School for Grown-Ups

   One of the very first things you have to do as an adult is to pick and start a career path, and most of the options out there require some level of post-secondary education. Be it a university degree, a certification course from your college or elsewhere, or trade school; buckle up because you're not done getting educated yet! But don't worry, grown-up schools like these don't come with the problems of high school because you're not a pubescent angsty teen being sardined into classes with twenty-nine other pubescent angsty teens every day. But don't worry, there are some things about post-secondary education that might have you pulling your hair out all the same.

   I want to be a doctor, and to be a doctor you have to go to university. So since that's all I know about that's what I'm going to talk about (sorry to anyone going into trades, but I can't really tell you what trade school is like).

   Now, university is actually pretty sweet, in a lot of ways. But it also sucks in a lot of ways, too. I'll try to cover all the things from beginning to end; from applying to graduating.


Applying to Universities:

   My only advice that really matters here is: apply to several schools. Don't just apply to one and hope for the best. Find several schools that you think you'd like, whether there's three or thirteen, and apply to all of them. Okay, maybe don't apply to thirteen; that will be expensive and if you had reasonably good grades you shouldn't need to apply to that many to get into one. Anyway, university applications for bachelor/undergraduate degrees are actually pretty straightforward, and aren't that hard to find on university websites (unlike most things, as you'll find out; university websites universally suck at being easy to navigate).

   Yes, university applications cost money. It's a bit of a drag, but I guess it makes sense. The good news is that application fee usually gets taken off your first round of tuition... which is a whole new financial nightmare. But not nearly as bad as living expenses!


Being a Student:

   Once you receive acceptance offers, you'll have to send an acceptance letter to the offer. Now you're a university student! Congratulations (you're going to be poor for the next four years, but it will be worth it in the end)! Now here's the first thing you need to do:

   Plan all your classes for the next four years. Seriously. You'll thank me later.

   One thing that nobody told me that would have saved me so much trouble over the course of my degree was exactly this. Every degree (and every major and minor within a degree) has a list of requirements that you have to check off in order to graduate, Now, in my BHK degree, I didn't have to worry about picking a major or minor. Instead, I got to pick one of two paths for my last two years, each with a different set of required classes. Required classes are pretty much planned out for you in any degree, but depending on the degree you might get some flexibility in what those required courses are.

   But the thing you have to watch out for are the electives. In my degree (and in other degrees) you have to take a certain number of "upper-level" electives. For those who don't know, most universities use a number code to organize classes: first-year courses are given a number between 100 and 199, second-year courses 200 and 299, and third- and fourth-year courses (which are the "upper-level") are in the 300's and 400's respectively. You might also run into 500's at some point, but I don't think it's very common, and most of those are probably for people getting a master degree.

   Back to what I was saying: The thing about upper-level courses is that they almost always have prerequisites in the 100 and 200 level that you have to take first. And this is why having a plan right from the beginning is so important: if you get to your third year and you don't have the prerequisites you need, you're either going to be in university longer than you thought or you're going to end up taking classes that you probably don't care about. I've met students who are in their fifth year just because they have to finish their elective requirements. They were not happy people. Don't be like those people.

   The good news is that universities tell you exactly what you need to do to graduate so you can plan accordingly (if you can find it on the website). And every university has academic advisers that can help you understand what you need to do and help you plan. That's literally their job. They're super helpful and you should visit them at least once.

 
   There's a lot more to being a university student, like living arrangements, succeeding in classes, working with professors, dealing with a bad class, and planning for after your degree. These deserve their own posts, so they'll come in the future.

   To any current university students out there: what's one thing you wish you had known before starting university?