Setting up for success

Descriptive transcript

Hi, and welcome back to a new season and a new episode of UTS Student Hacks.

I'm one of your hosts, Kelly, and I'm going into my fourth year of law and business, majoring in accounting.

And I'm Roxanne, in my fourth year of medical science and international studies, majoring in Japanese.

Awesome. So let's get right into it. Just get yourself some water, fruit, some snacks, treat yourself a little, stay hydrated—as always, as you should.

This episode, we'll be talking about setting up for success. So making sure you get off on the right foot for this semester, and hopefully for the entire year.

To do that, we're just going to talk about our uni experiences and look back and see what we might have done differently in our first year.

We're just going to start off with a pretty simple question: why did we even choose UTS? Roxanne?

Why did I choose UTS? Well, back in Year 12, I had a workshop from U@Uni, and I got to have a glimpse of what uni life was like at UTS. And I really enjoyed it. The buildings were very nice. I liked going on the elevator because it was very cool—it moved every time you stepped a foot on. And also, I was looking into Med Sci and International Studies, and it was the only degree that had the combination offered at UTS. So I applied for it, got the offer, hopped right in, accepted it, and now I've been here for the past four years.

Yeah, what about you?

So I chose UTS—well, one of the main points was that it had a really good location. It's literally in the heart of the city, and it's really easy to get to from where I live. I had a really nice time meeting students during Open Day, which UTS had when I was in Year 12. It really left a big impression that UTS was a very open community, and I wanted to be part of it.

Yeah, sounds pretty good.

We both had really good experiences. The next question: what we hoped for out of UTS and what we would have done differently in our first year?

Yeah, especially since we're now going into fourth year.

So we've been here for quite a long time now.

Yeah, time passes really fast.

Yeah, it does.

So what did you hope to get out of UTS, looking back now?

At the time, I just wanted to take it easy because going into university is a pretty big step up from high school. I took the traditional route: I got an ATAR, completed the HSC, and went straight into university. I didn't have that many friends from high school that I knew were going to UTS, so I basically started off with a clean slate, didn't know anyone. And I just wanted to take it easy and see what UTS had to offer, because I just wanted to try out new things and see what could spark my interest. Because I didn't know what was going to happen. Well, I had no idea what was going to happen during my university journey, so I just wanted to take it easy.

What about you, Roxanne?

For me, I think if looking back to my first year, it would have been really good to join a club, actually. Because everybody during their first year is quite nervous to meet new friends, especially if you've gone into uni without any of your high school friends. So joining a club, you'd meet similar students—a lot of first years join clubs. I think it's a good opportunity to meet others who have like-minded or similar interests.

Talking about clubs, I remember my first year where a lot of clubs had pub crawls.

Yeah, a lot of pub crawls.

They had a lot of pub crawls, but when I came into university, I was still 17. I still had quite a few months before I was legal enough to drink, so that was funny. I would see people asking me, "Oh, are you going to this particular pub crawl?" and I'm like, "Haha, I'm not legal yet."

But I think I applied for any opportunities I had to be a part of society, so I joined an open mooting competition. That's a very big thing to do in your first year, especially. It's like first year, first semester. With my degree, I don't do any law subjects—basically no law subjects in my first year. So I was going in with no legal knowledge. I had to learn things about, like, I think one of the buzzwords was "estoppel" and contracts, and I was like, I don't know what's going on. But it was a really good experience. I met a lot of people, learnt a lot about the whole thing, especially in mooting.

I can only imagine how much you would learn.

Yeah, like the rules—how you're meant to present yourself in court and how you'd make submissions, like how you set them out. It was a really good learning experience. But not gonna lie, it was a little traumatising.

Yeah, I can only imagine as well.

But if you ask anyone else who's done competitions like that, it's a really, really big opportunity and you can learn a lot from it.

If you're wondering how to be a part of societies, you can actually go to our Clubs Expo, which is running in the second week of orientation. So running from Tuesday to Thursday, and you can see what UTS has to offer in terms of clubs, see what these clubs are about, and see what sparks your interest. In the event that you don't find a club that you really vibe with, you can always make your own.

I'm sad I have a lot of experience with that.

I do, surprisingly.

During my first year of uni back in 2018, there was surprisingly no K-pop club. So it just so happens that there was a K-pop group chat where a couple of people enjoyed K-pop, and one of my friends decided to start the society. And that's how K-pop Society kind of started—from a group chat.

I believe in your first year, you get added to a bunch of random Messenger group chats. These are usually from UTS discussion groups and everyone's like, "Oh, who's also first year doing these subjects?" and you just get added and you just go into a very, very chaotic group chat.

Yeah, definitely in your first year, everyone's like, "Who's studying this? Is anyone on campus to meet each other? Or is anyone free for lunch?"—which is the most important meal of the day, I think.

Yeah.

Like, everyone else is also in the same boat of wanting to find friends.

Yeah.

Because during your first year, everything's new, you just want to get some friends.

Yeah.

Sometimes some people just don't have someone in the faculty, so reaching out in a group chat and being like, "Is anybody in this class?" is often a good thing to do. And that's how I found a lot of my friends in medical science.

Yeah.

Or you can just do the good old-fashioned way of just going up to someone actually in class and saying, "Hey, can I be friends with you?" I personally did that a lot in first year.

Oh, okay.

