It's rare for me to dip my toes into philosophy so for all those philosophical purists out there, excuse my use of "nihilism" if it is used poorly.
There is nothing less nerve-wracking, sweat-inducing, adrenaline-producing, heart-pounding of a moment than waiting for the final minutes to tick down before you flip open the first page of an assessment. I don't doubt that this is something that most of us struggle with, especially considering our recent transition from an education system that defined you by numbers and IDs.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
Yes, yes, yes. We've all heard that quote from somewhere, and it's probably stuck up on a primary school classroom wall where little kiddies all look wondrously upon it like some sacred creed.
The very harsh reality (as we university/graduated high school students understand) is that we won't land among the stars sometimes. Even worse, we can feel like we have actually sunk more and more into the ground.
Remember how you felt asking your now boyfriend/girlfriend out for the first time? Or how you felt during your P-plate test? Or, more recently, perhaps the intense few moments before you saw your ATAR? It's no lie we get nervous at anything with high stakes.
But what if the stakes weren't that high?
I'm going to make an assumption here that - since we all go to UniMelb, we have high ambitions or goals we want to achieve in life (no, the university did not pay me to say that).
Let's go back to that John Doe experiencing that nerve-wracking, sweat-inducing, adrenaline-producing, heart-pounding few seconds before he opens his test. John Doe, whilst academically competent, is short-sighted to some extent. John Doe sees this test as an obstacle to his future, whereas it really is but a side quest in the pilgrimage of life.
But don't just take my word for it. Apply it to your own situation.
Do you have a dream? An ambitious goal you want to achieve beyond your academic years at the university? Maybe you want to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? Maybe you want to discover a breakthrough cancer treatment medication? Or perhaps you want to concoct a piece of literature so superb you'll be known as the modern-day Shakespeare?
Now, with the grand scope of everything in sight, reconsider the (in)significance of this test.
Does this test really have you in that much of a chokehold like John Doe? No. Relax. Take it easy. By all means, try your best but don't sweat it.
That's where a little bit of nihilism comes in.
Of course, don't believe that life is meaningless like the definition wants you to, but it doesn't hurt to take that attitude and apply it to the test you're so stressed about.
Remember all those times in Year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12, when you worried about your test results? Where is that concern now? Gone. Vanished in thin air as the endless flow of time naturally carried your burdens away.
Don't let the mentality or score on this one test affect your life goal. Your life plans of appreciable contributions to society will not be derailed if you leave a blank answer on your test papers. In truth, some years later, you'll find that this one assessment really didn't matter and you were able to carry yourself onwards despite the mental trench you enclosed yourself in.
Am I a hypocrite?
I am writing this article as perhaps one of the many that may vehemently reject this moral.
I want to study medicine at the University of Melbourne - one of the few thousands around Australia. It is a supremely competitive course with an acceptance rate probably somewhere in the single digits.
As a part of my application, my GPA (derived from my WAM) is accounted for. First-year subjects are weighed with a factor of 1, second-year subjects with a factor of 2, third-year subjects with a factor of 3. I will end up doing 24 subjects during my time at uni.
Recently, I stressed about and completed an online test worth 10% of the grade on a subject.
Hence the percentage is 0.1/48 * 100(%) = 0.2083%.
But that's not all... my WAM is only 25% of my entire application. So, after all, that single test is worth 0.0521%.
Yeah, thinking back, it really wasn't worth stressing about. Especially not in my first year of university.
Final Words of Wisdom
For all the Jaffies or future Jaffies reading this. Stop worrying.Your time will come uni and you'll have your golden moment, but stop stressing about these little assessments that have little meaning during academia and even less so in your future career. Enjoy life for a little while and take the burden of your future off your back - because you don't need to carry it just yet.
The trains near my house never arrive on time... but this post will.
Between begging for public transport to arrive and finding a classroom tucked away in the most isolated corridor, I certainly could say that there were times in life when things were more straightforward.
Although - to be entirely fair - no one said that uni is easy (a sentiment that especially resonates with STEM majors), and oh my am I glad to have left my VCE days behind me.
The first few weeks of uni have been more than busy but rewarding - it forces you to savour the little things in between your hours of pre-readings, lectures, workshops, tutorials and practicals.
