[OT]Higher Education here I come!

[Arken]

On Thursday (the fourteenth that is) I officially ended my Secondary (high school for everyone that isn't here ) education. Though I had finished the last term way back at the beginning of the summer it was not until now that I recieved my results from the big final load of exams here in britain (the a-levels) on which my entrance to universities depended.

Since the way it works is before hand the universities view your applications then decide whether to give you an offer of certain grades (which must be met to get in) it takes up an entire year (for the most part) with stress . Anyway my geekish ways (though not truly as I am a little work-shy - i know i won't be once I'm actually in university) payed off and I got the grades I needed. Therefore will be reading English (Literature and Language) at University college in Oxford university come october. (I know given my location that this seems to be a singular lack of imagination but I had my reasons )

Of course I'm thrilled but as with everything in life each turn throws up new challenges, therefore I'm asking everyone here to put my mind at ease (or open my eyes to the horrific truth ) by letting me in on what university meant to you.
What did you study?
Any advice on how best to approach it?
Should I be on the lookout for anything?
How was the gaming? (lok nearly on topic!)
Any fun stories?

Any help in getting me primed, enthusiastic and champing at the bit to go would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

- Arken

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Before I get around to answering your questions, let me say Congratulations!

I'm sure that school at Oxford will be very different from my college experience here in the US, but there are some things that I'm sure will be the same, where ever you get your higher education. Plus, I've been out of college for almost 10 years now, so maybe someone a bit closer should be answering instead of me (but I do work at a University now, so I don't feel that far removed). And now the answers...

What did you study?

Sure, start with a hard one.
Lets see, I've got my Associates Degree (2 year degree from a community college) in Television Production/Communications. Then when I went on to a 4 year school, I started out studying TV Production, switched to Theater Production, and eventually ended up with my BA in Anthropology. Don't ask me how that all occured, but let's just say it was an interesting journey.

Any advice on how best to approach it?

Just remember, no matter how hard the work seems, it will get better. And some of those classes you need to take in your first & second years, the ones that don't seem to be important or worth the time? They will be. Trust me.

Should I be on the lookout for anything?

Take classes in things that sound interesting, even if they have absolutly nothing to do with your major. I never dreamed of being an anthropologist, but an archaeology class sounded interesting, so I took it. 4 weeks into the course I switched majors and never looked back. Even if a class doesn't effect you that drastically, you will be glad you took the classes, even if just to give you a break from all the English Lit. you'll be reading.

Take a Phys. Ed. class every semester. You'll be better off for it. I learned archery, how to bowl, play badmitten, tennis, went on lots of hikes, and was in the best shape of my life from lots of swimming. Doing something physical helped keep me sane when I had lots of work & studying to do.

How was the gaming?

Actually, contrary to most of my friends, I gamed very little in college. The people I found who were gamers were either too hard-core for me at the time (ie. they gamed every night and were flunking out of school while I was holding down a full time job and getting good grades), or they were just idiots that I didn't want to hang around with. More of the latter than the former, unfortunatly. It was only after college that I started gaming again seriously.

Any fun stories?

Yeah, but I can't really relate them here. Not with Eric's Grandma watching.

 

[Agback]

Re: [OT] Higher Education here I come!

What did you study?
Any advice on how best to approach it?
Should I be on the lookout for anything?
How was the gaming? (lok nearly on topic!)
Any fun stories?

I studied Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of New South Wales in the early eighties, Economics (with side orders of statisistics and extra economics) at the Australian National University in the late eighties, and scattered bits of vocational/postgrad stuff at Monash University and the ANU (again) in the nineties.

Best approach?

1. Learn in class, goof off out of class. Learn out of class if you have to, but never goof off in class whatever the temptations. There is plenty of time to chat up attractive members of the appropriate sex, joke with friends, and doodle in notebooks outside of lectures and tutorials.

2. The textbook is usually a better reference resource than lecture notes. Some people learn best by writing notes. If you are not one of them, concentrate on listening to the lecturer, watching was is written on the board, and thinking about the material during lectures. Don't take copious notes just because it seems to be expected: only if you need the notes because there is no textbook, or if you find personally that writing the notes helps you to remember.

3. Ask for explanations of what you don't understand. My experience is that lecturers never minded if I stuck my hand up during a lecture. Perhaps I was a pet pupil, but my theory is that they were glad to have the feedback about where their explanations were not perfectly clear. If you are embarrassed to ask a question in the middle of a lecture, go down to the front at the end and ask then. Or ask as the next tutorial.

4. Learn continuously through the whole term. What you cram in a week you will forget in a week. What use is that? And Swot Vac is a bad time to try to find help with points that you find difficult.

