People have been telling me that I should have been making these decisions in high school. This week I have had the awakening, the awakening for which an unlucky few experience. This is the time when you realize that you are in the wrong course.
For me, this has come in the form of changing my major. I have come to the realization that I am a modern singer, studying to sing opera. It will take me the rest of the year to change over and then I will use what little credit I have in the classes I have done to make up some time.
Dear Reader, I wonder if you have ever faced this question. Are you doing the right thing? The words pounding in your head as you look out into your good, happy existence and ask yourself if you really need to change. You are doing well, enjoying yourself and yet something is just not right. The Elephant in corner of the room can only sit so long with un upset stomach before the sound starts getting louder and the gas more toxic till you are forced to leave the room. So now I am leaving the room. It has been comfortable, good and fun but the voice that I shoved deep down inside me is making its last-ditch effort to scream before it suffocates.
When I told my mum what I was going to do she told me her story. Around the same age as me, she could have made the hard choice to stop walking down the path she was on, but she didn't. Today she regrets that she didn't listen to her inner voice.
I've made my decision. It will be hard, very hard but at least I now know that I have done the right thing. Next time, dear reader, I promise my post will be a tad more uplifting.
Cheerio,
Tessa
PS. I've been listening to Captain Beefheart a lot nowadays. Check out Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart- muffin man (1975). I highly recommend it, if you like odd artists from the 70s singing songs about men who prefer muffins over cupcakes. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-6U0ccc_Hg)
(Lies, lies. But since this is the official Unimelb first year blog, hmmm I guess I'm not wrong)
Hello there! My name is Anita and along with Kat and Tessa, I'm one of the first year bloggers for 2017. Like all the other bloggers have done, I would like to take this first blog post as an opportunity to introduce myself.
First of all, I see myself as a anti-mainstream girl who loves to try new things. Since I have never made video blogs (or vlogs) before and no one has ever posted a vlog here, this year I am going to do a mixture of video and written blogs (hopefully). So here you go, my first vlog attempt!
Hopefully you know me a bit better now! So dear my readers/audience, welcome aboard First_Year@Unimelb Airlines Flight ANITA10001. If you haven't already done so, please fasten your seatbelt and adjust your seat to upright position, as there might be turbulence along the way. In the event of hysterical laughter, unfortunately the oxygen masks will not appear in front of you. And I'm sorry that there is no emergency exit in this aircraft, but you are welcome to follow us by clicking the log in button on the top left hand side. This applies to all Unimelb citizens and other passport holders.If you require any special assistance, please contact a flight attendant (Me!) by leaving a comment below.
On behalf of First_Year@Unimelb Airlines and the entire crew, I would like to thank you for joining us on this trip. Have a pleasant flight!
Anita :)
(And yes you are welcome to call me Fluffy)
P.S. In case if anyone is wondering, the mask I'm wearing is supposed to be a cat. I will try to make the whiskers more visible in the next video!
My name is Tessa and I am nineteen years, three months and two days old. I'm am now a blogger and this is where I will now be blogging. I am studying a Bachelor of Music as a classical singer, so I spend my time having my optimism kicked out of me. I enjoy making art, reading, writing, tinkering with motorbikes, playing my bass and being my odd self.
So reader, this year I will take you with me as I navigate my way through first-year uni. I hope that you will understand me as I try to explain the awkward moments that make up my life. If you feel so inclined leave me some stories of your own weird experiences in the comments or ask me about music or life in general. It may not help but at least you may get a laugh out of it.
My name is Kat, I'm studying a Bachelor of Arts and I'm so excited to be one of your first year bloggers for 2017. When I'm not studying (or procrastinating), you'll find me with a coffee in hand, hanging out with friends, blogging about music or watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
I hope to give you some insight into student life and what it's really like to study at the University of Melbourne. I'll endeavour to answer any questions you have; so please feel free to comment below!
Being a first year comes with its fair share of adventures and I can't wait to share them with you, especially as it's really difficult to imagine what uni is like before you get here. While I can tell you it's probably going to be different to what you picture, just know that some of the most unexpected things can turn out to be the most amazing parts of university.
Welcome to First_Year@UniMelb; whether you are a current or future student, a teacher, in high school or someone who is keen to know more. We hope that the posts to come offer a little something for each of you. Here's to an amazing 2017!
We'd love you to contribute to the First_Year@UniMelb Blog in 2017.
Do you like to write?
Do you want to help current & future students understand what uni is all about?
Do you want to be part of an online community, sharing advice (and getting advice) about how to settle into & succeed in first year?
The First_Year@UniMelb Blog is currently in its twelfth year of giving first years the space to share their experiences of starting & surviving uni with others.
