Melbourne In The Eyes Of A Malaysian Student (Part 2: University)

                  One of the few pictures I took of my university. A beautiful transition to winter.                       

Welcome back !

This is the much awaited second part of my many ramblings on Melbourne during my first year here. I did an initial first part about me coming to gripes with the cruel reality of finance earlier in the week so feel free to read all about it somewhere in this blog.

A total of TWENTY SIX! views reached my previous post which can only mean the excitement for a second article by yours truly must have reduced my fellow readers to a near embarrassing state of constant F5-ing my blog website every day since the last post. For that, I apologize. And here you go. Your welcome.

Having broken the ice with my fantasies of being at least moderately popular, let's begin.

This part was always going to be included in this mini series as it is pretty much the sole reason why I came to Melbourne in the first place. If it wasn't clear already, it is about enrolling in a course in University of Melbourne and the many experiences and memories that are still fresh in my caffeine induced head. 

I think a very brief introduction of the course that I enrolled into is needed here. I was a  first year Mechanical Systems major in a Bachelor of Science degree. Basically, an engineering focused degree without it being an actual engineering degree. Is it dumb? Probably. Am I dumb for taking it? Questionable and debatable.  

Something very unique about the course is that every student is required to take at least 4 breadth subjects throughout the 6 semesters of the 3 year degree. A breadth subject is a subject that isn't related to your degree. For example, I took Business Law and Introduction to Microeconomics which are subjects from the Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Commerce degrees respectively.

I personally found it really cool that I could learn something fresh from the usual maths and science subjects that comes as part and parcel of an engineering degree. Of course, it is very possible that thousands of dollars could easily go down the drain if the subjects you picked happened to be as useful as a knife in a gunfight. The downside of this is the sacrifice of an actual engineering degree. Is it a worthwhile risk? ABSOLUTELY NOT improbable. But only time will tell.

So here are some of my before and after thoughts on certain stuff about my experiences in university. Ah, this will totally be fun and not embarrassing at all. Totally.

I have just a hunch that I won't share this on Twitter after all. Because of laziness. Yeap, just because of that.

1. The actual university itself    

A beautiful view in the comfort of behind behind the glass window

What I expected:

This may sound pretty dumb (wow, much surprise coming from a genius like me) but I didn't do extensive research when choosing on what university to enter to. It was pretty much set into stone by my parents that I was heading off to Melbourne. I was half against it since I didn't really want to spend a needless amount of money to enrol in a university abroad when the universities in Malaysia weren't too bad to begin with for literally less than half the price. A one year transfer suited me really well. My parents however were insistent on it so off to Melbourne I went. I didn't mind it too much  since the language and short-ish distance from Malaysia compared to the UK sounded really nice in my head at first.

I think I went to like maybe 5 websites before choosing University of Melbourne. They were ranked pretty high up in the QS rankings and were the top 30 or so for the best universities to go to for an engineering degree. After some more searching, they had a really lively music scene and just events in general compared to Adelaide which suited me well enough. So yeah, I went for it.

They call me the next Sun Tzu, really.

Funnily enough, I didn't really know anything about the facilities they had. I saw that they had a pretty huge map and that's it. I assumed they had really nice facilities and modern technology that Malaysian universities can only dream of. Key word here is 'assume'. I didn't put much thought into it but I doubt it would have affected my decision at the end. 

What I got:

Well I was right. It was one big campus. A huge applause for that intuition. Watch out, Australian lottery companies! I'm about to milk you guys dry.

Anyway in all seriousness..... 

The campus was big enough that I got lost in the first few weeks. It was a bit overwhelming, really. Funnily enough, I seem to never be able to find Baillieu Library in my first few MONTHS. It was frankly embarrassing considering I knew where South Lawn was (literally right beside the library). Ironically, I'm currently typing this in the Baillieu Library so at least I have successfully managed to do something worthwhile in my two semesters here! 

It also didn't help that the university printed out maps of the campus that mixed up two places with each other. The infamous Peter Hall and Redmond Barry mix-up. And of course, I had classes in both of these buildings. Needless to say, it was a confusing first week for yours truly.

Eventually, I pretty much knew every building (or at least the important ones!) in the campus. Bit by bit, I felt more at home in the university with certain places being marked as my little own haven. The Laby Ideas, when not too crowded, served as one of the best places to study/chill during the very little free time I had. There was the Old Engineering building which was nearly empty for most days to no one surprise really. And special mention must go to the Metallurgy building for being the only building my student card could access during after hours. 

