Victoria: August 2015

, by victoria

First week as a Freshie

I'm just going to update this space with how I'm feeling right now so I could look back to when I'm finishing up my four years in NTU. You're only going to be a freshie once, right?

It's the Friday of my second week in NTU and im only writing this because I was so caught up with the workload.

The first week was 'a stressful, surreal blur'.

Start your engine, brains. Here comes hell.

All the camps and fun events are over and it just hits you - that you are staring to study and take up responsibility as an uni student now. Reality strikes me so hard, because I've forgotten how studying is actually like.

It's been 8,9 months since I last touched my books or worked my brains. As I've been warned, university pace is so fast that you can't even catch your breath.

They are right.

Complex numbers, vectors... Those topics gave me a sense of familiarity yet unfamiliar at the same time. Back in JC I took maybe a month to gasp those topics, and now just like that they're done with the whole topic in a two hour lecture and done with tutorial by the very next week.

My brain just started functioning again and it's overloading.

Every now and then I would just look at the HSS students in envy because they have their lives easier for now, living on a 3 day work week with few readings to do over the weekends. If only I've scored just a little better I wouldn't be placing myself in this situation.

If I'm having a difficult time struggling with all these topics that I already knew at the back of my head few months ago, how would the poly kids even keep up with the pace? What about the guys who went to two years of army?

It's madness, and it's just week 1.

Printing madness

I didn't even know I had to print my own notes before every tutorial and lecture and had to rush down to the Hall printing room to get it done before midnight because the computers would shut down automatically past that.

In week 1 or the middle of week 2 the hall printing room broke down. My friends and I had to go around NTU trying to locate and internalize different areas that we can print out stuff so we don't have to be overly reliant on our hall printers.

Playing hide and seek with tutorial rooms

The bad thing about it is that nobody would tell you where the tutorial rooms are. You just got to find your way around. They are all hidden in different parts of NTU, some even located through climbing flights of stairs and walking through multiple doors to get to them.

Honestly, I wasn't even sure what I was doing most of the time.

I'm just a lost freshie following the crowd trying to figure out my life and get myself together. I just absolutely hate the feeling of being lost in life, maybe I'm just a control freak that needs to know exactly what's going on so that I could feel at ease.

Timetable

Nobody would tell you how to use the timetable, even when it's already been generated for you. It took me awhile to know how to use the STARS planner to visualize my timetable and how to change index of my core to another timing.

Screwed up body clock

Due to the screwed up body clock all thanks to the really long holidays and camps, I constantly overslept for my lectures. Thank God for engine there isn't any tutorial in week 1.

That was when I knew I had to get myself together.

Wardrobe malfunction

Those staying in hall would understand how I feel. I would always wear any tee, fbts and slippers to lectures and tutorials. When I alight at North/south spine, that's when I would always regret dressing up so sloppily because everyone seems so neat and presentable.

I always feel that since my hall is just nearby, there isn't a need to dress up. It's like me going down to my house downstairs to get a carton of milk. I would always make a promise to myself that I would dress up better the next time I come out for lectures, but I'll never fulfill it even till now because that lingering feeling of regret would just fade away when I reach back hall and don't have to change out.

Getting back Hall next year

You know you are never going to be a freshie forever and you start to think about your future. You will start to think about how to get a place to stay next year because only freshies can guaranteed stay. There is no way I'm going to travel to Tampines to Pioneer every single day, just no way.

You then realize you just have to balance your commitments to get back hall and your studies. I don't know how I'm going to do it but we'll just see how it goes.

Independence (can't stress this enough)

Most importantly, you are in this alone.

Nobody would care if you attend lectures or skip them every single week. You got to be responsible for yourself and your actions. Nobody is going to keep a close monitor on you because everyone is already so overloaded with their commitments. This is where everyone would start to grow up and take charge of their own life.

Having freedom is one thing, but it also means that the only person who's going to be responsible for any hiccups, setbacks and regrets would only be you, yourself.

Week 1 was just a the tip of the 4 year iceberg of hell. It's just going to get tougher here but well, we've already made it to the last stage of our education so let's just finish strong.

EEE Students

On top of it all, if you've been following this space you would know how much I abhor my course.
It really frightens me because there are significant number of people from my course who dropped out of my course because it's so competitive and demanding.

What's more is that I'm not even engineering material. I mean, come on.

Math and physics are just not my thing.

I'm sorry if I have rolled eyes at anyone who told me my course is difficult. I just can't help it. I know its genuine but I just don't wish to hear the harsh reality of my course, especially when I didn't have a choice to begin with.
Truth to be told, most of the EEE students don't. We are just being dumped into that course because that's the only course avaliable to us and if we don't take it we can't make it to a local Uni. (Unless you are the minority that actually loves circuits I really don't see which smart and saint person would choose this course honestly.)

I already have the mentality that it's going to be tough and I'm going to suffer, making me dread every single day of school. I'm just trying to neglect the fact that it's going to be tough and give it my best shot. However, it's just so difficult when everyone is trying to put you down and digging up the fact and smack it right in your face like you don't already know.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, but honestly I just wish people would stop looking at EEE students like that are sad, abandoned puppy dogs left on the streets awaiting for a slow, painful death.

I would really appreciate it if people would treat us just like any other ordinary people taking other courses. It's just like how we shouldn't treat sick people with a different attitude so that they could get better soon? It really helps mentality.

End of a very short and prompt rant.
Everything is just going to get toughter from here, but I'm just going to take each day as it is.