Sydney Life

First year is over!

I know, I know, Keren, Lauren and Cath have dibs on “aaaaahgrhagrhagrhg/%^&@($* uni is over!” but I am still quite shocked at how quickly that went by. So I’m making a little comparison of what I’m doing now, and what I was doing this time last year...

And yes, I am quite aware of the minor assessment component that is exams so it’s not quite ‘over’ yet, but I am counting down the days until it is (20 days!!!! Many of you HSC-doers will have finished before me, I do believe!)

I’m sure you’re feeling the same shock and disbelief about the end of Year 12…and the end of high school! Maybe it’s because at uni I only have 26 actual contact weeks per year, but it really doesn’t feel like I’ve been here for that long.

I’m 1/4 of my way through my degree! That’s quite a lot when you think about it. 25%! If you had to eat one quarter of that huge chocolatey cake from the great movie Matilda, well you’d be pretty damn full and grossed out.. That’s my analogy for how far through my degree I am, take it or leave it.

In the meantime, I’ve had to pre-enrol online for next year, so I chose the following subjects (we get ages to change our minds):

*Brain and Behaviour
*Statistics and research methods in psychology (I am slightly forced to do these two given my degree)
*Photography 2 (I really enjoyed photography this semester)
*Modern Greek (My grandfather always corrects my Greek, eg the other day for the first time I found out that there are two ways to say “like”, and I’d been using the one that he described as being “far more suitable to be telling a boy”, to express my feelings towards things like eggplant, with which I promise I am not that close)

(Always make sure you’re doing subjects you’re allowed to, and that you know about what units of study you need to do, what requirements you need to fulfil, etc. I know a girl who’s about to finish the fifth year of her combined degree, and she JUST NOW received a letter from the uni telling her that, woops, she is 2 credit points from “table A Arts subjects” short of graduating...not cool, don’t let this be you!)

So now I’m just making plans for my holidays. And so should you! If you’re doing your HSC right now, I don’t suggest you put the brakes on studying and start planning a trip or anything, but always have something in mind to look forward to. For me, some travel is involved (I’m going to Japan in December…white Christmas!) and also work to roll in the mou-lah as I save for my (hopeful) exchange. This is probably the biggest non-work holiday you’ve ever had, so enjoy it!

If you’ve put Sydney Uni down in your preferences, another fun (debated by some) thing to do is check out the handbooks and find out the subjects and majors available to you (and your various options if you don’t get into your #1 choice). Or, if you just want to search for a course or particular unit of study, you can do that here. Just make sure you double check that you can actually do those specific subjects in your degree!

By the way, ‘unit of study’ = a subject. And ‘course’ = the degree or combination of degrees that you are enrolled in / wish to enrol in. A double degree means you end up with 2 degrees at the end of your stay at university, and usually they are compacted so that it is a shorter length of time than if you did two degrees one after the other.

I definitely remember being so eager to check out the minute details of every subject I could possibly do, and it took a couple of trawls through the website to find them, so there’s the inside info. (PS. Don’t get so caught up that you forget to study. If you’re likely to get too excited it may be a good plan to put ‘looking up potential subjects’ on the rewards list for your post-HSC celebration!)

And one last thing, something I’ve learnt about uni is, since there are no set lunch breaks (except apparently at Cumberland! They all have a break at 1pm or so I’ve been told!) I was constantly calling and messaging people…so be prepared for a spike in your phone bill within the first few weeks of uni!