It’s come to the stage of the year when Murdoch starts accepting the mid-year enrolments. A lot of students who take a break after high school find this to be the best time to get into student life. However it can still be a pretty intimidating time and you probably have a lot of worries and doubts. With that in mind Murdoch asked me to write three articles tackling the most common worries you guys face. If you have any questions about enrollment I advise you to check out Ask Murdoch.

“I haven’t studied in a while and I’m lacking confidence.”

I’m told that 60% of Murdoch students are over 19 when they enrol. Maybe this statement could apply to you? Maybe you took some time off between finishing school and enrolling to travel or earn some money. Perhaps University didn’t seem like your first choice when you wrote your last exams but now it seems like a pretty attractive option. But you’ve been away from studying for a while now and you’re not sure if you could write an assignment or research a paper. I was in the same place when I first started at Murdoch, although admittedly my exile from the books had only been for 8 months. Thankfully there were a few things that helped.

Foundation Units

When you enrol you are required to take a foundation unit in your first semester. These are usually aimed at teaching you to write critically about a myriad of different subjects. My foundation unit was FDN130 or “Age of Information” and was basically about how different communication technologies had influenced our development. It sounds pretty full-on but in reality these units are really there to make sure you develop the research and writing skills you need to succeed at Uni. Provided you go to your tutorials and you do the readings you shouldn’t have any major problems getting back into the swing of things.

Workshops

Throughout every semester there are always a lot of voluntary workshops run to help students deal with issues such as stress, essay writing and research tips. These workshops usually don’t last longer than an hour and they cover a wide range of topics. If you’re having trouble with something the chances are there is a workshop that can help. More importantly these can help refresh skills you’ve already learnt and that can give you a bit more confidence in your assignment writing.

Other Students

When all else fails it can be really useful to talk to the others doing your unit. These guys will probably be going through exactly the same stress with the material that you are and a problem shared is a problem halved. It’s easy to feel alone when everyone else is going on about how easy an assignment is going to be but most of that is just posturing. The person that boasts about how quickly they wrote 5000 words is either lying or just super smart. Talk to others and their support will see you through.

Student Learning Centre

I mentioned in the last post that Murdoch has an entire department to help people succeed. The Student Learning Centre has people on staff that will help you. It’s also a great place to find out about the workshops I mentioned and get one-to-one sessions to help you out. These are the kind of resources that you can really find useful when you reach the end of your tether but they are best used throughout the semester. A stitch in time saves nine and all that.

Overall

It’s really easy to feel like you’re an idiot the first time you sit in a lecture and that’s not a feeling that goes away quickly. The turning point comes however when you realise that everyone else feels like an idiot, whether they’re willing to admit it or not. So however long you’ve been away from study it’s very likely that there are at least 20 people in your class or on your course that are in the same boat. Studying is like riding a bicycle, to dust off that old chestnut, and though you might be a bit wobbly at first it will all come back to you.

Yesterday I submitted my final assignment for this semester finally ending my two week long binge of research, writing and sobbing.

It’s weird when the semester comes to an end. The routine you’ve drilled into your brain for the past 14 weeks suddenly stops because there are no more classes to attend, no more readings to do and no more assignments to stress over. My brain tends to panic at this point because it has been so conditioned over the years to expect the worse that it doesn’t quite believe that I’m on holiday. This means that for the next three weeks I will not be able to sleep past 8 in the morning without waking up in a complete panic over missing classes.

For everyone else there are exams. Exams breed stress. Stress breeds anger. Anger leads to the dark side. In recognition of this I thought I would share some basic exam and studying tips.

1 -Eat as much as you can
I’m bad at forgetting to eat when studying and this really impairs my memory. The best thing you can do is have a steady supply of healthy snacks to munch on throughout the day. Fruit is good for this. Strawberries, mandarins and bananas are great. Sugar and chips aren’t so great but sometimes you need sugar and grease.

2 – Sort out your sleep schedule
Classes are over so a bit of a lie-in is very tempting. When you’ve stayed up till 3 a.m studying this lie in begins to feel essential. The problem is that these long nights and late mornings can make getting up for a 9 a.m exam tough. Get your sleep sorted before the semester ends and you should be on track for exams.

3 – Take a break
This one seems obvious but when you’re caught up in the books you forget what time it is (and to eat). The best thing to do, or so I’ve found, is to put the books down and go for a walk or something. Watching TV isn’t such a good idea as I’ve found I tend to find it really hard to go back to the grind.

4 - Triple check your exam timetable
Last year I nearly missed a law exam because I thought it was in the afternoon. If I hadn’t checked after finishing studying I’d have been screwed. Write your exam time-table down and arrive early to all of them!

5 – Don’t Panic!
At the end of the day exams aren’t meant to be torturous. Even for vet students. If you’ve done your studying, attended at least 80% of your classes and you keep a cool head then there is no reason you won’t pass. If you start to panic just take a deep breath and think of the kitten video I posted last week.

Otherwise I wish everyone writing exams good luck. Also if anyone else has some tips please add them in the comment form!


Also just to be consistent!

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

A dark pall hangs over Murdoch these days, students look harried and dash furtively from the library to the cafe and back again clutching precious mugs of coffee. Meals go uneaten, dishes go undone and blogs don’t get updated. Yes, exam season is underway and with it comes all the stress and anxiety that comes from your entire future being decided in two hours of frantic writing.

It may surprise many of you to find out that I am actually very productive during the exam periods. I tidy my room, play noughts & crosses and even find the time to update the blog. This is merely a very productive form of procrastination as I avoid the stacks of textbooks and lecture notes that I know I really should be reading. Revision is a dirty word that must not be uttered in case the crushing despair descends once more.

This is also the part of semester where everything gets confused, you want to feel happy for the upcoming holiday and the chance to see old friends again but on the other hand it’s a bit sad to say goodbye to the people you’ve lived with, especially those you’re unlikely to see again. There’s also that stress I mentioned earlier over whether you have passed the year or if you will get a letter from the University politely asking you never to return. All in all it’s a pretty busy part of semester so I feel completely vindicated spending my time dealing with these issues instead of revising.

Students who don’t live in Perth and that don’t plan on spending the long summer in WA are scrambling around trying to find storage units and trying to pack 50 kgs of stuff into boxes built for maybe half of that. If you’re staying over the summer expect a lot of anxious friends to show up in the coming days with an over-flowing box and an apologetic look on their faces. Gradually your own room will begin to fill up with so much other people’s stuff you will be forced to close the curtains and pretend you aren’t in. Not that I’ve ever done that.

Anyway this summer I will be heading to the UK to see friends and family for the first time in over two years before heading home for a Christmas in Zimbabwe. This will involve a lot of long flights and longer layovers in South Africa but I’m confident it will all work out alright and when things go horribly wrong I’ll be sure to put it up here for everyone to enjoy.

Now I think I’ve spent enough time writing this and it is time to do some actual studying, or I might read a book. Expect to see my assignment entry this upcoming Sunday, I don’t want to give away too much but there is going to be a LOT of chalk in it.