My experience and advice for first-years – Jason Khu (B. Actuarial Studies / Commerce 2022)

Posted on: February 8, 2023

Last Updated on: February 19th, 2023

Post Category: Student Experience

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19th February 2019, I attended my first day of classes at UNSW.

26th November 2022, I turned in my last exam.

And now, in this blog post, I present to you some of the things I got to learn.

Obviously, there is no expectation on how you should lead your Uni experience – everything at Uni is basically optional.

But I believe it’s ideal to take on opportunities to learn, connect with people, and figure out what’s next for you. And, for most people, figuring out what’s next generally means figuring out what type of career they want to advance – or what kind of work they want to pursue.

If this idea aligns with your Uni goals, you may find some value reading about my experience. I may not have been the most effective student, but I do present some learnings from my four-year experience Uni – and hopefully that’s plenty helpful.

So here are my four key takeaways and words of advice from my four years at Uni:

1. Get involved

Get involved in opportunities that are accessible to University students – join a student society, join a program where you can learn a new skill, go on exchange, apply for part-time roles and internships, etc.

Oftentimes, though, a lot of students just do these things because it “looks good on the resume”; they are things that just get ticked-off and put on paper. But if you show up, have a positive attitude and put in sincere effort, you’ll get a lot more value from these types of opportunities. You’ll build up your skills and meet some good people.

From these opportunities, you build relevant skills, including, but not limited to, communication, teamwork, leadership, problem solving and independence (though, this is more so for exchange). And these are skills that help you land job offers, get recognised by leaders/colleagues, and get promoted.

You also get to meet people who will lift you up and help you accomplish more. Particularly when you join a student society or student program, you could meet students who are later in their University journey, and they would be able to help you access grander opportunities. These include internship roles, graduate roles, and any other role you may be interested in.

During my first year, I got involved in a University Ambassador program. Through that program, I met a good friend, who was in his fifth year at the time. And because we kept in touch, he helped me land my first student society role during my second year.

2. Get connected

Take the time to reach out to people who you can learn from, and build relationships with those people, because you will never know when you need them.

This includes other students, ex-students who are now working in the industry, and even your lecturers.

• If you are thinking of applying to a particular internship role, reach out to a student who was successful in securing that role and ask about their experience.
• If you are thinking of applying to a particular graduate role, or pivoting your career in a particular field, reach out to an ex-student who is now working in that industry and ask about their experience.
• If you are thinking of picking up opportunities in academia, research or tutoring, (show up to lectures consistently, show enthusiastic participation, and) attend your lecturer’s consultation hours to ask questions.

Starting, and maintaining, these relationships will give you invaluable insights and, sometimes, these connections may help you land your next opportunity.

During my third year, I sent a cold outreach message, on LinkedIn, to two Deloitte consultants who worked in one of the teams within the Strategy, AI & Transformation unit. I had a short chat with each of them, and the insights I gained helped me prepare for the Assessment Centre for their vacationer program with more confidence.

3. Build your portfolio

Most students will not have much work experience – particularly during their first two years of University.

A good alternative to highlight your skills and potential is to take on projects.

A good place to start is by getting involved in competitions, hackathons and other events/programs, where you get to work on a project end-to-end and share your finished product. Events like this often involve a judging panel, mentors and/or teamwork, so they present an opportunity for students to build a wide range of skills, gain some industry insights and/or receive feedback.

Personal projects (i.e., projects you initiate) are also valuable. At the end of the day, when it comes to any project, you are using your skills to solve a problem.

You can highlight the projects you worked on in your resume, by describing the task, specifying your contributions/accomplishments, and sharing any links to your work. You can learn more about resume writing here.

4. Do you, and don’t expect too much

Uni can be competitive. And with competition, there’s comparison.

If you are reading this post, I’m assuming that you are someone who doesn’t like falling (far) behind the pack. The unfortunate thing is that, at Uni, you are going to feel behind others sometimes – no matter how much you accomplish, no matter how long you’ve stayed at Uni.

My tip regarding this is to just do you:

• Invest time and effort into things because you genuinely want to, not because your peers want to.
• Spend some time figuring out the things that interest you, or the things that spark your curiosity, and go for opportunities that will help you learn more about those.
• Try new things, get some exposure and have fun. And if you enjoy what you’re doing, then consider pivoting.

Chances are, whatever you are interested in, there is something at Uni for you.

One thing I like to remind myself of is: when people start and go through Uni, everyone will have different backgrounds, life challenges and, mostly importantly, different goals and tendencies. Everyone is carving their own path and going at their own pace, so there is no need for comparison.

It’s particularly easy to see people with (many) admirable accomplishments and think that they have their studies, career or life figured out. No one has it figured out.

Just work with what you have, and focus on becoming better at the end of your Uni experience.

Another (slightly) related tip is to have ambitious goals loosely held; don’t expect too much.

You will fail a lot while you are at Uni. You will have goals, and sometimes you won’t achieve them. You will have expectations for yourself, and sometimes you won’t meet them.

A classic example of this is applying for jobs/internships: most people will apply for many different roles, and get rejected many times, before they land an offer.

So have ambitious goals, put in sincere effort, but accept the possibility that things won’t work out as well as you expect – and that you might have to adjust. Have ambitious goals loosely held.

My Uni experience was far from ideal, and your experience might be the same. But nonetheless, I learnt and gained so much.

Because of the COVID pandemic, I had to change my approach to make the most out of my Uni experience. But I still got involved in some things I was genuinely interested in.

I learnt tools that helped me land job offers, I learnt how to make and run my own website, and now I write content that (I hope) will help the next generation of young professionals and data analysts.

And those were the four key takeaways from my Uni experience!

During my second year, I had a conversation with a first-year and his philosophy towards Uni stuck with me since: ‘Why would you spend so much money going to University, and not fully leverage the resources that are made available to you?’

So, again, here are my four pieces of advice:

• Get involved
• Get connected
• Build your portfolio
• Do you, and don’t expect too much

Even if you don’t agree with some of the things in this post, you do you; I’m glad that you at least read through this post.

If you would like to read about the learnings and experiences of other Uni students, check out some of the other posts I’ve written:

• Jared Chuah ()
• Zoe Sun ()
• Vivian Shen ()