A quick nap in the Beanbag Room of the Rowden White Library never did any harm...
What am I doing here?
As a STEM major, I probably lack some of the artistic vocabulary and articulation one would associate with fellow BA and BMus or really any non-STEM students.
It also doesn't help that the public impression of my academic populace are glass-wearing nerds submerging themselves into formulae, graphs, differential calculus, biochemical processes, and debating whether particles are truly particles or really just waves (yes! This is true! Search it up).
But, after having a taste of editorial experience spanning from my high school leadership, I must confess that I've taken a liking to these wonderful concoctions of letters and words on a page - and I enjoy them all the more when they help people to grasp an idea, concept, theory, etc.
I certainly don't want these (partially) useful articles to resign themselves to a corner of the internet left untouched by humans, which is why I hope that in the coming year, our team of linguistically gifted Jaffies will help revamp this diary to influence more and more people! So current and prospective students alike can get an idea of what UniMelb life is like (information that I personally found lacking during my transition from HS to uni).
About me
Okay, here's probably the part that's more relevant to the title of this article.
I'm Isaac (a sentence I've said a million times during O-week) and I'm a first-year Bachelor of Science student. I have no idea what major I'm going to do but it's most likely going to be on the health sciences side.
Outside of uni, I play guitar (especially Texan blues... oddly specific), enjoy watching F1, cooking, and have recently taken a liking to fishing (despite not living anywhere near a body of water).
My very treasured assortment of guitars.First attempt at homemade pasta.
I really like planes, trains, buses, cars - or anything mechanical that moves in general.
I wouldn't call myself a knowledgeable about them though... I just really like looking at them
If it weren't for my fervent, personal distaste for a mathematics-based career, I probably would have become an engineer.
Oh and cats. I really like cats.
Cat on a mountain in China. Meow.
I hope that we'll be able to grow this amazing editorial tradition around UniMelb! I look forward to sharing with you all my journey at this great institution, advice to succeed in uni, and my general ramblings (which those with lesser fortune may encounter).
hi everyone, my name is charlie (rhymes with barley) & it is a pleasure to meet you all !
i study arts at the university of melbourne and i take classes in media, philosophy & politics- even though i have no idea about any of them. i'm here to learn not excel, so i think i'm okay with being a little bit lost right now.
i live in the suburb of caroline springs, which homes about 25 thousand people. one of those 25 thousand is my girlfriend, a couple of them are my friends & even more of them are people i love, or have loved at some point in my life. the travel time from home to university is about an hour, maybe an hour and a half; which i am definitely not going to complain about. when i'm on the train, i like to read or play games on my phone, or put on a whimsical playlist and look out the windows longingly (like every girl does).
i am 18 years old. i was born in june of 2006 to a loving mother & father, who already had a young child at home. i'm a gemini, but im not sure how i feel about those sort of things. i do love to look at the stars though. i read my horoscope sometimes, if it pops up, but mainly i like to see the things they say about the people i love & try to figure out if they're true or not.
i love to collect things. i junk journal, not aesthetically or anything, but i think it still counts. i love collecting photos and trinkets, and displaying them sporadically around my little room. i like to collect business cards from places or people that i visit, pokémon cards, soda tabs, books, games and scraps of yarn or fabric. i like to keep things physically, i like to be able to feel & look back on things that i have gathered. if you ask my mum, i hold on to too much, but i think it’s just enough.
my house is brick with a red drive way. the roof has a hole in it from where a mother bird made a nest for her and her babies- they are my upstairs neighbours. i live with my mum & dad, along with my brother, i have a cat and a dog, and sometimes my girlfriend stays for a while too. my room is decorated to the brim with love, underneath the current white paint are shades of pink and teal from when i was a girl. there are no ghosts in my house, but there are memories- handprints on walls and scratches on furniture and thousands upon thousands of photos.
i work at a supermarket 3 days a week and i have for about 4 years. i slice up meet for sandwiches, sell salmon for sushi or chicken for curry. sometimes i get to put the little yellow discount tickets on the products at 2 o'clock and move them to a little shelf in the front of the store so they can be heavily judged by customers and passerbys.
my favourite movie is juno, my favourite artist is adrianne lenker, my favourite book is my neighbour totoro: the novel & my favourite emotion is love. i am approximately 168 centimeters tall, i have a scar on my knee from when i fell riding my first (and only) bike, my hair and eyes are the same colour of brown as my mothers at my age & my skin is sensitive to the sun just like my father.
im excited to keep writing on this blog, to have a trail of my thoughts & feelings during my time at university. i hope you enjoyed this first piece, thank you for reading and thank you for meeting me.
