👨‍🎓 A Guide for Freshers - My Learnings on University

My bachelor's degree was a mess.

I was performing below the average of the class. I was stressed and generally unhappy about my studies. I was so done I decided to took a gap year to get some work experience before committing to further studies.

Two years later, my experience with my master's program was a complete turn-around.

I was in the top 5% of the class. I felt more curious and fulfilled than I ever did during my undergrad. In this blog post, I would like to explain why and how it happened.

Of course, there were external circumstances. The whole COVID situation changed things that were beyond my control. It removed in-person assessments or 3-hour long essays. I personally prefer online essays which led to better grades.

On the other hand, I made internal changes. I fundamentally revised my approach to studying. I had time to reflect on what worked and what didn't which contributed to a more successful postgrad experience.

These learnings are captured in this blogpost. Some advice might sound simple. Still, many of these things I wish I had known when I started uni. I wish I could go back in time and show this to my 18-year old self. But until time-travel is discovered, I hope at least it can help you.

You will find short stories with 3 actionable items under each section.

As always, if you have any feedback, please get in contact! 😘

🤝 Don't try to commit to everything

First, I learnt that there are only 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. For everyone. This must fit studying, exercising, eating healthy, socialising, building a career, doing hobbies, aaand getting enough sleep 😭.

Yeah.

The activities are overwhelming and I was eager to start everything. The problem is that I couldn't do everything. I was coming in with high expectations which later led to disappointment. I was pulling out from events last minute, couldn't decide between two activities and just struggled with FOMO. Like all the time.

So this is my first learning: try everything and commit to a handful. It's a lot more fulfilling to do and commit the right things. The ones which really matter to you.

Try everything 🔍 There are so many opportunities to try at university. Go explore. Enjoy the fresher's sessions, join the introduction trainings and listen to external speakers. Talk to as many people as you can and explore what you like.
Who do you want to become? 🤔 When trying all the activities, ask yourself a few questions: what do I enjoy? What matters to me the most? Who am I surrounded by? What helps me grow the most?
Commit to a few 👊 Once you found the activities that matter it's time to commit. Schedule time for the ones you chose and say no to the other activities. This commitment (knowing what you want and cancelling other plans) can save you from FOMO later.

And of course, feel free to revisit this once every few months.

🧱 Build your foundation: sleep, exercise, food (+meditation)

I learnt that university is full of challenges. Stress from assignments. Missing your family. Or just generally feeling lonely. Coping is certainly not easy.

And something I wish I knew earlier: when things get heavy, that's when it's the most important to look after your basics. This means sleeping well, getting some exercise, and eating healthy. We all heard the story that the house built on solid ground will stand against wind, rain, and flood.

This is so true. If you focus on building a strong foundation, the downstream snowball effect might even surprise you. It definitely surprised me.

I do not want to get into the science of sleep, nutrition, or exercise, so I simplified the action items. These are the things that worked for me:

Sleep well 🛏️ Aim to get around 8 hours of sleep as regularly as you can. Avoiding blue light, alcohol, and caffeine before going to bed will increase your sleep quality. I usually just listen to a podcast or an audiobook.
Get some exercise 🏃 No need to train like The Rock. Going for a walk every day or getting 15 minutes of light cardio improved I how felt. As long as you stand up from the desk to do some exercise, it's chill.
Eat healthy 🥦 It is tempting to order fast food. It is easy. However, food is the fuel to drive you. How do you expect the car to run without good fuel? Make sure you have nutritious meals regularly (and eat your veggies!).
Meditate 🧘 I put this here as an extra action item. The meditation apps like Headspace or Calm have useful 10-minute long guided meditations. There is some free content on YouTube or Netflix. It really worked for me.

🤗 It's all about people

I learnt that relationships had a lasting impact from university. Looking back, I barely remember the lecture materials or coursework. Yet, I still keep in contact with my friends and catch up with professors every once in a while.

