How did I figure out what I wanted to study?

Around exam time there are literally thousands of pieces of advice that are swirling around . Blu-tacked to a post outside the library. Jumping out from various websites. Spouting out of parents mouths. Even I indulged in my own advice giving in a previous blog post. My secret to a successful exam....check it out here

Some, like my own, are based around silly ritualistic luck games that we are all too scared of breaking....just in case. Others are based on sound realistic tips that can really help you succeed. One that has always followed my through both my high school and university life is part of the latter group.

“Always read the question carefully and answer the question THEY are asking, not the one YOU hoped they would”

It’s far too easy, surrounded by the stressful domain of the exam room, to just write what ever you feel like, or simply just write down everything you know, rather than answer the actual question in front of you.

So you would think ,when approaching this blog assignment two question, that I would do exactly that.........but instead I ignored this top-notch advice did the opposite. When there’s no marks involved, I think there can be a little room for creative movement. :) So instead my banner (check out the original photo here) has a reference. Something that you become very familiar with deciphering in the first few months of university. But since not everyone will have access to a Calvin and Hobbes comic book, here is the panel that is being referred to.


So my advice to people considering their study options is to realise that study is not always fun. Study can be hard work, our brain often yelling at us that it’s full. We see sunshine outside and suddenly Michel Fouccault, or the origins of molecules, isn’t so interesting. There are so many things in life tearing our attention away from what is actually a lot of hard work. Very rewarding hard work don’t get me wrong, but some days it’s just hard. One look at Facebook during exam week reflects that, with every students status’s swearing that the overload of knowledge being stuffed into heir brains is causing tumours. So if we are going to put ourselves through at least 3 years of learning, secretly hoping, just like Calvin, that occasionally our homework will do itself, we should study something we love. I have ranted in the past about how important it is to study what you love, because only then will we truly succeed.

I only realised the importance of this after a failed attempt at a uni degree back in 2000. 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 abstract 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.

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 necessary. I read more than was necessary. 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.

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