The only demonstration I took a picture of but I ensure you there were some impressive ones.

The facilities in University of Melbourne probably impressed me the most. Physics classes were a clear indicator of how far I came from the dark and dull days of handling a ticker tape car in my poorly ventilated, shoddy excuse for a Physics lab back in high school. Catapults, radioactive material, glowing airplanes, spinning chairs, floating magnets, jumping rings and etc all come to mind at the moment. I was a really bad Physics student however so I'm pretty sure there are some demonstrations that must have just past me by. 

Engineering subjects provided me with an Altera board which was I guess kind of cool and a free MATLAB program which had and still puzzle me up to this day. And oh yeah, we were given two playing cards in one tutorial in Introductory Microeconomics to play with (the least cool subject of all, clearly).

What disappointed me a LOT was the lack of an actual football (soccer for you Australian kangaroos) field. I found myself playing in 1/4 of the hockey pitch which was pretty much more futsal than football at the end of the day which at the end suited me fine enough, considering I start seeing that bright light after 10 minutes of running.  

Lastly, I guess I shall note about the stuff to eat around the area. Union House gave me some options (alas they were mostly options that went over my $5 budget) to consider which was decent for a slow day when my legs decide to be really lazy. Beyond the campus, there was a KFC, Domino's, a nice little cafe with cheap meals and....... 

RICEBAR. 

*shivers in fear

Never again. Unless someone shouts me of course. Thanks mystery friend.


2. Clubs and Societies

What I expected :

Nothing much really. Clubs at high school and college were usually amateur-ish at best so I didn't harbor any hopes that it would change significantly. It was sure to be better, of course but I didn't give any real thought into it. My top priority was finding a club to play football in - anything else would be a welcome bonus.

What I got :

I touched it lightly on my previous post that one should be careful when picking clubs to join. Obviously, that was advice from a person that promptly went to go bat-shit crazy when deciding on what clubs to join. Don't let my sacrifice of a good chunk of Australian dollars ( not telling how much because I have to preserve some shred of dignity) be in vain.  

No campus life shall be complete without joining clubs of interest and meeting friends that have a similar interest. Or so they say in many American coming of age movies. I may sound bitter but I ensure you I'm not. Really.

Just fooling around as always in the Soccer Appreciation Society.

There were clubs I joined that brought me friends who I still talk to today (AMC and SAS), some that just provided free food (nearly just as good), some that were plain bad and some I can't really judge because I was simply too lazy to join any of their activities. 



     The Singapore Club. I guess I remember half of the people's names here. Success.

I'm not hear to rate clubs or anything but I was very disappointed in the Malaysian Students Society. Much of my criticism come from a poor effort by the committee to bring all the freshies together in the first ever meeting. They literally provided free food and just left everyone to their own for the remaining of the day. Lazy and left a bad taste in my mouth. Very surprisingly I enjoyed myself more in the Singapore Students Society (although no one could tell me apart anyway) which was a lot more organised and well, gave more free food.

Should I have blamed them or my awkwardness? The answer cannot be any clearer, eh.

There were some clubs that I shall not speak off (but watch me contradict myself somewhere in the post) that were either forgettable or just not fun at all.

On a brighter note, I did join the Soccer Appreciation Society which became my most participated club. It provided me a weekly much needed breather from the tiring routine of lectures and tutorials in the form of  playing the sport I love. I made most of my friends there and even got myself a committee position albeit a really small one. 

It's honestly the best club for anyone who loves football to join.


3. Subjects 

What I expected:

It was pretty obvious that the subjects I would take in university would be much harder than anything I had taken previously (no shit Sherlock). I told myself it would be fine as long as I worked hard enough. 

Yes, that was naive of me. 

And yes, this naivety will become a recurring theme in this whole blog post. 


What I got:

Salute to the creators of lecture capture, whoever you are.

Lecture capture. Those two words were alien to me prior to joining this university but it became one of the best 'lecturers' in the world. 

At first glance, it seemed to be a tool only lazy people who wouldn't attend lectures would use. As time went by, you start to realize that some lecturers had voices that would put an Olympiad to sleep. If you don't get that (I don't really know either), understand that some lectures can get really fucking boring. Therefore, an ability to listen lectures multiple times in 1.5 speed (I'm not good enough for x2 speed sadly ) was a godsend.