There are so many social circles you can explore with different cultures and perspectives. You never know which ones will become lasting friendships or work connections. So make sure that you work on building these relationships:

Be nice to everyone 😇 You never know who you run into. Maybe your best friend for life, your future wife/husband, or a business founding partner. So be kind to everyone.
Put the effort in 🍲 If you find people you genuinely click with, put the energy into the relationship. Finding and connecting with real friends take time and effort. So be proactive and spend time together.
Be a connector 📲 Become the person who connects others. Everyone is in the same boat. Everyone would like to make new friends. Be the one who builds the community: host dinner parties, create WhatsApp groups, and invite new people. People will be grateful.

Socialising lifehack: Three is just the right number when getting to know others. Two people can be a bit too intimate, and four easily breaks down into two. Three is perfect. No awkward silences.

📔 The rules of the game has changed (a.k.a. how I changed the way I studied)

I learnt that uni is a completely different game from high school. I had to realise that the rules have changed and that I can't win if I play the same way. To highlight a few differences:

Role of the teacher: provide all materials vs provide only a portion
Curriculum: what they teach is enough vs extra research
Paying attention: enough vs not enough
Homework: you have to do it every day vs what homework?
Attendance: must be there vs no one cares

So it's clear the game is different. How can you perform well and get those good grades?

Here are three things that worked for me.

Build your basic skills 📖 For the new game, I realised I had to improve my basic skills: to read, comprehend, and write more effectively. Reading academic papers effectively is a super-power. You will go through more papers in a shorter time. Comprehension refers to you being able to select and collect important pieces of information. Connecting the dots from different sources is what will give you an outstanding grade. And lastly, you have to be able to write effectively to demonstrate your knowledge.
Do the right things 🎯 In contrast with high school, at uni you will not be able to do everything. It is impossible to study every lecture, so you have to select your battles. Following the 20/80 principle, understand which lectures or materials play a more crucial role in your final grade (aka the topics that usually come up in the exam). Focus on these, smash them, and leave out the rest.
Seek advice 🗣️ In the beginning I was seeking advice from professors on how to perform well. I realised this was the wrong approach. They can be too detached from the struggles of the students. You know who can help? The alumni. Students (who finished the course 1-2 years before) can give actionable advice to help you with the course.

🏆 Lift yourself by lifting others

I learnt that university is not a zero-sum game. You don't have to lose for someone else to win and vice versa (in most cases). I learnt that by helping others and collaborating together, I can boost my own performance and grade.

In the beginning, I felt like I had to compete with everyone. During my bachelors, I did not share my knowledge and was afraid to ask my peers for support. This took a 180-degree change during my masters. I started to share my studies, career opportunities and ranted with friends. Suddenly, my notes were better, my friends revised my essays and my grades improved.

Share your notes 🗒️ It might come as a surprise, I started to share everything academic-related. This meant notes, past papers, advice from professors or alumni. And guess what happened? All those who I helped started to help me in turn. I received notes from the smartest people I knew or received hints on the exams from the tutorials I missed. What goes around comes around.
Shared career opportunities 👔 Career opportunities are particularly regarded as unshareable. If you and your friend are competing for the same spot, you will take it from one another. Yet I found no difficulties sharing the same career opportunities. If you pool everything together, the pie will grow and everything will get to have a slice.
Emotional support 🤗 Everyone is in the same boat. Who else is better to rant to about uni than your coursemates? Help each other going through some difficulties and the comradery that grows from here will last for long.

Of course, I'm not suggesting sharing everything with everyone. It would be foolish and could even get you into trouble, so be careful. With the right people, however, you will win by helping others win.

🛌 Procrastination is a universal challenge

I learnt that procrastination is a universal side-effect of uni. Everyone suffers from it.

It's natural. Everyone has a huge load of work, the tasks are important and we get the freedom to set our own schedule. No wonder I ended up watching YouTube instead of writing my essay.