Three weeks in, and Melbourne has already taught me two crucial lessons. First, a 30kg suitcase barely holds enough essentials. Second, regardless of how meticulously you plan, the need for stuff—the right stuff—hits you fast. A keep cup for those 9am lectures, a water bottle for the scorching summer days, and maybe a notebook or two to make studying feel official.
For the budget-conscious student, the start of university is a gold mine of freebies—enough to fill more bags than you can carry—conveniently, there's no shortage of free tote bags to help.
A selection of the various freebies I've gotten over the past three weeks.
O-Week is a perfect place to start. Between the bustling atmosphere of Market Hall and the tree-covered shade of the ERC lawn, you'll find plenty of stalls from clubs, societies, and organizations filled to the brim with merch. Engage. Strike up a conversation, and try your hand at a few games. The reward? A potentially impressive haul of goods. You might score hoodies, socks, or even—as I witnessed—a full-sized computer monitor courtesy of one particularly ambitious club.
Don't overlook the corporate stalls at the top of the Student Pavilion either. Throughout the week, I managed to snag everything from free bubble tea to premium student licenses for study software I still use every day, and who can forget all cans of free energy drinks for the inevitable all-night cram sessions? If you're feeling especially lucky, you might even win some big-ticket items, like an iPad or a shiny new smartphone.
If luck isn't on your side, and you'd much prefer a more guaranteed reward, attend your faculty's Commencement Ceremony. That's where the coveted, faculty-specific hoodie awaits. You might also pick up a few other welcome additions while you're there, like key chains and UoM-branded playing cards.
But freebies aside, there are plenty of reasons to dive into O-Week—especially during UMSU’s Summerfest (or Winterfest, for mid-year starters). That's when the Clubs Expo is in full swing; it’s a chance to meet new friends, discover your perfect club, and ease into university life before lectures begin. If you're on the fence about joining any clubs and looking for slightly more incentives, club memberships can also lead to many more vouchers and freebies throughout the year that more than make up for the small sign-up fee.
O-Week might come and go in what feels like a blink of an eye, but that doesn't mean the freebies end there. While you get lost trying to figure out where your lecture at PAR-192-L2-L108 is in the 35.2 hectares campus, keep an eye out for the many other events that could be running between your lectures.
If you're ever feeling hungry, go to the south lawn by the iconic Old Arts Building. There, every Thursday, the Science Students Society or the Melbourne Arts Student Society hosts free lunchtime BBQs for members (NOTE: membership is $5). Relax on the grass, savour a freshly cooked snag, and wash it down with a complimentary soft drink.
For Summer Starters, March is employability week at the University of Melbourne; which means career fairs. While it's easy to put aside the question of careers as a problem for future-you—after all, three years feels like forever—Getting a head start on your future is never a bad idea. Even if you’re not ready to think about internships just yet, the companies are practically throwing free merch at you: T-shirts, laptop bags, playing cards, stickers, and, yes, even more water bottles.
At the end of the day, The start of Uni isn’t just about the freebies. It’s about settling in, finding your community, and making this sprawling campus feel a little more like home. So sign up, show up, and say yes to new experiences—you never know what you might walk away with.
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 Diaries blog is currently in its 20th year of giving first years the space to share their experiences of starting and 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.
To apply to become a blogger, write a 100-word mini-blog about why you’d be a great first year blogger and submit it via the application form by Tuesday 11 March 2025.
*A number of the events mentioned were spread out over a couple of months, but I'm only now putting pen to metaphorical paper; thoughts to coherent words. They're just dated as I've written them. It feels nice to accumulate a collection of writings before publishing anything.
8/6 You know it's winter in Melbourne when you find yourself spinning around in the shower like a shawarma spit trying to warm up.
