First week at university as a mature student

Meeting new people

Whether you like it or not, uni inevitably will present opportunities to meet new people. Probably more so than any other place. It was great to be among like-minded people, with more or less common goals (finish studies and earn the big bucks), hobbies, and interests. I remember meeting a guy early on who was one semester ahead of me, and we had chats about the game we both played. I also remember him explaining how pointers work in C, and it going way above my head at the time.

The reason he was only a semester above me and not a whole year above was because I started studies mid year. This added a further opportunity to meet more people because for half a year I interacted with the 2019 intake and for half a year I interacted with the 2020 intake of students. Essentially I was taking some units in a backwards order, in order to still be able to complete the degree in 3 years.

Timing is everything

I cannot emphasize enough how much better it is to start your degree in semester 1. It will help avoid a lot of headaches with class schedules. Furthermore, a lot of companies' grad programs revolve around the university semester structures so if you finish mid-year, you might need to wait until next year, for you grad program to start. This can be good or bad (take a holiday or do something else with this time). However, you can still make it work. I finished my degree mid year and was able to start working straight away (this will be covered in more detail in the future)

Let talk about time some more. Assuming that semester length, start and end dates are somewhat similar across universities, let's take a look at what a typical year looks like. Semester 1 starts at the end of February and lasts for 12 weeks, with a 1-2 week break in the middle. Although considered a study/lecture break, this time will most likely be used to catch up on study material, complete assignments and prepare for mid semester tests.

You might get around a week at the end of the semester before the exams. Depending on the exam schedule, you might also get a bit more time, since exam schedule lasts for several weeks. All in all, we are looking at around 16 weeks of interfacing with the university each semester, or 32 weeks a year, leaving you with around 20 weeks of a year left. Clearly, things might be different at your particular institution of choice, with trimester formats also being a possibility. I used some of that time to save up extra money, catch up on sleep or work on programming projects. I was also fortunate enough to do some tutoring for the computing department and marking of assignments/exams which was a good use of this spare time and an extra income.

While contact hours per unit tend to be roughly 3-4 hours a week, the general advise you will hear from lecturers is that for each contact hour, you will be spending an hour of study outside. Given that on average you will be doing 4 units a semester, the total comes to about 30 hours a week. Extra time should be allowed for assignments, assessment preparation, and group projects (oh boy, group projects are going to be a whole separate post).

30 hours a week is somewhere between part time and a full time job. In other words, that's a lot of hours! Do you have other commitments like family, children or a job? It's going to be tricky to juggle those things. A part-time study option is definitely something to consider if you are in that situation. Most of my lectures ran between 10am and 2pm, so I had opportunities to work in the morning and in the evening, with Saturdays also being my regular shift at a pharmacy I've been working for a few years. (This reminds me of my first Saturday off once I was in a position not to work weekends any more. It was a strange but a pleasant feeling!)

The brain, it hurts!

No amount of hours put in will matter, if its not utilized well. I definitely felt like my brain or mechanisms responsible for acquiring new information were hard to activate. The sheer volume of new information to absorb during the first set of lectures was almost too much. Unfortunately this does not get any better with time because the further you get into the degree, the harder the material becomes. So it was essential for me to nail down the process of covering the material, staying on top of lectures and assignments, while also addressing other life commitments. No, I was not very successful at doing that during the first semester or two.

Some units were easier, because of their foundational nature or because they were more interesting to me. Some units were very difficult (40% pass rate is a good indicator) or just outright boring/outdated, and therefore were a chore. Either way, I think with time, your brain will become more comfortable with processing and ingesting new information, just put effort in. This will be more obvious if you are coming from a job where you don't tend to learn new things all the time. For example, my pharmacy assistant position became very comfortable and repetitive, once I learned the core of my duties. This definitely made it harder going into an environment where I had to learn new things constantly. FYI, developing learning and critical thinking skills is probably the most important thing you can take from your degree. Even if a lot information learned in an IT degree might not be relevant to your job, or be seriously outdated, your ability to learn new things and to be able to assess and resolve issues will be your most important tools.

By year two, I certainly noticed that breaking down novel topics and tackling new challenges became easier. Even after two years in the workforce, I still try to keep that momentum going, learning about new technologies, topics and ideas. I think without it, it will be hard for me to continue my growth, and frankly, it will become boring!

Do not be afraid of anything I've described here. If you are genuinely interested in software development, just give it a solid go and see where it takes you!