Future students and fellow first years from Melbourne and around the world read the blog to find out what uni is really like, day to day.
In fact, around 2000 readers a month follow the latest happenings at First_Year@UniMelb.
Hi readers, I finished my exams four weeks ago, but have been so lazy since then that I haven’t made my planned end-of-year post yet! I wanted to write this post to wrap up how I felt about my year.
There are so many different feelings I have had at different times over the last year regarding Uni, from excitement about starting, to anxiety over the change, to stress because of the workload and everything in between. I’m not sure if the year was exactly what I expected it to be, but then again you have no way of knowing exactly what to expect until you jump in.
Finishing first year Uni is not met with nearly as much fanfare as finishing Year 12 — that makes sense, given how the latter is also the end of 13 years of schooling — and the shorter semester terms and less intense timetable compared to school have made me question how much I’ve achieved this year. Did I work as hard as I did last year?
I have decided that I have, just in different ways. I’ve had a massive year and have made such a push to involve myself in whatever ways I could. I think through all I've managed to do, I've had more fun and found out more about myself this year than any other before. Uni is like a new start, starting a brand new goal of a degree at a new place with a new style of learning.
The study has been harder and more intense than it was at School despite the flexible timetable and I think I've learnt a lot this year. I’ve got marks that I’m happy with too, so despite some speed bumps, I think I've made the most of my education in first year.
I don't have a job, and while during semester I don't feel like I have enough free time to devote to one, in between semesters I feel like I'd like to do more to save for the future (I'm planning to go on exchange in 2018!) It’s so hard to break into the jobs market, but until I do I’ll just enjoy the extra holidays I’m having now. I’ve also got a summer subject coming up and a lot of volunteering in January, so there’s not a lot of time to spare anyway!
My only regret this year is not blogging more! It’s hard to find time in busy uni life to sit down and write for all of you, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts throughout the year.
I still can’t believe the year’s over and that Christmas is less than two weeks away. Each year goes by faster than the last, I swear! I have had a massive year, and am so happy to have successfully finished first year Uni!
So bring on 2017, whether it be your second year like me, Year 12 of school (strap yourself in!), or if you’ll be starting your first year at Uni and maybe joining this blog. Well done on your work over this year, be proud of yourself and Merry Christmas!
Hello my reader buddies! How are you? Enjoying all the marvels of Springtime? If you've got hay-fever, probably the only thing you're enjoying is a box of Kleenex. If so, that's awful! (Have you tried the new aloe vera 3ply??) In a way, Spring's arrival is quite appropriate. This time of year is all about transitions and here we are: about to go our separate ways! *Sniff, sniff* But before we rugby-tackle the hay-fever sufferers for their tissues, we've got one more post to get through! So, prepare those stiff-upper lips, my reader pals! (Though not literally, because that would be slightly weird...)
The other day, I was - you guessed it - in an exam and a tiny-huge event happened: I dropped my biro. (Thrilling, I know!!) The soft 'clunk' of my pen on the floorboards gave me dejavu. I could picture myself as an unsuspecting first year, diving to recover a much-loved yellow highlighter, in my very first week. Well, I thought, I've moved on since then! With confidence, I leaned forward, deploying the utmost subtlety, to retrieve my biro. Leaning subtly, though, is harder than it looks. (Especially if, like me, you identify as 'clutzilla'.) In one ungraceful move, I slid straight off the chair and nearly smashed my head on the table leg. *Sigh!*
It's not the first time I've had a 'just-kill-me-now!' moment. It certainly won't be the last. The truth is, though I've been here for nearly a year, uni still manages to throw-up occasions which are embarrassing/shameful/make me want to wear a paper-bag on my head. It's even more mortifying when these mishaps are entirely preventable. Sometimes, for reasons known only to my inner-idiot, I make the same mistakes. I procrastinate. Don't study enough. Study too much. Put my foot in my mouth. Put my foot where there is no floor and fall over backwards. (Yes, this happened!) Or else, I make the egocentric blunder of thinking that I'm in control... only to discover (for the eight-thousandth time!) that I don't have complete power over the entire universe. (And frankly, the universe should be grateful!)
The only thing that comforts me (metaphor incoming!) is thinking of myself as a plant. (And by this I mean something appropriately poetic and sweet-smelling, not a venus fly-trap.) Every day, I grow a little, only to be stepped-on or squashed because I've set down my roots in the wrong place/at the wrong time. It's okay though, because every day, I learn. And even though, sometimes, I have to build myself up from the bottom again, my roots are strong and I'm hanging out for that sunlight, baby!
