Advice for a wayward student?

[Kikujir0]

Hey guys, its been a while since I posted here, but as far as I can recall, it was the first set of forums I ever posted on, so it has a special place in my bookmarks. I have been for the most part a lurker rather than a poster, but I can rely on this community to always give mature and helpful answers most of the time.

I'm in 2nd year uni and I failed a subject last year in my 2nd semester, which unfortunately, was a bloody pre-req for every single subject this year haha, so I forced myself to redo it in summer. I thought I would change my ways this year, and, like the idiot I am I did not. I just don't think my head is in the right mindset at the moment. I find the content interesting for the most part (if the lecturers aren't total crap, although most are good) and I get along with mostly passes, and maybe 2 or 3 credits and 2 distinctions.

My main problem was the 3 hour commute for 5 days a week, so I've decided I am going to board at the uni next year so I don't miss any classes. I missed a crapload of lecs/tutes this semester because eventually I just got sick of travelling 3 hours everyday and only went to select tutorials/lectures. This hurt alot and has been reflected in this exam period (I am quite possibly going to fail 1 subject, and definitely fail another, I added up my marks). As a result I am going to board on uni campus next year, bring only a laptop instead of any gaming systems to prevent procastination hopefully, and not endure the 3 hour commute.

Although before this, I am thinking of taking the next 6 months off to get a full time job (I am sort of ashamed to say this but I have family connections where I can just get a full time temp job without looking) just to take a break from uni. No due dates for assignments, no tests, no exams, no homework. And hopefully next year I will be ready to go back to uni without grudging the workload. The other option is just go through with my current enrolled subjects with 14 contact hours as oppossed to 26 contact hours this semester.

Has anyone done this before? or similarly defer after year 12 before uni? Was it beneficial, regrets? pros? cons?

Personally I often think that I should have deferred for 6 or 12 months after year 12. I distinctly rememberd that I was just tired of schooling and wasn't too keen to be at uni at the time, I got over this, mostly over time however and just did the work to get me by.


(for reference, I am doing mechanical engineering)
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[Island_Wolf]

I commute 2-3 hours one way (trouble-free,depends on time of day) when I went to uni so I know how you feel. I got used to commuting long starting my second year though, playing the DS on the train became where I played games the most during my uni years or I will be writing notes or plan my assignment.

Not to go against you but I find it hard to believe that commuting is the only factor that affects your grade, those that did well in my grade (Computer Science), may commute over 3 hours a day and I came first in 3 units, the smartest guy had to walk because he can't even afford a bus trip. You sure commuting is the only issue?
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[Pilot]

I found that once I left study, started working full-time, then tried to return, I had grown too accustomed to having a lot more free money and time (not having to go home and do a crapload of uni work and assignments) which really made it difficult to go back and try and complete uni again. Currently I'm in the midst of my 3rd attempt to finish my degree after bowing out due to wanting to work (again) and it just gets harder to get back into the uni work each time.

My advice would be to just get it over and done with while you can. Once you start working, it's hard to go back. Plenty of time to work once you have your degree and the pay increase and job prospects you get from having said degree are invaluable.

You could also think about juggling part-time work and part-time study, but I don't recommend it if you have terrible time management skills.
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[crescent fresh]

just the fact that your asking this and can outline no assignments/tests/blah as advantages of deferring a semester indicate to me you should indeed take a break from uni and do the ft temp work for a few months.

either you'll realise you don't need a degree at the moment for your desired career (depends on the nature of the ft family connection work) and write off the degree for the time being (perfectly valid)
or gain a renewed passion for your degree and get your shit sorted out to do well in it from next year onwards when your travel time is 0

3rd+4th year engo does not get any easier, and if you are in the habit of failing 1 course and borderlining another, each semester, then you're going to have to force a major change before it ends up taking 6-7 years for your 4year degree
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[Till@]

I wouldn't take time off to work full time for a couple reasons. The first being working a full time s***kicker job is hell, every day it's the same thing and if you're sane you'll hate it almost instantly (not to mention it's 40 or more hours at work, which is more than at uni).

The second reason is it's too easy to stagnate. I finished year 12 in 2009 with the intention of working full time for a year (which I did) and then going to uni, suffice to say I'm still working two crappy jobs with no real intention to go to uni, I keep saying I will but if that ever actually happens is a different story.

On top of all this, it might suck right now, but if you intend to finish your degree (which I assume you do) you're going to have to bog through all the crap you aren't liking right now sometime.