Getting that out of the way, the subjects I took in these 2 semester were alright ( I guess?). Both Maths subjects I took ( Linear Algebra and Calculus 2) were similar enough in terms of difficulty. So much so that I had the same marks for both of them. Lectures for Linear Algebra were fun to attend ( at least for me!) while Calculus 2 was meh. These two subjects can be easily aced if one puts in a lot of hard work. 

Saying that, I promptly missed out on H1 for both of them since I did slack off a lot because well, that's just who I am at this moment of time. 

 Scott Connell. The OG .

                                                                  
A piece of advice that I should have followed but didn't, a bit of grinding will do wonders for you. It sounds easy enough but it's not. You will have plenty of sleepless nights, drink countless of cups of coffees, shouting at the inanimate laptop and even learn how fucking annoying it is to find that one piece of paper in a mountain of notes stuffed into your bag. 

Yet, go through that and the payoff might just be worth it.

Moving on, I did two engineering subjects which were ESD 1 and ESD 2. 

     'Is this subject for real?'

ESD 1 was highly project assessed with nearly 60% of the grade coming from the water turbine project. This was the subject I learnt that group projects can be a huge pain at (all!)times.

With the glorious luck I was blessed with the moment I was born into this world, OF COURSE I would be  paired with the 'BEST' (so much HATE that I wondered how I didn't strangle them at times) teammates that SIMPLY COULDN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE PROJECT .

ARGGHHHHDHDAUZJHADHSJSL&@@(%&%@!!! 

Did I mention I didn't like my teammates in semester 1? Glad I got that out of the way.

Being the angel I am, I carried most of the burden in the project which caused many sleepless night and rants to my poor friends who can only look on in pity. I'm not too sure whether I learnt much about engineering in ESD 1. The 'project' was highly theoretical with the most childish of rigs possible. The water treatment stage were confined behind mere chemical formulas which on one hand relieved me but on the other did little to excite me. 

ESD 2 were much more involved and I would say, a better subject. It had the usual exam-based assessment but there were workshops involving three different skills needed for engineering which was assessed. I found this much tougher (tough enough to rely on smarter people to help out in assignments) but more rewarding. I found that I sucked in programming pretty early on and begging people for help wasn't fun at all. Yet, there was this sense of accomplishment at the end which made it worth it. Sure, it was still pretty theoretical but it was far more useful than ESD 1.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Physics 1 and 2 were alright-ish? Physics 1 was mostly A-Levels revisited with the only real new topic being relativity. Special relativity was a fascinating but tough topic to go through. Labs were alright but the star of the subject was the demonstrations. Probably the only reason to really attend lectures. 

And then Physics 2 happened. Oh lord those were depressing times for me. I absolutely hated every part of it. Lectures were boring and the demonstrations were just so-so. It was probably down to the mundane topics the subject went through (Gauss's Law and muons can only excite me so much). However, I did get H1 for both of them as the exams could easily be done if one just did the past exam papers. Yet, it didn't change the fact I hated Physics due to Physics 2. 

The two breadth subjects I took as mentioned before were Intro Microeconomics and Principles of Business Law (BLAW). 

In a nutshell, BLAW was fun and an easy H1. 100% of the marks were multiple choice open-book tests. No mandatory tutorials. No assignments. Nothing. You could bring a bloody cheat sheet into the exam hall for a MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAM. This subject was meant for lazy people like me. And it was even interesting to boot. I spent most of BLAW learning interesting real life cases where people try to sue each other for profit. I honestly learnt a lot about human nature through the backstories of the cases. Highly recommended. It should be criminal to not get H1 in BLAW.

Intro Microeconomics was basically me trying to be more business like in the aim to make my CV look more impressive at the end of the day. I mean who wouldn't hire an engineer who knew what supply and demand was, eh? 

I have mixed feelings about this course. The lecturer was boring. He was good but was absolutely boring. So that immediately made me hate the subject. But as time went by, I found the subject matter really intriguing. At the end of the day, microeconomics were a lot like BLAW as they try to decipher human nature but instead of winning cases, it was to make someone else better off in a business sense. Economics, in my opinion tries to ensure the world runs as smoothly as possible in an equilibrium state by running multiple models which I found intriguing enough. That didn't mean I did well in it as I got 78 (H2A) but I did had my fair share of fun.     