I could have written you posts about study-techniques and strategies. I didn't. Mostly because everyone else already knows better than me, anyway! Yet, I also figured, we're all in the same rickety boat: trying to improve ourselves and seem flawless. Meanwhile, we're still tripping, blundering and dropping our stationary. That's okay. However many times/how badly we stuff it up, there's always a better tomorrow coming... so long as we're resilient. Still, it's easy to think that you're hopeless and everyone else is perfect. If you get anything out of my blog, I hope it's that you're not the only one who occasionally finds yourself in a bit of a stinker. We all do. Whatever lengths we go to to hide it, we're all stinky underwhelming human beings at heart.
Whew! Enough deep stuff! Time for a quiz!
Q1. It's the first week of uni and you can't find your tut-room. Do you...
A. Get on your knees and pray for strength
B. Go visit a random tut-class and learn about the socioeconomic ramifications of climate change instead
C. Get so upset that you decide to skip the tut, go home and watch netflix
Q2. You're having an ice-breaker convo with someone you just met on campus and you uncharacteristically say something awkard. Do you...
A. Ask for cosmetic surgery on your tongue.
B. Burst into tears and book a flight to a deserted island where no social-interaction is required.
C. Pretend to have been possessed by aliens and use your phone to dial the mothership, requesting an emergency beam-up.
Q3. You have an exam tomorrow. Your reaction could most accurately be described as:
A. I've been studying for this exam on quantum physics my whole life.
B. What exam?!? (Due date, do date!)
C. I hear the Bahamas is nice at this time of year...
Adios, my blog-readers. Thank you so much for being there for me, throughout all of my triumphs and challenges. In return, I wish you all the best for all of yours.
Love always,
Aimee
*Cue happy dance music, balloons and party poppers*
Hi everyone, hope exams are going well for you all! For anyone interested in it, I thought I'd make a post to reflect on my study of Computer Science this year at Uni. It's an area that really interests me and that I've really enjoyed learning about this year.
A core part of Computer Science is programming; writing the foreign-looking code which forms instructions for computers to carry out tasks for you. You start very basic, but it's immediately powerful and magical, letting you take input from the keyboard and do whatever you like with it, using the insane power of computers to execute countless commands in fractions of a second.
If you've done a little bit of programming in the past like I had, and been hooked on the feeling of seeing your program work perfectly after a long time spent writing it, I'm happy to tell you that this feeling continues at University. Creating something from nothing, after a long time spent thinking, reasoning and solving the problem one line of code at a time feels great, and it's one of the things I love about the discipline. I was worried that as programming started to get more advanced and complex that it would lose this aspect, but I'm happy to report that first-year CS has been all I was hoping for.
In semester one, you study the subject COMP10001 Foundations of Computing. It's been a very vibrant subject I'd say, with great lecturers and an interactive learning site to guide your beginnings in programming. Most of the subject is about programming (with the Python language) but there's also a bit about general computing topics like the internet and problem-solving algorithms.
Projects formed a major part of the assessment, and were fun for me. There were three of them, and they got quite difficult, with the second one being widely complained about! There was a particularly memorable moment of solidarity a few days before the Project 2 deadline, where computing students crowded a computer lab, getting the last bit of help we could from the tutor-on-duty and trying, individually but all at the same time, to figure out how to do the project. The last assignment involved writing an AI player for a card game, which may sound crazy for an introductory subject, but you'd be surprised by how much you can learn in a semester, and the card game project was a great experience.
Second semester is COMP10002 Foundations of Algorithms, where you go much more in-depth with techniques for solving Computer Science problems like sorting and searching data, comparing algorithms and figuring out the trade-offs for each. There's a lot more learning under-the-hood, and going more in-depth with programming using the harder C language. However, there's still plenty to enjoy, including a great, engaging and entertaining lecturer! Seriously, if you can do this subject in second semester instead of first, it will be worth your while! (I can't speak for the lecturer in S1, but S2 is just so good!!) The two assignments in COMP10002 were very challenging, but also very rewarding and I learned heaps from them.
Both subjects include a mid-semester test as well as an end-of-semester exam. The COMP10001 mid-sem was the first time I had been in exam mode since VCE exams, and it was significant to go back into a big room (Wilson Hall) with rows of chairs and have to find your seat. Uni exams are better than VCAA exams though, you can even take your phone into the exam room as long as it's turned off and under your table! During end-of-semester exams, you're in the huge Royal Exhibition Building with thousands of other students, you have a seat number that you have to find and you have to have your student card to get marked off. There process feels different but becomes familiar after a while, even though I'll still never be comfortable with exams!
So whether you're thinking of doing a B-Sci in Computing and Software Systems, or you're set on Arts but will take Computing as your Breadth elective (both good choices), get excited for Computer Science @ UniMelb!