EDIT: I should also mention that I did apply for a course after year 12 and missed out. Was going to use the time off last year, now and into the future to decide what to study after missing out on that course. After 18 months I have probably only given it 5 hrs thought. Time off to "figure things out" is time wasted IMO.
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[Kikujir0]

[Scrav]

Taking a break and going into full time work will be a huge risk. So many times people get used to the income of full time employment (even if it is bottom of the ladder stuff), that they never return to studies. The lure of full time income is incredibly powerful. You will have a huge immediate benefit now, but that doesn't necessarily mean it pays off in the long term. Income now with little to no major expenses is different to when you have to pay off a home loan and the expenses of kids. The degree you are working to could pay off when you need it later down the track.

Part time work/study is a good option and can be an excellent option for slowing down studies for just a bit of a breather.

[timecrisisking]

I'd just hammer down and finish it, I just finished my last semester (last test was yesterday) doing four 300 level units and working 30 hours a week. Just think of the light at the end of the tunnel, that's what kept me going (I completed commerce accounting degree at Macq).

Definately do a mix of work and uni though, doing purely uni work does your head in otherwise.
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[tallkid123]

Just knuckle down and get it all done as soon as possible. You're doing one of the hardest degrees out there (mech eng) and it's not a degree that one would easily call a waste of time. If you manage to finish it, then it will help you later on.

Personally, I'd love to get out and work full time nowadays (I have a UNSW Commerce degree) but due to my marks, the fact that I still don't really know what to do with my life and how my education is still covered, I've just decided to continue on with a Juris Doctor for now.

To be blunt, just finish your education asap. I'm struggling as it with motivation right now but I know that dropping postgrad is something I'll regret if I don't finish it while I have the chance.
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[Qbert]

Just be careful once you defer it's VERY hard to get back. Unless you like uni, which by the sounds of it you don't. Honostly, defering is great, but you need a strong will to go back and finish your degree.

Edit: Well not hard to get back, I should have said, hard to motivate or force yourself to go back!
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[Marka]

As someone has already said about going into the workforce. I went into the work force and the appeal of doing any form of study quickly disappeared once I started earning money. I've only been able to summon the motivation to complete a couple of TAFE certificates since.

[mrcool37]

My dad deferred for a year when he was at uni years ago and said it was the worst decision he ever made.

Going to a full time job with the family as opposed to uni has zero long term benefit, I'm the prime example of this, and have become too lazy/scared to find a civil engineering job which I spent 5 years at uni for. You'll grow accustomed to an increased pay packet, and will find it hard to go back to being a poor uni student. Get through it, and your pay packet will be substantially larger than if you kept working for your family anyway.

Was also like you, ended up missing a fair few lectures, too busy in party mode and failed half of my second year. They were all pre-requisite subjects.

Don't let the word 'pre-requisite' get to you, it doesn't really mean anything, just enroll in the next set of subjects anyway and knuckle down to make sure you get through those. If you only just failed the pre-requisite subjects anyway, it will make no difference and you'll be able to handle the next subject. The uni won't say no, they're hoping you fail to keep in line with their passing/failure rates plus they have the chance to extract more money out of you. Enroll, pass and prove them wrong.

So I failed probably 4 pre-requisite subjects, which would've thrown out the structure of the rest of my studies. But I enrolled in the next set of subjects anyway, got through all those, then went back to part time for a 5th year (my course was 4 years) and did my thesis whilst only having to concentrate on 2nd year subjects. They also become much easier the second time having learnt beyond those subjects for 3rd/4th year.

So just keep going on with the next set of subjects if you're confident enough so you can still do all the classes with your mates, then go back to the original failed subjects whenever you choose. Either battle it out hard with 5 subjects, or do an extra year part time at the end with the failed subjects.

I definitely regret not trying harder though. As the saying goes, 'P's get degrees.' But it doesn't get you a job.

[Kikujir0]

Thanks guys your responses have been amazing I knew I could rely on this forum haha.

Thanks for sharing your experiences too it really puts things into perspective. Oh yeah I know pre-reqs aren't necessary if its only the next set of subjects, since most subjects so far start with revision or go through old topics again anyway with their own flavour to it. Its just that this one course was literally a pre-req for every single second year course, save one or two, so any subject that had it as a pre-req, I wouldn't have been able to enrol into. So I had to do it that summer eitherwise I would have been "behind" my time for minimum graduation. Well sort of screwed that up now due to my lazyness this semester but I am almost definite to what I am going to do now.

Fortunately enough I am forced to take at least my one online subject, because if I enrol in at least one subject I don't have to apply for program leave. The reason why i didn't want to apply for program leave was because if the off chance that I somehow got rejected, I have to reapply via UAC again to re enter my course. Bloody stupid/weird, have no idea why that is in place.

