**DODLEDOTDOODLEDORT (time travelling noises)**
The year is 2000. We had just conquered Y2K with little more than a few bumps and bruises brought on by hiding under a makeshift shelter (a tarp thrown carefully over the Hills Hoist) to protect ourselves from planes that were sure to fall out of the sky on the stroke of midnight. We were yet to experience the devestation of the SARS outbreak in 2003 and we were still a year away from discovering the wonders of the iPod.
I wandered onto my first university campus, my Sony Discman bulging out of the pocket of my cargo shorts, threatening to pull them down with each step, as I went to sign up for my first degree. In these days, before everything was done online, you had to actually wait for your acceptance letter to come in the mail and then make the trip over to the campus to accept and choose your units, then you had to hang around while the lecturers posted sign up sheets on the doors of the lecture halls. As I entered some room that had been transformed into the enrollment room a pile of forms was thrust in my face , each one demanding the same information as the last. Name. Date of Birth. TER. A blur of forms later I was handed my enrollment card. As I looked at it, I was momentarily confused. Next to my name was "Bachelor of Business/Bachelor of Science" and as I had little interest in both science and business, I couldn't figure out why it would be right there on my form. But then I remembered. I had enrolled in that degree for every other reason than that it would interest me.
"It will get you a good job", says Mum.
"Arts students are all hippies who go on to make a living off pot smoking and abstact paintings made with macaroni", says Dad.
"If you don't go to uni and get a good sensible degree you will never succeed in life", says the misguided Guidance Counsellor.
So that was how I found myself with a Billabong bag full of Advanced Calculus and Accounting books and a penchant for sleeping in lectures. I hated uni. I hated my Mathematics for Computer Sciences Lecturer who spoke too fast. I hated my Accounting tutor who made jokes that nobody laughed at. I hated that I was forced to study something that made me want to vomit. I hated that I was the only girl in one of my units and therefore was regarded as some kind of alien. So after one semester I left.
**DODLEDOTDOODLEDORT (time travelling noises)**
So fast forwarding past 7 years of travel, playing computer games and regularly changing jobs I found myself again ready to enrol in uni. This time as I sat in front of my computer enrolling in units I was excited. I eagerly read the description of each unit, bought my books early and even started reading them. I went to lectures and didn't sleep. I researched more than was neccessary. I read more than was neccessary. I contributed to discussions and passed my exams with flying colours.
The difference? This time I was studying something I loved. Something that I found interesting and inspiring. And although I still found myself often being the only girl, the strange staring no longer bothered me.
Pearl of Advice No. 1
Study something that won't make you want to vomit because in the end, regardless of the pressures you have to study something else, if you love what you study, your uni life will not only be much easier, it will also be enjoyable.
