Awks
TAKE A YEAR OFF!
People always talk about not being able to get back into study after a year off but thats bullshit. I’m first year and I am seeing so many kids straight out of high school dropping out, finding it like a continuation of High School, or just not being able to keep up. The best students are by far those with with some life experience under their belt. Im doing Architecture by the way and JimmyJ was a tutor of my friends. They said he was a Grumpy Young Man.(I tried to do strikethrough for “Old” but couldnt figure that out - any hints?)
Very good advice in this thread.
I’m in the same boat as a lot of other dudes here. Went straight to uni (Industrial design at University of Canberra), wished I had taken time off, dropped out and didn’t graduate. Started mucking around with architectural visualisation, started freelancing and moved to Melbourne. Ended up getting a shitkicker 3d modeling job at an arch vis company based purely on portfolio work, been there for 5 years and now a senior artist/manager doing large scale animations etc. Feels good to have mostly achieved it through my own hard work.
I guess all I will add to the conversation is not to stress too much about fucking it up. Do what you feel you need to do now. Learning stuff is one of, if not the most satisfying things in life and you can continue learning all sorts of things through all sorts of mediums. Weather it’s travel, tertiary institutions, apprenticeships, or just figuring shit out for yourself.
My advice is thoroughly research what the different courses entail, not just in terms of ‘potential future jobs’ but what are the subjects like? Can you get interested in this stuff? Do you think it will be useful?
This was my big stuff up, the course I really should have went for (Advertising) I passed off as ‘a joke’ because you needed a portfolio instead of an ENTER score. I used my enter to get into Marketing (Business) at RMIT and what a horrible decision. I had no idea about the course and just assumed it was more or less the same stuff. How shocked was I to be studying accounting and economics subjects in the first year after not doing any maths in vce just wanky fun subjects like drama and media. I scraped through the first year but struggled big time and did not enjoy one moment. I deferred for a year to work and earn money and sorta ‘weigh up’ my future.
In that time my family moved to Canberra and I had to decide whether to go with them and go back to Uni or stay in Melb in the big scary world. I found out Canberra Uni had an Advertising (Communications) degree, researched it properly and decided it was the wise thing to do…I got accepted then deferred for a year to have my own gap year, stayed in Melb for as long as possible then moved to Canberra to ‘decompress’ for the rest of the year, working and saving money with hardly any responsibility.
I then re entered uni world actually looking forward to it, full time work in an average job grew tiresome and I was a lot more ready after maturing a little bit and knowing what I was in for.
Fast forward to now; final semester, have been getting good grades in everything and starting to plan my move back to Melb to get a job and escape capitol city…after getting to the end of the process I can say it has been a hassle, lots of useless, tedious, mind numbing rubbish to get through with very little substance! And this is mostly stuff that I am interested in! I can’t imagine trying to go through that in a subject you have no interest in, I think that is the major reason people drop out.
My moral of the story: Make sure you know what you are getting in to, if you are not sure exactly where you want to go take some time out, it won’t disadvantage you in the end and will probably strengthen you (the year of for me was crucial in defining what I want my future to be, things became a lot more realistic and attainable)…and the final one; if you end up in the wrong degree have the courage to change or get out! I know many people who have got 2-3 years in before pulling the pin, if you can’t handle it after the first year it won’t get any better.
pretty much what i was going for.
This is what they tell you, but really isn’t the case once you get out into the real world. Unless you specifically need a degree for one type of job, the main benefit I see from having a degree is that it shows your future employer that you can stick to something for a few years. I work with radio networks and we’ve got a huge variety of degrees in our group; accounting, engineering, arts and then the old dogs that have been apprentices since day one with the company and moved into management positions as they furthered their careers. I know I never planned to work in this field, I went to university to study journalism! (and dropped out though) and with the training I’ve continually received here, I plan to stay for as long as I can due to the career options. This is an industry I had never heard of until I ended up here doing admin to earn a bit of cash while I ‘worked out what I wanted to do with my life’
My only other advice is to not be in a rush to finish and get into the ‘real world’. A year off (even within your degree) will help you gather your thoughts, earn a bit of money and maybe take a holiday or two. You won’t get left behind, or disadvantaged in your mid 20s because of these year or two off.
