Things you need to learn in university that no one tells you

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     Entering university, you only have a few hours classes per day, there's no strict teachers there shouting and yelling at you for what you have to do and you complete a subject within one semester (big contrast to secondary education where we work on the same few subjects for years until the final exam). Receiving this sudden bunch of free time and freedom, it may caused most of us to feel happy at the same time feeling lost.

    A lot of you probably got yourself into university just for the piece of paper or just because our past education have been telling us to get a tertiary education so that you can get a better job. However it should be you pursuing tertiary education for the sake of learning knowledge. 

    I disagree with slacking, procrastination, splurging, ghosting or entering university just for getting a relationship. Well, we are young adults, of course we can enjoy the life, but please learn what we have to learn while we are young and energetic. 

    After experiencing a year of Foundation studies and first year in Degree, I would love to share some insights I've gathered in this two years that may change your life in university. Hopefully to make your life smoother too. (Let's see if I will develop new insights after I completed my studies hehe)

i. The Fundamental Mindset

    In those two years, most often I would heard my classmates complaining about how the lecturer aren't teaching well, how unhelpful the lecture notes are so on and so forth. Here comes the first insight I would like to share: university never intended to spoon feed you every knowledge. In university, assignments are given so that we learn while doing. If you have read the assignment brief carefully, you will notice that the assignment objectives are what you need to learn about that subject. The learning materials provided are the lecture notes (often contains only the basic idea and theories), there are resources in library and Internet. Hence you are the one to have to take action to pursue the knowledge. Not waiting for the lecturer to point things out one by one. (They have like hundreds of students, and you are not a child anymore.)  

    Attending university also meant it is the time for you to learn self-manage and be independent. If you fail to pay the fees, the university will take action; if you missed the course selection period, you get fined. Rules and regulation, announcements and manuals are all provided in a university's website or at least will brief to you during orientation day to make sure that you know what you have to know. There will not be people to remind you or chase you for things you did not do. So the point here is to be active to go learn what you need to know and be brave to ask for help. 

    I agree that university is like the simulation of the society/the working world. You will learn to face and take responsibility to the consequences of your action but in a softer way, while in the working world you will face harsher consequences. As a university student, you are in a stage where you are still learning, you have nothing much to lose and your consequences are lighter or more possible to be forgiven by adults. So do make full use of this golden age to learn a much as you can, because when you entered the working world, the reality is often all over the place. 

    Pointers on what you need to do:

• Go through official website or look for student handbook (I know it is very long to read all at once, but at least read their table of content so you know where to find specific information when needed)
• Learn and be familiar will all the websites, portals/ systems provided. Know where the announcement are usually given, check it often. (the responsible is on you if you missed out anything)
• Be fully aware of your schedule (course selection period, tuition fee payment, timetable, class clashes, study week, final exam dates, etc) Tip: set reminder in phone calendar. 

ii. Hard Skills to Learn

    Examples of hard skills are writing, reading, math, computer skills, coding, marketing skills, financial modelling, machine operation etc. It is the teachable and measurable abilities which are crucial especially for professional jobs. The main way to learn hard skills is through assignments. 

    I know how much everyone hated assignments, but instead of seeing it as a torture, why not make use of it? I'm always reminding myself to view assignments as challenges. Then the grades are to show if I managed to achieve lecturer's expectations or not and if I have mastered the subjects. Here's a few steps I did when dealing with classes: 

• Google search to understand what this subject is about. (usually before class start)
• Read through course outline and listen to lecturer's introduction to the subject to fully understand the direction of the teaching. 
• When given assignment, read the brief carefully, see its objectives and requirements. Do seek for help from classmates or lecturer if you are confused with the requirements. (this is crucial if you wanted to score the subject or in another way, to make sure you are learning this subject on the right path.) 

Be reminded that lecturers are there to ensure you are on the right path, not to show you which is the right path. 

    The function of assignment is to let you learn while doing, thus after completing one assignment, it means that you have mastered or at least exposed the hard skills you needed for your major. 

    Tips to conquer assignment: 

• Read through lecture notes and revise 
• Pay attention to lectures (lecturer usually will give tips or point out certain examples that will be useful for your assignment) 
• Complete your homework (to make sure you mastered the basics)
• Do necessary research and further studies (wisely use the resources in library and Internet) 
• Connect to seniors of the subject to seek for guidance 
• Seek guidance from lecturers (Usually this is the last go to) 

iii. Soft Skills to Learn 

    Soft skills are usually the personality and interpersonal skills which will determine if you connect well with others. It is highly subjective and it is going to take you a lifetime to sharpen certain soft skills. As I've mentioned earlier, working world are often harsher, so do make use of the few years in university to get a grip of your personality. 

    Time Management 

    No more roughly 7am to 1pm secondary school schedule, now in university you may have a 2 hour class in the middle of the day, or long breaks between classes, or a few classes for the whole day and have no class on Tuesday. Hence time management do play a very important role in your daily schedule if you wanted to avoid last minute work and maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

    Tips for time management: 

• Understand your personality, either you are a morning person or a night person, find out when and what drives you to work or what caused you to procrastinate. Write it down and create your solution. For example, I will procrastinate if I work for too long so I schedule short breaks roughly every two to three hours. // I'm a morning person, so I will start the day with difficult tasks first. 
• I keep things noted in phone calendar and a To-Do app in laptop, set reminders and be aware of the due dates of each task. 
• Instead of only marking down the due date or submission date, I will break down things needed for the assignment and schedule a date to complete it. For example a report due in 4 weeks, I will set week 1 for research and introduction, week 2 and 3 for body, week 4 for conclusion and checking. I will also set it in a way where I am to complete the report 2 days prior to the submission date so that I have more time to revise or as backup in case of emergency. 
• Furthermore, you can always Google search for time management tips, there are tons of methods people had came up with. Trial and error with the methods and make alterations to find out what suits you the best. 
• Make time for assignments, for family, for friends, for self and for health. Keep things in balance so that you can have better well-being. 