And being able to understand some references in media now makes the whole half a year journey just slightly more worth it. 


4. The people


What I expected :

I was dumb.

To be fair, I am still pretty dumb actually but I was REALLY dumb back then. Maybe replacing dumb with naive would be a bit fairer to myself but considering my naivety had stemmed from as early as my college days (Yes, I was even more embarrassing back then), I should have really had much grounded expectations.

People who really know me can testify that I'm actually a bit on the shy side. I can be really outgoing once I find people who I can really click with or if I get desperate enough. My desperate outgoing side is however really embarrassing so I try to keep it under lock and key at all times if possible. 

Hmm...

I guess I fell into the trap of watching too many cliche movies that I thought it was realistic to have friends of different backgrounds and from different countries with similar enough interests and ideas to hang out with consistently and share thoughts on.

I wasn't far away the mark but yet again, I shot for the stars and all I got was a piece of the clouds in the sky as I fell down back to earth with my eyes fully peeled onto the stars that seemed to be moving further and further from me as I prepared myself for the inevitable thud that would follow as a result of dear old gravity.

(Jesus, that was embarrassingly over-dramatic and I apologize. Maybe deep inside, I just wanted to be a cool poet capable of producing beautiful words that string together really well.)


What I got :
   
I think I turned out fine. 

Alright, so being fine is actually subjective. After much thought, I do have a lot of embarrassing moments which I still on the loneliest of nights, perform the weirdest combination of a regretful chuckle and an uncomfortable squirm while constantly rethinking when would someone create a time machine for me to use. 

So, I didn't match my ridiculous expectations but there isn't much that I TRULY regret (not yet anyway, give me a few more months) during my two semesters. 

I would like to say that the Australian culture played a huge part in my attempt to making friends in university. It was definitely a huge shift from the Malaysian culture where everything feels much more reserved. There is also this carefree nature of Australians that took me some time to get used to. They could either be really friendly or be a total asshole. It's a frightening thought and I get reminded by this cruel reality at times when I walk the streets of Melbourne.  

Being engulfed in the Australian culture of going to bars (to watch a game and not drinking)

Making friends is not as simple as one might think. For people like me, every move or action one takes can either be one step to or away from tying that knot of friendship which will then open the doors to an unlimited bright future of mutual friends and even if one to dream, be part of a clique. It's weird describing this universal idea as if it is a game full of strategies and tactics - but then again is it really that weird?

Put it down to me being an unsociable guy, but I think it's tough to make friends when you literally enter university knowing absolutely no one. Back in college, I at least knew one person and that honestly helped a lot. A new country full of faces that seemed foreign to you at first sight could be intimidating to some and it was for me. I had no one to fall back to if I went home from university on the first day knowing no one. I was to be truly alone with the nearest person I knew, miles and miles away from me. 

I come from a small city called Klang which meant the likeliness of me finding someone I knew were close to zero. My first class saw hundreds of students streamed in, sitting down with people they already know. Of course, that will happen. Man, that was nearly a year ago but I did remember trying to approach a guy beside me who looked equally lonely. But, the fact I don't remember his face or anything says a lot about my first ever class. If my university life was an RPG, I would have gotten a huge mental hit with like only a slight HP left. WITH NO potions remaining.

But thankfully, as time passed, I eventually made more friends as I went along. It seems weird looking back but at first glance, there were plenty of people I met that I didn't thought I would see at all (never mind going to dinner with every week) which soon became people that I met up frequently with. And of course on the other side of the hypothetical coin, there were people I thought I clicked really well with just disappeared in thin air, leaving me thinking if they ever existed at all. 

Out of sight, out of mind.

More new people!

You never really quite know how or when you could find friends from. I found two just hanging around behind me in a long line for a free lunch barbecue. Not sure what I was thinking about at the time but I kind of just put on my desperate outgoing side since they seemed friendly enough (and probably out of boredom as it was a really huge line). Surprisingly, we became relatively close and still do hang out for food, movies and even to a nightclub. One of them was even a writer like yours truly (but obviously so much more talented than me) of a goddamn novel. Hopefully she remembers me when she becomes a success in the future.

This rare successful case did prove to me at least that the tough and intimidating step of initiating a first move can give birth to a multitude of doors of opportunities provided the presence of bravery to face them in the hope for that one right door among the other doors of embarrassing cold shoulder rejections can really pay off at the end.

