even narrower.

My idea of university degrees is only limited to the more popular ones- Commerce, Medicine, Law, and since I was an arts student, Arts. I came from an education system where career guidance was very limited. We only had one careers’ counsellor in the entire college to 800 students and only the crème de la crème is immediately assigned to a teacher mentor, while the rest of us wade in deep water, and trying to find the nearest bay. I never had much of an idea what I wanted to be. 

 

Surviving Year One

As compared to the average university student, I think I had my first year bad as I couldn’t adapt to the transition from college/high school to university very well. After having been in University of Auckland for one semester under the Bachelor of Arts, and spending the next semester in University of Melbourne, pursuing a degree under the Faculty of Economics and Commerce, I have finally completed my first year of university, but not with a great sense of satisfaction.

I entered university with the great expectation that it would be far more intellectually stimulating than college and high school. After all, when the last six years were so exam-driven, we hardly had time to discuss the things that matter. The teachers were all rushing to complete the appointed syllabus before the year ended and the examination period loomed, such that the only things I associated education with were nothing but a chore and studying.

 

At the Beginning

About half a year ago, Christina and I each put up posts about our experiences under the ASEAN Pre-U scholarship in Singapore, on our individual blogs. It seemed like a lot of students wanted to know more about the scholarship, and from my own experience as graduating high schooler, there isn’t much information out there - and hardly any from an experienced, first person perspective. Deciding where to go after finishing high school can be pretty difficult. So is deciding what to do after pre-university, and then university comes in and you get to see educational chaos ensue. So Christina thought it would be a fantastic idea to set up a website where people could share their thoughts and opinions coming up from high school and into university to make the process a bit less confusing.

What this blog will be, then, is a collection of stories about our education experiences: the problems we encountered (and are encountering) and how we got around them. We’ll do our best to provide factual information along with our opinions, and we’re also hoping for other students to provide their own anecdotes. If you’re currently trying to apply for a place at university, or currently wondering what to do after high school, then do post a comment on one of our posts about what you find frustrating. Alternatively, send us an email at twelveroads [at] gmail [dot] com telling us what you’d like to see on the blog.

We’ll try to get things rolling quickly. Christina’s still got one last exam to go, but I’ve just finished mine for the semester and am trying to find something to fill my suddenly-empty timetable - keep an eye out for new stuff, and welcome to TwelveRoads!

 

Coming Soon

A blog on the educational experiences of the authors and many others to come.

We hope that by reading our experiences, you will gain a better insight of what is to come in your life. Anecdotes of your own stories are also welcome:)

Watch this space!