I say fortunately because theres an overwhleming amount of advice to definitely avoid full time work as oppossed to part time study or just put my head down and go back to full time study, as it would be alot harder to get back into the uni way of things, and I agree with you guys, my dad said the same and I can now see he is right.

I am most likely going to enrol in my 1 gen ed online course and 1 of my core program courses, and my aim is literally to get HDs, and I honestly think it is realistic with only 2 days a week of uni and 2 -3 days of part time work, especially since the Gen ed is reputably easy haha. This will only be the 1 semester (i hope) that I do this until I graduate, I think all I need is just a bit of a breather from uni and get my head straight, and see how I go with 2 subjects first, learn how to walk before I run and all that jazz .

So yeah thanks for all the advice guys, it has been real helpful in thinking over thing.

mrcool37I hope you find a job man. Personally the only reason why I would be scared of finding is a job because I would probably be wondering if I am even good enough, can I even do the job? Is that the same for you? What are you doing now if you don't mind me askin'?
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[michael_123]

I'm gonna go against the grain and say there are benefits in taking time off.

I went straight through schooling (secondary-college-uni) with no breaks. After 1.5 years of studying Bachelor of Geomatics my grades dropped mainly due to the fact I was enjoying the uni life style too much. I got put on academic probation which was pretty embarrassing as I knew that could do it, but just couldn't be bothered. I literally had done 0 work outside of tutes and pracs and studying for an exam consisted of reviewing a previous years exam paper the day before. So I decided I would take 6 months off and kinda suss out my options.

I got a job in a call center and realised that while that was fun for the first few months it really wasn't that mentally stimulating and the pay wasn't great (bit over $40k or so) with limited progression.

So come towards the start of the next year I looked at continuing geomatics or starting over. I figured the main reason I hated geomatics was that it was basically a pure mathematics course in many aspects but I loved being outside so looked at similar courses. I ended up enrolling in Bachelor or Science majoring in Geology, so similar in some aspects being outside work but without so much of the core maths and had different sort of people studying it. From the start I really enjoyed it and my marks improved. Come second year and more so in third year I received my first scholarship and found I moved back into the maths as I studied geophysics and this time round it didn't feel as pressured. I then went onto postgrad and completed it with 2 scholarships, private funding and got an awesome mark.

Come the end of studying, have graduated, got an awesome geologist job which I'm loving with awesome pay and high responsibilities. I'm off to Africa next month to supervise a new deposit the company has acquired which will open stacks of doors in the future (if I pull it off, if not, will close quite a few).

So ending the rant, the time away from uni let me re-evaluate what I really enjoyed and wanted in a job. I understand a lot of people say that once you leave uni you will never go back as you get used to the pay and the potential less stress of studying/exams but as long as you keep telling yourself that you want to go back and make sure you do, it may improve your marks like it did in my situation.

[Gizmocreative]

dude, do what is right for you but make sure you make a decision you will be happy with in the future. i got sick of uni about half way through and took a 6 month break, by the end of the 6 months i was thirsty for knowledge again so i bounced back in.

I like to think of it the way i play long ass rpg games. if i leave it too long, I forgot where im at and i lose interest in it completely. the problem there in a career sense is that you could miss out on finishing something that could make or break your future.

there's plenty of people who have made it big without study, but having a degree gives a pretty solid foundation for earning decent money from the word go.

have a big think about it and i hope you make the right decision, part time study and full time work is tough, but you get the money and the education sorted slower but still sorted.

also another thing to remember is that a lot of degrees are just degrees, not that many employers ask you for your marks so ultimately as long as you finish it, youll get experience on the job.
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[NeoSanity]

I'm about to take six months off before doing all my final year university work and majors, I've been doing work experience for the last year on the side and I've just found that the constant study and work of it has really worm me (and my grades) down.

Over Thirteen years of school and university study eats at you and in my honest opinion the large majority of kids who come out of university end up with no real life skills outside socialising and last-minute studying. Universities are cutting back on compulsory work experience because the insurance is expensive and less companies are willing to do it and the ones that do work experience only really get a couple weeks worth of what is essentially a glorified excursion.
What I've learnt after a year of working in a corporate environment is that it's a completely different lifestyle and approach to working than university. One that I've been able to take some experience away from and apply it to university.

I'd recommend at the very least snuffing out some work experience outside of your degree, and then if you need to chase the insurance down from your university, they're paying for it anyway. Failing that, take six months off and get some work in the field, even if it's low-end it'll give you an idea of what the work is like.