5. Read more than just the set reading.

6. Get old exam papers from the library or archives and study them so that you will know what sort of thing to expect.

vii. Live on campus

viii. Enjoy the social life. Never again will you be surrounded by so many young, intelligent, carefree, attractive people, with such a variety of interests, as you will be as an undergrad. Joke with the pretty ones, sleep with the ones with senses of humour, and don't take anything too seriously.

ix. Change your crowd to suit your character, don't change your character to suit your crowd. A big university with a complete range of faculties and high entry standards will include kindred souls for almost any type of person you are likely to be. Find them, and they will be great friends for life. Don't squander this opportunity by wasting your time with fashionable prats, and disguising yourself in such a way that your kindred souls will not find you.

x. Most important Use condoms as though your life depended on them, which it does. Drink moderately (which is fun), but never so much that you vomit (which is never fun) or can't remember what you do (which might or might not be fun--you'll never know because you won't remember). You don't know me, so you can't tell that I am not a socially-conservative fuddy-duddy: but though I think that recreational drugs ought all to be legalised, I would never actually take another one myself (other than a little alcohol), and I tell you that you would be best to leave them alone too.

The gaming was first rate on the universities I attended. The most numerous and most various communities of gamers I have ever come across. And as an undergrad you will have more time for gaming and world-building than you will have again until you retire. People with jobs work forty-hours weeks. People with careers work sixty-hour weeks. And you probably won't be able to retire as early as I did.

Be on the lookout for someone nice, and express an interest early. It is more difficult, and less likely to be taken as flattering, to suddenly approach a person if you have been ignoring him or her for months than within three days of meeting him or her. Besides which a lot of the prospects will be paired off by the middle of first semester.

I have lots of fun stories, but most of them are discreditable to me, or would shock Eric's grandmother, or are off-topic, or (usually) all three.

Regards,


Agback

 

[ichabod]

Congratulations, man. Here's my advice, but it based on higher eductation in the US, which is hopefully different from England.

I went in not knowing what I was going to study. But I took a wide range of classes, and took time to look through the write-ups of the various degrees. I managed to find field that fascinated me, cognitive science (blend of AI, psych, neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics).

Get job skills. If you don't get job skills, you've just wasted four years. And talk to your profs and advisors, because what you think are job skills may not actually be job skills.

Study first. Party second. Pardon me, that shoudl be study first, game second, party third.

Gaming really depends on the school. My undergraduate school had a huge game club, lots of campaigns, two local conventions, and a great store nearby. My graduate school is pathetic, and it's four times as big.

Find out which profs suck from other students. Avoid them like the plague. Check the book out first thing. Be prepared to find other texts in the library, because a good textbook is invaluable to understanding the subject.

As far as good stories, there's tons. The cigarette machine's funeral. The aerobie wars, and resulting ceiling tile raids. Ichabod uses suggestion on a gang of acid heads. The freshman year plantation. The glassware incident. The horticulture interest floor. Flaming couches off the balcony. Why you always check your answering machine.

 

[Tanager]

Congratulations!

What did you study?

Beer and women

...which is why it took me 5 years to complete a 3 year program in Fine Arts (painting and printmaking) with lots of electives in Linguistics (comparitive Indo_european mostly).

Any advice on how best to approach it?
Should I be on the lookout for anything?

Basically what the two previous posts have already said, I'll add a few personal observations about "playing the game" (or, in Academese Trends in the power dynamics of socio-political, trans-generational discourse in a post modern/post-structural learning environment )

I'll second Agback's thoughts on lecture notes vs. course texts, although, it depends on what cues your memory more. For myself I found taking lecture notes a distraction as I was always a few steps behind the lecture in that case and had a better memory of the discussion if I just payed attention. Depending on the size/accoustics of the room a dictation recorder (those little half sized cassette recorders) can be useful to let you focus on the discussion, take a few key notes and then transcribe the important bits later.

His point about asking qestions is good too. Professors enjoy students who appear interested in the material. Also, use your professor's office hours to ask questions, seek clarifiaction on reading materials. I'm certain I raised grades a half-step (A- to A) in several classes simply because the profs new could put my name with my face and liked me.

Social situations outside of class: If your prof is the type who likes to carry on the class discussion/related material after class in more informal surroundings (read: local pub), go. My experience has been that an hour in a small group with the prof is usually worth 2 or 3 class-hours. This also ties in with the previous points.

How was the gaming?

As far as gaming goes, our group consisted of old friends and basically only gamed in a casual way and was basically fairly infrequent when we all could make it or felt like it.

Any fun stories?

A gentleman never tells the *really* fun stories