I'm still friends with those people from first year till now. And we make a lot of group notes together, study groups. That has really helped me throughout the past three years, now going into my fourth year of uni.

That's pretty good.

For my first year, I just sat next to someone and they'd be like, "Hello, what's your name?" I'd be like, "I'm Roxanne, hi, are you in this class?" "Okay, let's be lab partners." And I've been friends with them for the past three years of my uni.

So yeah, it's just a simple reach—reaching out, saying, "Hello, would you like to be friends or lab partners if you're in science?" or reaching out in classes. It's a really good opportunity.

Yeah.

Just say hi. Like, there's really nothing you can lose. You can only gain from it.

So now we're going to talk about common misconceptions you might have as a first year, because I knew I had a few.

One of my misconceptions is that you need to know everything about the university or you need to know what you are doing getting into university.

Yeah.

And definitely that isn't the case. You know, along your uni degree, you'll figure it out, learn a lot of things about how everything works and what works for you, especially more catered. Because every student is different. You need to find out what's suited for you, essentially. For example, making timetables.

I remember that was the biggest obstacle for me. In my first year, I accidentally somehow chose my business major without even going through any of the business core subjects. And I was enrolling into subjects for my first year and it was a whole mess. I had to call up Student Centre and sort it out, because I was genuinely really taken aback at how the whole process of enrolling, then after enrolling you do your timetable, and sometimes changes might happen in your timetable and you start freaking out as a first year.

All fair—happens to the best of us, so it's okay not to know everything.

I think a misconception that I had during my first year is that you don't need to go to all your lectures, although sometimes it's best recommended to go to the majority of your lectures since it's easier to understand the content if you're there at that moment. But it's all catered to how you study. But yeah, some lectures are usually not recorded or are recorded—it really depends on what subject you're taking.

Like we said earlier, everyone learns differently, every student is different, so lectures might really help you with learning the content from a subject, lectures might not help you. Maybe reading the textbook might help you more—it's really up to you. But it's a good thing to go to your lectures, at least for the first few weeks, get a little taste of how lectures are and make a judgement from there.

Oh yeah, also some things that I think I would have liked to know during first year is that sometimes you don't need to buy all your textbooks during first year. So it's best recommended to wait until your first week of class to see how your subject lecturer tells you about if you need the textbook or not. Because some classes just base it off on the PowerPoint, so textbooks aren't necessary, but it's all up to you depending on your degree. Our library has a lot of them—they might even have an electronic version of it, so don't stress out too much if you don't have everything prepared before your first class. It's okay.

Are there any other services that you would use, Roxanne, that would help you besides lectures and tutorials?

Oh yeah, actually looking back, I would definitely go to the Help Centre, which is up on level 5, building 1. But level 5, I think they would have definitely helped you out a lot during first year.

And also U:PASS sessions are something that I definitely would have utilised more of in my first year, because first year subjects are sometimes really hard to get a grip of, especially transitioning from high school to uni. Definitely utilising some of the services like U:PASS. I used U:PASS in my first year and it was really helpful. They give you worksheets, because U:PASS is run by students who've done well in that subject before, so they kind of have some idea of what are the points that you really need to know, other points that would be nice to know. From there, I had a really nice time going to U:PASS sessions, and now I myself am a U:PASS leader, so I actually run those sessions.

And yeah, don't be afraid to ask for extra help outside of lectures and tutorials, because U:PASS is another way of learning stuff. There's always something there for you to help if you are having any trouble or struggling with anything. Just don't be shy to ask for help.

Yeah, exactly. Don't be shy.

If you're still feeling a little lost about what you even want to get out of university—like, should I even join a club? What should I prioritise? Especially, I know some first year students may have a job, or how to prioritise that—should I prioritise university, or finding a job, things like that.

Currently at the Student Learning Hub, we have a workshop called Design Your UTS, which is actually run by UTS Careers, and they can help you identify what you want out of university, like what your priorities are, how you are at the moment, and how you want to be in the future. This might be at the end of the year, in three years' time—it really depends on you.

And at Student Learning Hub, you can also visit us at Level 4, Building 2, and just see what's going on on that day. There'll be a schedule of what's going on, like you might want to learn skills about Excel, InDesign, Illustrator—that might interest you. It might not be related to your degree, that's okay. You could just pick up on those skills.

And definitely with the new transition to Canvas as well, if anybody's confused about how to use Canvas, you can also drop by and we can help you out with that.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, I've been using Blackboard for the past three years. Using Canvas, hopefully won't be too hard—I don't believe it is. But it is still a change.

And to just wrap up the podcast, we have three tips that you can check out from this podcast. And it just so happens that it goes UTS—so for you, UTS is here for you. So it's okay to not know everything. We are here to help you through your uni process and it is a new experience, so it comes with new hardships as well.

So for T in UTS, take your time to get involved—even if you're not in your first year, it's always better late than never.

And for S, the final letter, it's set up for success to wrap it all up. So it's just set your priorities. Don't overwhelm yourself with everything. Just take your time, explore—especially if you're in your first year, explore, or even if you're not in your first year, just test out the waters for anything that you're interested in and go for it.

Exactly.

Thanks for listening to the first episode of this UTS Student Learning Hacks for this autumn session.

If you want to check out any of our other episodes, they're on our website and other sites like Spotify. Join us for our next podcast on settling in and joining our community. Until next time.

See ya!