A couple of things I took away from work experience so far has been:
- Working & studying at home is balls, so staying back or getting to uni early to do all the work you can in the library makes it a lot easier to get concentrated hours of study and work done. Don't take (much) work home with you, if you're taking home more than a couple hours of work a week, you're doing it wrong.
- Learn to communicate. So many uni students go through entire years without emailing their lecturers or speaking to them about assignments and work, asking about assignments or clarifying them is invaluable and can save you hours of bashing your head against a wall.
- Networking is important. Also, networking does not mean socialising. PASS groups, learning support and even hours in the library will at some point get you in contact with people with similar study problems or situations. They'll ask you for advice, you can ask them for advice, if your lucky enough to get someone who's doing your degree it's a double win. Doesn't mean you can't be social with them, but it's not a good idea before an assignment it due to be socialising in the library. Other students also provide an insight or contacts to people who are more immediately able to help you with any problems your having.
- Have a plan, going into each session not knowing what to do next leads to some really bad subject choices. A good example was in first year when I decided to go outside the faculty for my elective, I ended up doing a subject remotely related to IT, nothing to do with business or management (As was my aim) and ended up getting a HD in a subject tailored for people who've never used a computer. I now have a subject layout all the way until I finish uni, with all my my electives chosen in advance based on questions I asked co-ordinators and faculty staff.

[Appel]

Haven't read the above posts so don't flame me if it's been said.

Do you enjoy your course? Like is it something you are really passionate about?

Why I ask is because when I started uni, i pretty much failed subjects constantly for three years, passing some and not others. I took time off and went back during that time and it still didn't help. My heart wasn't in it like I thought it would be.

So I had a good think to myself about what I wanted to do, and found it a few months later when I ran into a friends friend who mentioned the course that I just completed last week.

I took a year off and worked for a year, saving cash and then moved up towards uni (from the Mornington Peninsula to Chapel St, Vic) to start my course with Youth Allowance. Needless to say I didn't fail one subject and LOVED the course.

If you enjoy what you are doing, go for it, but if you are not sure, take some time off and think about it. So many of us are pressured into going to uni with out knowing what we want to do. I was a victim of this, and had to realise that, stop uni and really think about what I enjoyed doing. And then fell in love with what I found.

And at the end of the day, if it is what you want to do, take some time off and work in retail or any s*****y job and realise how bad it really is. You'll be super motivated to get back to uni and succeed.
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[ObsoletE]

I went through the usual 12 years of high-school, repeated year 12 when i didn't get the score i needed to get into the course i wanted to do, so did 13 years of school, then 4 years undergrad, 1 year honours.

i was offered a PhD position at the end of this, but by then i had well and truly had enough of study. i enjoyed the 18 years i'd spent up to then, but couldn't take another 5-6 years.

in terms of the question at hand - i don't think anyone here can answer it for you. i know that personally, i would've found it VERY hard to go back if i'd taken time off in between high school and uni, or taken a sabbatical during uni study. I guess what helped was that during my uni days, i worked in a s**t-kicker job, so already had the experience of one of those soul-destroyingly mindless jobs, which gave me the perspective to get out of that as quick as possible.

but i probably could've used it.
i came out of uni and went straight into work - like i had a week off after exams, then went to work. and after 3 years (i think) this was when i finally burnt out, and took my gap "year" (ended up being 18 months) before starting where i am now.

I do wonder sometimes "what if" about the doctorate, but it's not really a regret - i honestly don't think i could've made it through.

sorry man, i don't think this is really much help as it's really a personal thing... i guess if there's anything to be taken from this thread, it's that you should do what you feel is right.
if you want the gap year, take it.
if you want a sabbatical in your studies, take it.
if you want to power through it all, do it.
(and if you wonder about changing course partway, don't be afraid to try it.)

and make use of the guidance councillors at your school/uni. they might have some advice, or if nothing else, they'll be another sounding board for your thoughts.
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[lexielab]

I think you should ask yourself if the course is a good fit for you. I've studied a course which didn't suit me at all - I skipped the maximum number of classes I was allowed to, and constantly submitted assignments late (partly due to understanding subject coordinators, which is a very bad thing in my opinion). What I'm getting at is that a possible reason for your lack of motivation is that you either should not be studying at all, or studying something else/somewhere else.

If you do decide that the course is right for you and you're going to continue it, you'll have to make changes in your life and impose some discipline. If you have no reason not to study, then stop making excuses to yourself and study. Part of the university experience is learning to manage time and work independently and effectively. If you're not doing this and only learning the minimum amount of work you need to get through the semester, you're cheating yourself and teaching yourself bad habits for the future.