Good luck though, just don’t think that you life is over if something doesn’t go to plan.
The above is bullshit (no offence squid). The below is better advice.
I’m a massive nerd. I went to a public school in the outer burbs of Melbourne and we were strongly encouraged to go to university, either because they saw it as something genuinely beneficial, or more likely because it improved the statistics for the school. I wanted to be a scientist or engineer so university seemed like a good fit and I played along. I didn’t like Melbourne or Monash as they seemed too theoretical, whereas Swinburne and RMIT seemed more practical and offered work placement programs and strong industry linkage. I ended up applying for a mechatronics degree at Swinburne, alongside some other engineering/science courses, and fought off criticism from my career advisors that I was wasting my TER points by doing this course and should be applying for medicine or some other bullshit. I ended up getting a phone call from the course administrator for a selective research/engineering degree at Swinburne after I had already been accepted to do mechatronics and decided to switch at the 11th hour as the research program sounded far more exciting and was a better fit for me. In a way I lucked it in as I ended up doing research with lasers, human physiology, IT and astronomy in my 5 year program, as well as getting out for 6 months into industry. I wound up staying at Swinburne to do my PhD as I was having a blast doing research, got my first appointment up here in Brisbane and moved.
What this journey has taught me is that there a a load of people that will give you advice, but just make sure that the advice isn’t their way of living vicariously through you. My career adviser taught legal studies and he told any good student with a humanities bent to do Law, and any science/maths student to do medicine. I can’t help but think that he never really had the chance himself and wound up wanting his students to fulfill his career ambitions. University was a good fit for me as I love science and learning and would have probably had a good time regardless of what course I did. For you if you don’t know what you want yet then wait, I see far too many students here who shouldn’t be here (yet). The universities are always going to be willing to take your money in one way or another so there is no harm in waiting. I would suggest that you set out a 5 and 10 year plan though, as I’ve seen some very bright friends piss years up against the wall with very little to show for it.
mini-autobiographies have made this thread good.
And that’s why I think advice from strangers here is good… no one gives a shit what you do. What you get here are many different experiences and there seems to be a strong consensus about the path that worked for most people, or the path people would choose could they do it again.
A few tips on Architecture school
I teach Design and communication studios at RMIT. I can assure you the first year kids straight from High School don’t necessarily struggle with the work but when the work load goes up they crack. hardly anyone ever takes the 5 years, I took close on seven. If your prepared to live in poverty, spend every waking moment working to finish with a 38-40k a year job while your friends who did 3 year degrees have already been earning the big $$ since they were 22 - go for it. If your in the right firm with the right projects it is a satisfying career, but bloody hard work… the feeling of seeing the first project you’ve had a big hand in getting built is pretty special.
If you really want to do Architecture go study an Arts Degree first (I did half a graphic Design degree) - Any design course or general arts would set you up well. There are a lot of history/theory classes where an ability to understand philosophical and deep texts well would be an advantage. That’s one of the main problems with Melbourne Uni Architecture students straight out of High School, they’ve generally done so much maths/science to get the ENTER score they struggle to think laterally and creatively for the first few years.
If you’re in Melbourne I definitely consider Monash first, Ive heard good things and half the academic staff who made RMIT good back in the day are there now. RMIT is a still OK but they seem to be too focused on the International student $$. Melb Uni is OK it’ll teach you how to be an architect RMIT won’t and Deakin is in Geelong.
find something you enjoy doing and find a way to get paid for it.
first of all - this.
that said, here’s my trajectory:
I’d got into Architecture after I finished VCE, and then immediately deferred and like a good stereotypical private school kid, I did a gap yeah in the UK (I’m not sure if you can still defer your first year… Anyone know?) anyway, I can’t recommend taking a year off highly enough, doesn’t matter what you do – but getting out of the country (or even just Melbourne) for a year before getting stuck back into study is pretty awesome.
