Initial Thoughts and advices entering University
(This post is backlogged from before I started this blog).
Initial Thoughts and advices entering University
As a freshman, I remember being quite stressed out at the start of the university semester in August 2022. I remember being slightly overwhelmed – there was the whole module system (in particular choosing your modules as well as bidding for your tutorial slots), getting around the school, getting my head back into the books and more. These are some of my initial thoughts as well as some advices I would give to my past self that would probably have made my life easier.
Advice 1: University starts way before the semester starts!
For starters, you definitely need to sit down and get all the administrative matters checked and settled. For me, after two years of NS, it took a while for my brain to warm up to how university worked. On top of that, my other friends and female counterparts in their third year of university were all telling me how the first week of university was just for orientations (week 0, first week of august), and that there was nothing to worry about. That gave me a false sense of security – I almost missed my module registration (modreg) and timetable planning. Don’t get misled by their chill – uni seniors already have their own sets of routines and have already eased into the university system, and forget how confusing it was for themselves then as freshmen.
It’s probably a good idea firstly to check out the registration guide for undergraduates – it covers the process for the student card, medical examination, setting up your university email, as well as various financial and administrative matters.
After that, if you are interested, start searching up the extra-curricular activities in NUS. Since it’s university, nothing is compulsory anymore. But that also means that you need to be on an active look out for opportunities to have cultivate your hobbies, destress, meet new friends and the like. Orientation camps such as hall engagement camps, faculty camps, RAG, CCA camps and whatnot may start way before the university semester starts, and you can easily miss out the obscure sign ups on their Instagram pages or the tiny link one of the many emails sent to your student email. This is especially so if you don’t have “connections” aka seniors who point these happenings out to you and recommend you to go, or just personally rope you into these events. Personally, I think its an overall plus to go for such activities.
At the same time, you might want to consider staying on campus – there are applications to fill and possibly interviews to go for if you wish to do so, so don’t delay the applications!
Advice 2: Modules Registration
Be familiar with the module system of university! Unless you are studying medicine, or law (or any course with 100% pre-allocated classes, or so I have heard), you need to be somewhat familiar with your course requirements and the mods you can choose from, so you can make the most optimal decision to study what you are most interested in! You also need to choose your own tutorial slots – this is when you can choose to align your classes with your friends or study buddies, as well as plan your day. I feel that understanding this module system early is vital, and can make or break your first sem. For me, I managed to align my classes with one of my friends I met in my SOC orientation camp and bid and plan for a general module that I found sufficiently interesting – I imagine that if I hadn’t, morning or late evening classes would have been a pain to go for and studying for a uninteresting module would have been a chore.
Be mindful that module registration rounds last for less than 2 days, and tutorial registration lasts just one day from 9am – 5pm, so if you miss that you will most likely end up with conflicting and screwed up timing classes.
Advice 3: Join Orientation Camps and consider Hall / RCs
I think that orientation camps are objectively quite useful. Personally, I’m not a fan of o-camp games and shenanigans. But through my SOC orientation camp I made several good friends that came through when discussing assignments and going to classes with. At the same time, I got advices from seniors on how to go about registering for modules, general advices for common modules as well as study resources such as how to use NUSMods, the bus app, edureg, maximizing the S/U system etc. I think that it is super important to be proactive and be aware of all these things, because no one will be there to spoon-feed you all the information.
For on-campus accommodation, I think it presents an attractive value proposition. Personally, I am staying in one of the halls in NUS as well (one of the more chill ones). As an eastie, it cuts my travel time by a significant amount which I can spend studying. I also get to wake up late! (this is a major plus as the sem goes along, trust). At the same time, you can join hall specific CCAs, make close friends in your block, and attend hall activities. I’ve made various friends through hall and I rather enjoy the hall festivities that do make university life that much more fun, and the support that hall provides especially near exam weeks, or the “welfare”. I’ve heard that RC life is also quite enjoyable. Although accommodations do come with that added cost, I do feel that it is worth staying, as long as you are responsible for yourself and able to manage your time well.
Overall
Enjoy the journey! Manage and maximise your time well, time does fly by quite fast ~.