Just like a visual novel. 

It's a bit weird to mention that I didn't really had too many friends that were taking the same subject as me. Giving it some thought, it does make sense though. It's a bit tough making friends with people when the sole source of interaction is from an optional weekly lecture session which is packed with nearly a hundred students or so. Tutorials or workshops were a much better place to make friends although there were times when people I was grouped with were just satisfied in fulfilling their obligations to attend the tutorial and leave it at that. Maybe it was just me but I guess I should be grateful that I DID meet some really nice people from these tutorials who I do wave at when I somewhat rarely meet them.

Saying all that, it IS pretty tough. Alright guys, story time.

Remember that embarrassing side of me? So I kind of joined some Christian group with a sole reason of trying to expand my circle of friends. Yeah, I know. I am one idiot. In my defense, they were a club called Planet Uni. Which sounded nothing like a Christian group. They gave me my tenth free tote bag so I decided to give them a shot. And yes, their club was free (of course it was).

That smile almost looked genuine. The fact I can't remember a single name here says it all.

Looking back, I should have left during our first meet-up when I found out the dinner wasn't free. But I can't help but feel intrigued. I mean they were mostly Malaysians which provided me some good old homey security blanket. And they didn't say anything about being a Christian club or anything. However, I didn't really click with them at all which should have been a huge warning sign for me.

Months passed by and I really wanted to quit the club. Any chance of making any friends there slowly vaporized into thin air after the first 3 meetings or so. They were starting to get preachy about their Christian stuff which to put it bluntly, I didn't really care for. The people there were nice (I guess?) but it seemed too fake at times which put me off a lot. Even their offer of free food (yes, free food!) couldn't tempt me to continue sitting awkwardly as they did some preachy stuff that seemed unsuitable for me (the most polite way I could have put it). It brought flashbacks of me joining the CF club I joined in college but instead I was now actually tricked into thinking this wasn't a Christian club.    

I would like to add that I AM cynical towards religion in general so it was probably my fault and not theirs. However, I would honestly sue them for false advertisement with my bare knowledge from Business Law. One thing that annoyed me was them messaging me on Whatsapp to join them for church CONSTANTLY. I gave a lot of bad excuses but at the end, I just stopped replying. 

And that's how the bubble of a pretty big circle of friends burst. Which suited me just as well.

Not all clubs were bad though. AMC was pretty fun and re-met the sausage barbecue people there too (more similar interests, eh). Soccer Appreciation Society was of course the best club for me in terms of making friends which made my $20 per semester investment worth every cent. 

So all in all, you win some and you lose some. It really does all come to how lucky you are, honestly. I'm a firm believer in the butterfly effect. Who knows what would have happened if I chose to continue hanging out with some people that I didn't like at first? Would I have liked them at the end? Would I have missed out on being friends with someone else? 

I do find myself dwelling on the ifs, buts and maybes of my little own world in my mind a bit too much these days. It brings me back to an adventure book that my friends and I used to play the heck out of when I was 9 and a lot more cuter. It was an innocent game where everyone just picked one of two roads to go to with one of them being death and the other being the safe choice of just being part of the existing road. This two choices continued till one reached the ending of a 9 year old drawing of a bag of cash. 

It was honestly a pretty cute game but unlike life, you could repeat your choices until finally finding the right one. And a faint glimmer of feeling of achievement arises in one's self although it clearly didn't take a single try does not occur so much so in life too.

Life is a bit like that adventure game. Achieving the end goal in the first try is nearly impossible. It takes multiple tries at the very least. But yet I can take comfort that life rarely presents death as an option of two choices. Instead, it just gives a thornier and much harder road to traverse through which might turn out to re-connect with the road that you have envisioned in your mind after all.

All I can say is the best move then, now and forever would have been to just keep my eyes peeled on the future because unlike the past, I could at the very least still change that to what I want it to be.

Unless they build a time machine, that is. Tutturu.

Yes, that was a Steins Gate reference.

    

I think I've spent enough time embarrassing myself so I'll end it around here. I'm not really too sure if this had any redeeming advice for anyone who planned to go to Melbourne in the future. Like always, I pretty much let all my thoughts in my mind flow onto my fingers, typing out these unfiltered lines of poor quality but no short of passion, I'm glad to say.

Man, university is weird.

Till we meet again.