I know this is unrelated but - seeing that you both go to UNSW - what is your opinion on the trimester system? I've had friends older than me at work (I work in retail) who go to UNSW say not to go there for uni. Apparently when they're studying hard all their friends are on break whereas when they're on break and finally able to hang out, their friends have just started up again. In the end does it make that much of a difference?
Sorry bro but ima give you a response after my first year ends
I'll give my first week overview for everyone here anyways AS A STUDENT DOING COMP SCI/MATH (some things might not be the same for other faculties.)
First Week:
- Campus; Big Campus. Never been to campus prior but I got to explore it in o-week a bit and way more on my first week. You'll probably need to ask people around or if you're like me, you'll just take photos of the maps on campus every time you reach a "checkpoint".
- Environment of learning; Lecturers/Tutors are chill af. Like you have to go out of your way to piss them off. You can come 30 mins late and they'll still be like wassup, no one cares if you come or not, you do you. No attendance mark/compulsion for lectures, you can do them online or rock up to the campus + all recorded. Would recommend opting for online versions if you're not interest in going to campus on certain days (big gap from another class etc.) but IRL is good too.
- Side note; Only in tutorials are there attendance and I'm pretty sure you need 70%+ to apply for special consideration otherwise its technically not a problem, but why would you miss tutorials considering thats where you have chances to get help personally. I feel its highly worth doing your tutorials IRL if it fits your timetable since its more of a "personal" and "classroom" feel which you won't have in lecs, but I am doing CS online.
- Societies; Stay away from ideology/politics based societies unless you are into that type of stuff (You do you), bad feeling about getting involved but have nothing against the members . I just joined the subject societies e.g mathsoc, csesoc, datasoc....
- Travelling; Long travel time for me, I just pop some music and chill. Definitely tiring at the end of the day.
- Independent learning; your tutors/lecturers aren't going to check up on you, while they are friendly to approach and eager to help, they expect you to go up to them - if you don't ask a question, thats on you. You can always ask them after class/lecture or email them. With the speed of lectures and content, its on you to be organised.
- Friends; Most of my friends as of now are from my high school, however most of us are in different degrees or at different classes so had to branch out a bit more. Made some acquaintances with some people, know some people from BoS. Most people are east asian/Australian so you'll have to be willing to go outside your circle (e.g indians) but I'm sure you've had a chinese or aussie friend from before so its fine. Most people seem nervous, hope they're feeling more confident by the end of next week.
- Workload; In the end of my first week, I have that sense, (like at an eve of christmas/holiday you can feel a shift) that things are going to go faster and become harder over time despite it being very chill and easy this week. Difference so far is I'm enjoying putting in the work for my degree whereas in HS I'd have to force myself for english.
Enjoying it so far.