29/6 The mid winter gloom is settling in, where opening the curtains and keeping them shut barely makes a difference to my dampened spirits. Why do people take seasonal affective disorder so seriously when everyone I talk to is going through the same symptoms? We weren't made to be holed up in small stuffy rooms, to work the daily grind until our finger joints are worn sore, eyes red raw & back hunched over. The poor ventilation doesn't help. Everywhere I go, someone's got the sniffles.
30/6 I've been focusing on being grateful for what I have, and living in the moment: It's the [6th of July] 2024, I'm here, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be. I want to live everyday like I'm still in kindergarten - to focus on what I'm doing, when I've assigned time to do it, with the laser-minded determination of a preschooler. To be so in the moment that half an hour mixing potions in a sandpit can feel like an entire afternoon. To find joy in the simplest parts of being alive. To stop and catch the raindrops on a gloomy winter's day.
1/7 Somehow, it's July already. Time moves fast when you're keeping busy. I grew obsessed with a guy for 10 business days (*not accurate, but it's subjectively funnier to say). I can't keep my head on straight. There's logical processing happening somewhere in my brain, but it's all obscured by a haze of whatever heart-fluttering thing he's done lately. I swear I can see his pupils dilate when he looks at me (blown wide, with just a ring of colour drowning in black). I don't know what to do with myself. It's hard to think straight. "Every time I come into the city, you're all that I can see." (like a blinkered horse, but romantically)
?/7 Today's good - do absolutely nothing for as long as possible (no screens; reading, cleaning, household chores) until I can't take it anymore. Productivity is bred from boredom. I should really revise some of my sem1 subject content before I don't have time to.
There's something comforting about writing first thing in the morning - the smell of the greasy metallic ballpoint, the ASMR of the pen on textured-paper vibrating through your finger pads. Sometimes it's so quiet you can almost feel every grain of wood pulp.
?/7 "As June runs into warm July, I think of little else but you" - Wendy Cope. My internal monologue is starting to sound like you. You're suffused into every pore of my being, before I've even said yes to dating you. It's still not enough.
?/7 It didn't work out. It seems some things are doomed from the very beginning.
In a state of idleness for another two weeks and glad for it, Pepper
Of course I know leaves come from trees but it seems like it’s always been leaves on tree -> leaves on ground. I don’t know how this is the first time I’ve ever seen a soft rain of leaves. I also never knew vines could turn red. Red blooms over them like vivid watercolour, taking over their usual lime green, and dusky purple stains their undersides. The brick wall behind them is lit a bright syrupy orange by the warm afternoon sun. Underfoot are gum leaves of pale pink and dusty ochre, coated with a weird sprinkling of stuff that looks like elongated white dust. My brain goes to short skinny little white worms but I shut that image off before it gets too far. (If I had better nature vocabulary I would be able to describe these things better I swear.)
There is one tree that I walk past every time I go to campus that has been growing on me. Its leaves are a brilliant lime green that contrast with the dark trunk, shaped like fat ovals that taper into two pointed ends. ~I am so proud of that description since I can never manage to capture the shape of a leaf and I've written the same phrase in about three different pieces of writing since I came up with it a couple of weeks ago.~ A few days ago when I was walking home from the train station, I saw in the front garden of a random suburban house those same fat oval leaves with pointed ends glowing a brilliant lime green against a dark trunk. I was so excited that it was the same type of tree! It felt like magic.
This shows how disconnected I am with nature lol. But I suppose there are firsts for everything.
Occasionally I feel weird about standing there craning my neck staring intently at something mundane, whether that be a brick wall or a tree. Then I remind myself that no one cares what I'm looking at. If I didn't open my eyes properly in autumn it'd be my own loss anyway.
From your very-happy-with-autumn-on-campus girlie,
I didn't know uni was going to get this hectic. but I'm enjoying it because I don't have to time to complain about being bored right now. Recently I joined the Softball club and I had a great first game today. Just balancing Dance and Softball with work and uni has kept me on my toes, however I've managed to squeeze in some time for myself as self care time is very important for everyone. With all the MSTs coming to an end, it is now the grace period before exam season begins. I know I'm early but I've decided to start studying little by little from now as I know no matter when I start, I'm going to be stressing and hecticly doing work right before my exams. Also, I had an adventerous Wednesday when my friend and I went searching for a crepe cake shop as we went to the wrong entrance and nearly went up to someone's apartment which was scary. Anyways steering away from randomness I just want to encourage everyone to start revising little by little from now because I feel like the month is going to whizz past, but also be kind to yourselves and have some relaxation time.
