Sydney Life

This is my last post. After finishing my fifth year at uni, time seems to run away from you as life becomes filled with work and other pursuits. So tonight, as a new batch of year twelves await the final outcome of their HSC year and embark on making the next decision about their education, I thought it timely to look back on the best and worst parts of being a uni student...

The Best Parts

1. Friends. Friends are an absolutely integral part of the university experience. For the first time in your life, you really get to choose your own friends – not because you’re forced to hang out with people in your grade, but because your friends share the same cultural, social, political, religious or educational interests as yourself.

2. Opening the door to your career. Being at uni makes you realise how many more jobs there are in the world besides the tired categories. It also makes you realise that you may want to do several jobs in your lifetime and help you decide on life-paths that will allow you to combine a few interests together. Uni also makes you realise that sometimes the best things for opening the door to your career are not relating to your studies, but the wonderful opportunities that clubs and societies provide.

3. Knowledge. Without a doubt, university leaves you feeling much more capable of understanding the world you live in – and that is a very satisfying thing. You feel able to tackle large social or work-related issues head on, and with a sense of critical awareness. Besides the amazing skills you learn in the classroom, some of the most striking lessons I have learnt have included; understanding the extent of the gap between the rich and the poor which exists in Sydney, and the vast cultural differences and life experiences which are open to people based on the suburbs they live in or the schools they went to. But perhaps most importantly, the best lesson I have learnt is how to use the university experience to level (some of) those differences with the right attitude, hard work and some initiative. And of course, never lose touch with or feel ashamed of where you came from.

4. Love. Uni is also where I also fell in love for the first (and second, and possibly, third time – although the jury is still out on the last one). Enough said.

The Worst Parts

1. Exams. If all my subjects were examined in research-based tasks or essays, I know I would have achieved much better marks! Exams are unnecessarily stressful and they do not sit well with the way my mind works. They require a mechanical, quick application of the facts in a limited time frame – rather than a deep, self-reflexive process of thinking. I hate exams!

2. Procrastination, fatigue and a lack of motivation. I think one part of uni that can be hard to manage is the odd semester where you just lose interest in what you’re doing; when you’d rather be travelling, or working, or partying… anything but studying. Fourth year law was a bit like that for me. With all compulsory subjects, and exam-based subjects that I felt were not giving me the opportunity to really demonstrate what I had learnt, it felt like the grass was always greener on the other side. My tip would be embrace your lack of motivation by taking a break and doing something different, which will be valuable to you in other ways. I went part time with university and took up an opportunity to work at a human rights organisation. Not only did that give me skills and improve my career opportunities, but it put my university studies back into context again. I was not simply there to do well at exams – I was there to deeply understand the law and learn how to make it my tool for my own goals.

3. Library fines. Library fines are just really, really annoying parts of being at uni. And to be honest, it’s not really the library’s fault. The library often sends you emails reminding you that your books are due, which has the unintended consequence of making you feel even more annoyed when your books invariably end up overdue.

All in all, my university experience has been an absolutely, overwhelmingly positive experience. There have been moments of difficulty in dealing with fatigue after years of study, but the trick is always to find new things to do and new opportunities to try. If you’re not doing a double degree, then you may not have the luxury of fatigue: uni tends to finish before you realise for most people!

The university experience is essentially an experience of opportunity. So many opportunities are waiting to be uncovered by you – and you have to find them and give them a shot. Don’t waste this incredible journey!

Goodbye and goodluck!