What should you know in Year 13? What have I learnt as a University student?

I know Cindyscraftycraves has been dead for a while now but as per request from a few of my aggressively encouraging friends, I thought I’d pop by every now and again to share some words of advice based on my experiences at uni thus far.

Where have I been?

I graduated at the end of last year and moved to the University of Sydney in February to study a Bachelor of Commerce (liberal studies) majoring in Management, Marketing and Economics. I’m taking psychology in the science part of my course and am very much still volunteering getting involved in the V club here at uni.

Reflecting back on high school life, what did you learn in year 13 that was most helpful for university?

As cheesy as it sounds, set your goals high and work hard at it. I knew that I would not be satisfied with myself unless I got into an Australian university. I wanted to live elsewhere in the future and thought moving to Australia from NZ would be the perfect opportunity to do so. I did plenty of research before, talked to older friends about their experiences and calculated my odds of getting in.

This meant taking every possible opportunity to do well at school by applying for 30 scholarships (not even kidding you), asking my teachers to give me extra external exams so I had more chances of getting better grades (yes, I literally took 3 extra exams last year) and becoming best friends with the careers counsellors by meeting with them almost every week. I know this makes me sound like a crazy over-achiever, but I can tell you that when I pushed myself, I achieved so much better and reached more of my potential.

All in all, network in high school, set high goals for yourself and get involved because in the long term these are not only things you can talk about in scholarship interviews, but also amazing life experiences you can look back on.

What have I learnt so far at university?

Although everything you do in high school is super important to get to this next stage of your life, in reality none of what you did matters anymore. No one cares if I was deputy head girl last year, or if I was a scholar but you get to apply these skills you have learnt from your high school experiences and extra-curricular activities into your everyday life. It’s a good opportunity to start afresh and build up your resume again which is both daunting, but also extremely refreshing.

High school and university are very different. Just because you worked super hard like you did in high school doesn’t mean you will get an amazing grade, and I learnt this the hard way. Don’t set your expectations too high, especially if you’re moving overseas for university as there’s a period of adjustment you need to balance too. Especially for my subjects it was almost impossible finding past papers so I really had to do extra research outside of the content learnt and ask for help when needed. At my university there are student study centres and peer assisted learning sessions to give us extra help if needed, but it is your responsibility to go and seek these resources.

Self-management skills are fundamental to functioning as a university student. Make sure you balance your life by scheduling time for yourself, studies and social activities. I’ve tried to do this by joining the gym, getting a job and joining various other extra-curriculars so I am not so caught up in an endless routine of studying everyday, going to uni and sleeping.

I feel like this post is a messy jumble of tips and advice. I don’t want it to get too long so I’ll stop my tangent for now but if you want to see another post on how to apply for scholarships/Australian universities or extra advice on settling into a new environment let me know! Feel free to contact me too, I’m happy to help! 😊

Bye for now,