I've got another couple of weeks of exams, but I've got a bit more to write about before my year blogging is over. So keep checking back over the next few weeks!
Raph 😄
PS If you're interested at all in how quickly Computing as a field has grown, check out this article I wrote about it for the student magazine Farrago!
Back home, the streets were never really made for walking, with grotty public transportation and consistently hot climate. While it didn't really limit the paths I could take (taxis were much cheaper), it made "random" encounters to a restaurant, bistro or specific café require planning to an extent, and random discoveries to eateries are unseen aside from the ones that are located inside shopping centres. Melbourne, with its push towards public transport and temperatures that aren't consistently above 30 degrees Celsius allowed me to walk every day, either within campus, around the CBD, or even the odd trips to North and West Melbourne for some bargain tech hardware. This also allowed me to just explore the city for various things that sounded good, and end up being a unique experience. Continue reading "The Food Episode"→
I hope you're well and feeling on top of exams/work/life in general. At least, I hope exams/work/life aren't on top of you! (It's okay, they're on top of me too - ssh, don't tell anyone...) Today I thought I'd embrace my inner journalist and give you an exposé. That's right! Today, I'm going to give you all the dirt (literally and metaphorically!) on living in a share-house.
It's a hard but inevitable truth that when you move into cheap lodgings with several other messy and confused young people, it can feel like living in a third world country. For starters, you have the conventional hiccups. By these I mean the zoo of uninvited pests, the various species of mold growing on the walls and the frequent house-fires. (Our kitchen has caught alight so many times this year that if you announce, "THE STOVE'S ON FIRE!!!" the most you'll get by way of response is, "I'll be down in a minute...")
To these we must add the food-shortages, which I guess, aren't that surprising, given the complete lack of kitchen competence. In case you're wondering, the two-minute noodle stereotype is absolutely true! Yet, I've seen some more creative solutions to an empty food cupboard. One day, when he'd run out of both microwavable meals and milk, my housemate dined on a bowl of weetbix with Up & Go for lunch, followed by a loaf of frozen garlic bread for dinner. Parents' reactions to these teething problems are always interesting... The more devoted types will arrive at your door every week with care-packages of soap and frozen dinners alla Red Cross. Others keep well clear, in the hope that the 'little darlings' will sort it out for themselves.
So much for the boring stuff... But what is an independent student supposed to do about the utterly unexpected - nay - ridiculous? What, for example, do you say when you can't sit on the toilet because, last week, your housemate stood on it and snapped the seat in half? (Apparently, he wanted to see what his hair looked like from the back!) What becomes of diplomatic relations when housemate A wants revenge because housemate B ate all his peanut butter? Then, while avenging himself, he accidentally eats all of housemate C's vegemite, by mistake!
This might make share-house living sound a bit anarchic... which, to be honest, it is! But a journalist should consider both sides of the story. So, it would be remiss of me not to tell you about the magical side of becoming a housemate...
A while back, my very humble abode was disturbed by blood-chilling screams. The noise was coming from Housemate B's bedroom. First on the scene was Housemate C, who thought that Housemate B had been bitten by the mouse and was bleeding to death.
"Is everything alright?"
More screaming. I followed, thinking there had been a murder.
"Do you need help??"
Housemate B's screams became sobs. Lucky last came Housemate A.
"What's all the noise about!?"
Housemate B continued to cry hysterically.
"ARE YOU OKAY???" bellowed the other three.
Pause.
"NOOOO, I'M NOT OKAY!!" yelled Housemate B at last. "I JUST SPILLED BLACK TEA ALL OVER MY BED... AND THE BED'S ALL WHITE!!!"
The housemate rescue team sprung into action. In a mad rush, I grabbed some paper towels, Housemate C changed the sheets and Housemate A turned on the washing machine. Housemate B stood back, wiping her eyes and hiccuping, "Thank you... I love you guys!!"
It was only after the initial panic died down that we noticed Housemate B's laptop. Skype had been left open. There, on the screen, was the smiling face of Housemate B's boyfriend. He had been sitting there the whole time, watching on serenely, while his lady-friend and her housemates ran rings around each other.
It's irrefutable that a bunch of naive and vulnerable adolescents, stranded in a crummy flat, spells chaos. The wonderful thing is, when you're in a share-house, you and your fellow inmates bond over your shared vulnerability and naiveté. After all... who will be there with a congratulatory doughnut when you score an H1 or a big tub of ice-cream when you've been dumped? Who will run to your side when you need love to depend on or a shoulder to cry on? Who you gonna call?
The answer is simple. Your housemates. Every single time.