People will tell you that traveling and stuff will make you wiser and all that shit, but from experience that’s usually bullshit – by the time I returned, I was just as ignorant and idiotic as when I left, though I did acquire the ability to order a beer in every major European language, met a lot of friends, saw some cool stuff and I had a fuck load of fun.
Then I came back and did some Architecturing and it was very hard, but I didn’t drop out – largely because the effort of organising to drop out always seemed like a bit too much work, and then I’d have to think of something else to do, and that was a frightening prospect I thought I’d avoid. And so by sheer laziness and lack of other ideas, I accidently became an Architect.
But I love it, it’s very good for dinner party conversations.
what i meant was that you should choose a degree based on what you want to do for the rest of your life. sure you can choose a different path after you get your degree but there is no point choosing a degree now that will lead to a career that you don’t want to be doing.
i know you can be reasonably flexible with a lot of degrees (i did telecommunications engineering and now i am working as a software engineer), but it will still steer you in a certain direction.
if i had my time again i’d do applied mathematics.
…Meteorology. I love BOM RADAR
Although it would make for boring dinner conversations
No way, I’ve got a mate who works in the cyclone monitoring division and we have the most interesting conversations. Admittedly we also did our PhDs together so they tend to be a complete nerd out talking about mathematical models and the like.
Everyone here has already been quoted for truth. I finished my last two years at school at a ‘posh’ boarding school after moving from rural Victoria and felt huge pressure to go to uni. Looking back I wish I’d taken a year off but the lure of being on the piss at uni with all my mates was greater than driving tractors at home so I did a year of a science degree.
I enjoyed it but it was just a little bit too broad (and not applied) in first year however I managed to luck out and do a general mapping / surveying subject as one of my electives and transferred to Environments at Uni Melb and started Geomatics. I’ll be finished that soonish and will take my year (or two) of between finishing this and doing my masters. Planning on working and travelling.
However if I had my time again I would avoid the new generation Melbourne Courses like the plague. I know Geomatics is a relatively small department and my opinion might be a bit biased but in my 3 years I have had a couple of ‘core’ subjects cut and replaced with multidisciplinary general environmental subjects. I enjoy them but it’s frustrating at the same time knowing that you could be learning something that was far more relevant to your major if the Uni wasn’t as focused on saving some coin.
It also kinda shits me that I have to pay a significant higher HECS / HELP debt to get the same qualifications as mates at RMIT who do a straight 4 year degree and do not have to do there ‘Professional Masters’ to be properly qualified.
Anyway moral of the story probably take a year off, talk to some people about the New Gen Melbourne courses some love it some hate it and remember that come October the RAPTURE will have finally occurred and you won’t even need to sit your exams let alone think of uni so just have beer and relax
yeah, fair call. I still reckon you can change direction, you just have to sacrifice something else. When I got made redundant from my Engineering job in the GFC I toyed with going back to uni to study International Development, or shit maybe even photography. But I also wanted to start a family, and couldn’t afford financially to do both. Had some depressing times when I couldn’t find the role I wanted, but got there in the end.
When I graduated from uni I was doing structural design of curtain wall facades. 9 years later I’m project manager for a company that designs and builds skateparks.
I also went straight to uni from high school, then worked for two years after graduating. This gave me enough experience to work as an engineer in the UK, so rather than a gap year at 18, I got 2.5 years as a 25-27 year old, half of which was spent working in Edinburgh, and half travelling here and there. And because I was working in my field, rather than pulling beers, I managed to come home with more money than I left with. Which meant I could afford a new bike.
One thing to consider with taking a gap year is that if you are actually wanting to go to Uni straight away you should. Too many people see gap years as a rite of passage these days. Gap year, tick. Live in London, tick. You can always defer a year of uni later on and travel then. Thinking back I am really glad that I travelled when I was a couple of years into uni instead of straight away, but again, that’s just me.