Today, April 30 2024, marks the day that I’ve finally had a coffee at Melbourne University. It also marks the first time that I’ve ordered my own coffee, strangely enough. I was always scared I would order wrong. Turns out asking for a small chai latte isn’t actually that difficult!
Coffee at least seems to me to be a big thing here. I’ve lived in and around Melbourne my whole life, I should know this. I don’t. Maybe I should. But I liked my small chai latte, so maybe I'll try that some more in the future.
I’ve had this big looming 2000 word essay casting my entire life in a shadow of anxiety, and today I was on campus all day, determined to finish it. I don’t know how to plan an essay for the life of me, so this essay worth half my grade is a long process of finding a source, writing a couple paragraphs about it, and fumbling to tie it back to my argument, over and over again. If I had more time, I’d rewrite it entirely and just use this as a first draft. However I lack that time, and I’m going to just try to polish this one up tomorrow.
Here’s a lesson: actually research before you make your essay plan! I had an essay plan but then I very quickly realised that one of the sources I was planning on using had a much better position than my own and turns out that my new argument means I’m arguing against 95% of the research on the topic.
I had about 750 words when I got to Arts West. I’ve been enjoying sitting by the windows on Level 1 and looking out at the people walking by on Professor’s Walk. I’ve long enjoyed the dark academia aesthetic (although I’m far too unserious to commit to it in any sense) and something about the overcast Melbourne weather dimly lighting the desks is remarkably pleasant to me.
For some reason, the lamps on Level 1 don’t work. I saw them working on Level 2. I flicked the little switch on one, waiting for it to do something. Nothing. I googled it: ‘unimelb arts west floor 1 lamps not working’. Comfort is found in the fact that my forefathers before me have shouldered these same struggles. It’s here I learn about the UniMelb Love Letters Facebook page! I heard about it again today from a Reddit thread (I’m not an active Redditor, I promise). Looking at it now, it seems very cute!
I spent most of the day with one of my friends from my early high school years. We hadn’t seen each other at all this semester and so we hung out in Bailleu just studying together. Eventually she left for work and I left to get gyoza, where I relocated to the Student Pavillion. I stayed there til 8:30.
The buildings at night are very pretty. It was a relatively cold and rainy day (Melbourne, ammirite?) but that only really serves to complement the city lights. I could see people in other buildings studying too, some people scattered across the Amphitheatre. I didn’t expect to see so many other people so late at night– at least, I have to commute for over an hour to get to and from uni, so staying out so late isn’t my norm. Plus, I’m used to local libraries being closed by that time. It was really nice to know that I’m definitely not the only one worrying about deadlines, staying out to study so as to not fall asleep at home.
I didn’t get to finish the essay, but that’s alright. I got to 1650 words, so I’m not disappointed in myself by any means. I’ll try to finish it up tomorrow and catch up on my modules before work.
In the meantime, I’m going to get some good sleep.
Do your assignments early and be kind to yourself.
Tis The MST season, but definitely not a period to be jolly. By the way, if you haven't come across MST before for some reason, it stands for 'mid semester test'. I had my first one last Friday and I have my last one this coming Tuesday. It's not really the studying that is tiring me out though, it is just that I have to come to uni 3-4 days a week and the long commute doesn't really help there. This month has been really hectic so far and it will end up being busy till the end. Apart from having many assignments and MSTs, I'm faced with other tasks such as planning my brithday party, going gift shopping for my friends' birthdays, dancing and playing Softball for the uni softball team. Although it seems like I've got a lot on my plate, I'm kind of enjoying it as I don't really have a moment to be bored. I feel like this month challenged by time mamangement and organisational skills, thus allowing me to sharpen them more. I strong reccomend joining the uni sports program as it is a great social getaway and an opportunity to be active. I sincerely wish my fellow peers good luck for their MSTs and I'm curious about what the rest of this month has in store for me.
