by Katrina Ginnivan
If you’re studying your second degree (or even third or fourth), don’t be discouraged if someone says to you, “Oh, you’re going back to uni again, couldn’t you find what you were looking for with your last degree?”.
Your answer should be yes! I did. I found what I was looking for with my last degree and I’m ready to do it all again with the tools that it gave me.
When we are faced with questions that are unhelpful or uninspired, we can get a little disheartened with our choices.
So my simple challenge is this. Trust. Amid your own fears and anxieties of starting something new, daunting and down-right scary. Trust your own instincts.
Let’s face it, I’m afraid. And I’m sure that there are 80,000 17 or 18 year olds in the same boat.
My advice to you? Just relax, and enjoy every new experience as it comes to you. Because there will come a day where the choice to change your mind about how you want to live your life could well be wound up in expectations (and quite often negative ones). So my advice is to simply trust your own instincts before letting the opinions of other people take hold.
I’m 32 next week and embarking on another degree. I’m studying podiatry, and the thought of being on campus is a little daunting. Having already completed two degrees through online study, it’s fair to say while having a daughter at home for three years, going back to on campus study is a welcome change.
My first ever O Week was at Latrobe University in Melbourne, and way back in 2007! While I didn’t know it at the time, this was to be the foundations for a long life of learning and growing. However at this stage, I was simply overwhelmed and extremely nervous.
The best piece of advice that I’ve ever received came during my first ‘O Day’. I was looking for my course advisor in the Art’s faculty, with my partner at the time, who was an already seasoned law student and keen to hit the “Agora” for a free beer (Latrobe’s famous meeting place).
I was nervous as hell and you could see it on my face clear as day. I approached an advisor in the cinema studies subject stream, who told me this – “This is just one day of your life, so relax and enjoy some beer”. Only now, I’ve finally been able to take her advice.
So go out there, put your hearts in the right places and enjoy your experiences and make the best of your time at CSU. Because it could well be the most important and invaluable experience of your lives, and one that leads to more invaluable experiences. So make the most of it, cherish the small things as well as the big things. And for goodness sake make friends, join clubs and embrace all of the good things that this place has to offer. If you make it great, it will be great!
