First semester woes and woahs

This appeared in the Youniversity (punny!) section of BULL Magazine's 6th edition for 2012.

I attended high school in a semi-rural area of Sydney’s north-west. Blue-tongue lizards rather than ibis birds made periodic visits to the bins across the bush-enveloped grounds. This relatively sheltered environment – some might say idyllic, others suffocating – now seems pretty far removed from the hub of activity that is the Camperdown campus.

For those living a considerable distance from uni, the biggest changes aren’t necessarily emotional or even academic, but pragmatic. A considerable percentage of my classmates chose to attend Macquarie University, perhaps primarily for its comparative proximity to their homes. Aeronautical engineering student Nicholas Robinson claims the most painful modification he’s had to make to be “the time I get out of bed”. The daily commute (if that word can be used to describe a 10-minute car journey) to high school might increase five-fold or more for some. For lucky students such as myself, three-day timetables (and four-day weekends) go some way in offsetting this travel time.

Less time at uni also has its disadvantages for first-years, however. Fewer contact hours – for students of the Arts faculty, for instance – mean rather limited chances to meet new people for those who don’t actively participate in societies and the like. According to counsellor Paul O’Donohue, students undertaking a more structured, intense degree such as Dentistry might find it “a bit easier to meet someone” given the amount of time they spend with the same people each week, and that faculty’s comparatively small yearly student intake of about 200 people. This number is dwarfed by the 2000 new students who join the Arts faculty annually.

Seeing someone for an hour or two each week isn’t all that conducive to getting to know them, with uni friendships often flourishing gradually. Not that this is necessarily a problem. Hopefully we’ve all now evolved from our Year 7 selves, and no longer spend too much time floundering to find someone to sit with at lunch. A majority of uni attendees already have some social base – be it from school or elsewhere – upon whom they can rely outside of their course.

Tertiary study also represents a departure from the sort of rote learning that characterises the HSC. A new focus is instead placed on what O’Donohue describes as “self-directed learning and engaged enquiry”. HSC Subjects like Extension 2 English and Extension History help soften this blow, with the early development of research and citation skills, but for many this type of work is relatively foreign. Of course, uni work is generally more enjoyable given its apparent specification. However, pleasure doesn’t necessarily equate to ease; King confesses that “at times it feels like I’m doing my HSC over and over again.”

First-years, often accustomed to over-achieving within a school context, may also struggle with their apparently average position within a tertiary sphere. Add to all this the unfortunate condition of Mac-lessness some students still suffer, and a degree of stress seems justified.

A sense of removal from years spent adhering to the routine of the school system can also skew our impressions of our time spent within its bounds. Nicholas Robinson says that the diversity of community and activities offered at uni has seen him become more “jaded about the rigorous nature of school life”. Similarly, First-year Media & Communications student Madeleine King embraces the sense of self-determination offered by university as “a lifestyle, rather than an institution”. It’s this sort of freedom that makes it “so much more fun than high school”.

No transition as significant as that from high school to uni is without difficulty of some sort. Of course, not all problems faced by wide-eyed first-years are all that serious. Uni life can present both pleasure and pain to recently-certified adults. As Robinson declares, “the best thing about uni is that there are two bars on campus. The worst thing is that there are two bars on campus.”