    Team Work and Leadership 

    Group assignments are always a headache for lone wolves. Although I prefer individual work too, but I do acknowledge that it is indeed more beneficial to work with more brains and arms. When I first step into the university, I was reminded by my seniors to be wise in picking team members. 

   

    Tips in picking members (I don't really pick members haha but this is what I observed): 

• Front rolls are usually serious learners. 
• Note-takers will make sure they never left out any important information. 
• Playing games or watching movies during class would be 50-50 depends on your luck. 

    You will get to learn a lot about team work in group assignments, mainly in cooperating with each other and align the final outcome. Also, as peers too just ventured into university life, most of us will still act the way we used to be or in another words, showing the real personality (which often referred as the sharp edges that will eventually become smoother when you entered the working world). It is the best time to learn to work with different personalities. 

    Most people I encountered prefer to be a follower (team member) instead of a leader. I would suggest you to be leader at least 1-3 times in those few years so that you get to learn in a safe way. (it's a great experience that will help you in your future. Well, you wouldn't wanted your first experience being the leader to be associated with a high risk that cost you few thousands right? How stress will that be? So let's learn it now). By being a leader, you will learn to make decisions, take responsibilities, connect with all the members and have them connected too to work as a team. Task distribution, managing the team and keeping progression on track are the few things that you will learn while being a leader. So do try to step out your comfort zone sometimes, you will never regret for the things you did, regrets are for things you didn't do. 

    Communication

    As mentioned above, you will encounter peers of different personalities. Hence communication came into place, where at least you need it for group projects. Communication are to ensure you deliver and receive accurate messages. (misunderstandings happened due to the lack or improper communication.) In my opinion, it is alright to be a lone wolf all the time but at least you have the ability to communicate well when it is needed. (Which is the reason I pushed myself to practice it). This is a deep topic, so it needed a lot of time and practice to get a grip of it. 

    Ways to improve communication skill: 

• Improve your language so that you can express better and understand better. To learn a language:
• Vocabulary: Just more reading! you can read song lyrics, books, magazines, and articles, or watch movies in English subtitles. 
• *search for the meaning of words you did not understand: you can download English Dictionary app in your phone, you can also google the meaning, make it a habit, it does help improve a lot. 
• Listening: listen to songs, Ted Talks or movies without subtitles.
• Speaking: self-recorded practice, talk to friends in that language or talk to strangers 
• Writing: write movie /book summaries, start a journal, start writing a blog, as long as you write things in that language 
• Learn to view things from other person's perspective. How? Listen to their point of view, ask questions if you couldn't understand where they came from. Be polite and be patient.
• Study simple psychology knowledge to help you better understand certain behaviors and speech tones of others as well as to understand your own's.

Practice makes perfect!

    Attitude 

    The more you understand your own's behaviors and personality, the more you will know how you tend to see things and do things. May I remind you that your action does affect how others treat you just the same as how you change your speaking tone when someone yelled at you. There are times where we feel unhappy when mistreated, and there are also times we went through certain situation and mistreated people. So sometimes when your boss is yelling at you, it may just because something bad happened to him that morning and he wasn't in the right mood. For this I highly recommend No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, one book will never be able to solve all your people problems, but they provided insights and suggestions that you can make use of. 

    While everyone is stressed out with living, why would you wanted to make others feel bad right? Some things that I would like to point out here: 

• When writing to lecturers: 
• write emails in proper formal format
• start with greetings and end with thank you. 
• do short introduction of who you are and what class are you from (they have few hundreds students, how do you expect them to know immediately who you are?) 
• keep things organized, straight to the point, short and simple
• When talking to classmates/lecturers/staffs/anyone else:
• Greet them with a simple good morning, good afternoon and good evening before starting your conversation. (they will be in a better mood when replying you! unless they are having a really bad day.) 
• Say thank you and smile more often. (happiness is contagious) 
• Respect each other! Everyone went through different experiences, so that alone means the other person must know things that you don't. Also, when you treat others with respect, they can actually feel it too. 
• Be an active learner:
• Learning does not always meant sitting down to read a book (if you really dislike reading), find other ways to make your learning more interesting. For example, YouTube tutorials, learning in groups, writing down notes (traditionally or digitally), cards and etc. 
• *I used to memorize things while riding a scooter, memorizing one paragraph in three rounds, and God knows how many rounds I actually did to memorize it. 
• For now as I see my learning as challenges and I really loves art, learning is more like a deeper dive into my favorite topic so I feel happy spending the whole day just to understand more about it. 
• There are people who took major that they don't really love, I would suggest you to have a little shift in mindset, instead of reminding yourself everyday about how much you hated the subject, why not challenge yourself to see how well you can do in a subject that you hated? If you are able to handle it well, then I can assure that you can do better in the fields you love! 

ALL THE BEST! 

    I realized how long this had went. Although there are more soft skills that you will learn in this lifetime, but I believe those four mentioned above are more than enough to change your life for now! Do remember that life is a journey, there will be obstacles and problems occurring from time to time. Let's do our best in solving them. Each time you defeated one problem, you will receive exp and level up. Instead of praying for a smoother and easier journey in life (which we know it will never be the case), we shall pray for strength and stronger self to overcome all the obstacles. The stronger we are, the easier the task will be. 

Hope this does help you in your journey. 

Best wishes to you. 

Thank you for reading! 

☁️ Hui Yunn