First month at university as a mature student

Things are starting to settle

Most university course prescribe particular classes that a student needs to pass, in oder to meet the requirements of their degree. You will generally be given an option of doing 2 or more elective units, that are usually not to be from the same faculty as your major. As an example, when I studied psychology, I took a marketing and a philosophy unit. From memory, I also did an Antarctica studies (easy pass unit) and a physics paper back when I completed my psychology degree. The idea behind this is to give university students some broader knowledge and experience. This could be a great opportunity to take a unit in an overseas campus or university too!

Ideally, your degree handbook, or an equivalent documentation will provide a breakdown of each mandatory unit, and a order that you should take your classes in. General units, such as first year algebra, or statistics, will be offered every semester, because they tend to be mandatory in a lot of different degrees and programmes. Less popular classes, particularly second year and above, will only be offered once a year. On top of it all, you might find that certain courses are deprecated over time, and should you miss the semester when its offered, you will need to figure out alternative classes to take in order to complete the requirements of your degree.

Failing a course that is offered once a year, will result in you having to repeat it next year, pushing back your degree by at least a semester, because you can only take 4 units at a time (clearly, your country or particular university may operate on a different structure, so this number will wary).

Drawing from personal experience, the Computing Science degree I was partaking at Curtin University was due for a significant overhaul in its structure and courses offered. Because of this, I only had one shot to complete a Computer Graphics unit, as well as an Artificial Intelligence unit, since they were both about to be replaced by new courses. The Artificial Intelligence unit was actually replaced by two new courses, and it was hinted, at least at that point that in order to fulfil the requirements of my degree, I would need to complete both of those units (no way I was going to do that since each class cost me over a thousand bucks!). I was fortunate that one of my tutors suggested to speak with the undergraduate unit coordinator (who coincidentally was one of the best lecturers I have come across). He essentially customized the order of my courses taken, because I started mid year, taking into account the units that were about to be stopped. Unfortunately, I ended up taking some courses out of order, and attending classes that I have not yet completed the prerequisites unit for. In fact, I took the prerequisite unit, and its subsequent course in the same semester, having to run a really tight ship in order to not fall behind, or worse, fail. If I recall correctly, I also had to apply for an exception, in order to be allowed into some courses.

The morale of this, is that you need to make sure your schedule is locked in and is not going to cause you problems down the road. I know many fellow students who ended up extending their degree for 6-12 months, missing out on internships and graduate opportunities, also then having to wait for 6 months for the graduate program intakes to begin.

Enough negatives though, its not so bad in the end. Ask a lot of questions, make sure to use the resources available to you! Remember that the words of your fellow students, or even tutors, might not be exactly accurate or honest. Make sure to always speak with your lecturers, unit coordinators, student services and faculty dean. They always have a method of contacting them, or scheduling an individual appointment, where you will be able to resolve these concerns. In saying that, do make sure that you use their valuable time effectively. These guys are usually extremely busy through the semester. In fact, there is a sweet spot just after the exam marking is done, results are released, and the teaching staff hasn't gone on holiday yet. During this period of time, the lecturers will generally be much more available and less stressed. I have made a few appointments during those times for various reasons over my degree.

The weekly routine

By the second or third week, our class schedules and locations have settled (occasionally your timetable or class location would change depending on university-wide adjustments). By this point, I would have 4 document binders with plastic sleeves - one for each unit. The first sleeve would have a unit outline, a more or less official document containing course description, points of contact, academic calendar, that outlined assessment and other key dates for that unit, a list of recommended and mandatory readings, grading information, and other unit-specific information. This was treated as a contract between the student and the course, so for example any dates on the calendar, could not be easily changed by the academic staff. While I appreciate that we now live in a digital era, and these unit outlines are always within reach online, I preferred to have a printed copy available to me at any point and time.

Same went to for lecture notes and slides. I printed these out at home, and would place them in my document binder. I also carried a stack of loose note paper, to use for making written notes, which would be attached to the lecture slides later. This way, over the course of the semester, I would end up with 12 sleeves of study material, for each week of the lectures. This system helped me keep study material organised, which came really handy by the time assessments and exams came.

Significant milestones in the first 4 weeks

Our semesters were 12 weeks long (teaching time), and had a 1 week break in between. From memory, I had a 2 week break back in University of Auckland, although that might have also changed. Since we are still in week 4, we have not yet quite reached that break, however at this point there already have been some assessments. Certain classes had a weekly tutorial/workshop, where we would complete a small marked test, that contributed towards the final grade. Other classes would only have assignments and mid semester tests, with mid semester tests being conducted just before the mid-semester break, or right after it. By week 4, we were very close to these first significant assessments. This was a tricky time because you will have to juggle the weekly materials being presented, while also keeping track of past weeks studies, that you were going to be tested on. Mid-semester tests, tended to cover the first 5-6 weeks of studies, with the final exam covering the latter 6-12 weeks. However, it was possible that an exam could cover all of the semester, at least in brief, forcing you to revisit all of the unit content. This is where my binder system really came in handy!

By the way, I guess it really shows the teaching style I grew up in, since to this day, I prefer to make written notes, and find them easier to remember. I can only assume that modern generations will find making notes with a keyboard or a tablet just as effective. I do recall reading studies that showed written note taking helped with memorization but this was over 10 years ago now and so they are extremely likely to be outdated. At the end of the day, make sure you find the style that suits you, and don't be afraid to experiment. The only style that I will encourage you to avoid is the "show up to the lecture without anything" type of approach. I saw a few students like that in the first semester, who would rock up to the lecture, sit there, listening(?) to the lecturer and not make any notes. Needless to say, I didn't see a lot of them in the second semester.

Do I need a laptop? Is a tablet or university computers enough?

I will restrict this section to computer science related degrees, however in brief. I would say most degrees will benefit from you having a laptop available to you, with a decent battery. I started my first uni degree - psychology (to be more specific my first year was an entry course, which once completed, would grant me entry into university) in 2011, and I decided not to buy a laptop at first. I managed to do ok, since we had computer labs available, however at times, I would need to spend half an hour or so to find an available machine. Our library at the time also had a limited number of computers, while having a lot of study desks, so students with laptops had a lot more flexibility of where and when they could study.

By the time I start my psych degree, I knew I will purchase a laptop. Since I either travelled by bus or cycling, my choice was a very lightweight, Samsung Series 9 laptop, with decent battery capacity (although I still carried my charger with me for long study days). At that time, power banks were not yet common, especially high capacity ones for laptops, so I would usually need to find a study space with a plug nearby.

I must say that by the time I was doing Computer Science at Curtin, the universities really embraced the digital era. Curtin University has a lot more computers available, as well as powered study desks, so finding a place to study was never a problem. I'd imagine my old uni had also undergone similar transformations over the year, although I have not had a chance to visit.

For a computer science degree, or any related field, I will absolutely recommend for you to have a laptop, if you are in a position to purchase one. It does not have to be a high performance device. In fact, I would suggest to look for a lightweight model. I went through my degree with my trusted 13 inch Dell Inspiron laptop, which I still own and use as a guitar interface. It cost me 1200 AUD in 2019 and has a decent i7 Intel CPU, with 16GB of RAM. One major downside of this particular model is the abysmal battery which didn't last more than 2 hours when it was new.

In the next post, I will talk about some tricks, or hacks, if you may, that will make your days at uni easier and help deal with... emergencies...