So if you feel like it only happens to you, I can assure you: I was there as well. And I wish I could provide a full-proof method against procrastination. But it's a human thing so don’t be too hard on yourself.

Instead of the full-proof method, I have three small items which can help:

Start as early as possible ⏰ Starting is usually the most difficult. Tackle it right after the release of the coursework. Read an article, create the draft file, or note down a few sentences. It's easier to write once you have something on the paper. Getting momentum is the most important. So start that snowball as early as you can.
Break it down to smaller chunks 🔪 A 5000 words essay or 15 lectures can seem terribly daunting. Try to break it down into smaller size bites. The smaller and the more specific the items are, the better. Starting a 50-word paragraph is easier and in many cases, it's surprising how the initial 50 words can grow itself to something larger.
Try to be curious 🔍 The most challenging aspect, yet for me the most important. Now I realise: the time I was procrastinating the most was when I did not care about the subject at all. If you can find something exciting or at least partially interesting, it will help you tremendously. It converts the feeling of pressure into interest.

🔄 Energy is cyclical

I learnt that preserving and using your energy is one of the most important skills at uni.

Some say that university is like a marathon. You have to consistently burn on low heat, making progress every day throughout the whole year.

I respectfully disagree.

For me, the workload came in bursts. One week I had 3 essays to submit, whereas the next week I had only a few lectures. To me, it felt more like doing sprints. Pushing hard and working long hours for a short time and then taking a few days off to relax.

For this, I had to learn to manage my energy. More importantly, I had to learn how to take breaks. Like truly letting go and focus on the recovery. These learnings are summarised in a simple framework:

Every hour 🕜 Either every hour or every two hours, stand up. Just do some light stretches. It worked for me getting a few minutes of break time from the screen every once in a while.
Every day 🌅 Get some break and pursue your hobby. Do one or two hours of exercise or whatever keeps you going. I found it essential to disconnect from studying.
Every week 🗓️ Every week I had a day off. It was usually on Sundays. There were times where I pushed and worked even on Sundays. But eventually, by Wednesday or Thursday the week after I felt completely burnt out. So schedule a day of chill. Even God rested on the 7th day.

🍳 Learn to cook

I learnt that cooking can have a massive impact on my university experience. It is criminally underrated.

Firstly, I discovered that cooking is one of the best social activities. You are creating something together. There is time to talk and get to know each other. You can learn so much about the other person just by understanding their food culture. Not to mention the wine and the good food at the end...

Second, cooking is one of the strongest signals of generosity. Everyone loves it when someone else cooks for them. It helped me make new friends. And boy, I’m telling you, it worked with dates as well…

And lastly, it's cheap and healthy. Simple truth.

Where to start? I would suggest with these three.

Learn to use the knife 🔪 Getting the correct technique for cutting and chopping can save you a lot of time. It might feel uncomfortable in the beginning but it’s getting better with practice. And if you use the knife every time you cook, you’ll have oustanding knife skills in no time.
Learn to use the heat 🔥 Getting the technique of boiling, frying, or oven-cooking right will be so beneficial. They’re not too complex but it helps if you get some hands-on experience in terms of how much heat you need or how long should you cook things for.
Learn to use the basic spices 🧂When I say basic spices, I mean really basic spices. Salt, pepper, olive oil, butter is critical. If you want to go extra you can go for some acidic stuff (like vinegar, lemon, etc.) or some green herbs (oregano, basil, etc). The more you taste, the better you will become.

🍷 Be Careful with Alcohol

Oh yeah, the last learning, quite a big one. Be careful with drinks.

I started to drink quite late actually, only in my 3rd year of university. No regrets, it was fun. But after a few hangovers, here are the things I hope I can help you with.

Mixing is trouble 🍺 My worst nights came when I was mixing things all around. Late even on the hardcore nights, I learnt to stick to my preferred drink of choice (usually white wine). I had a lot of fun this way without the horrible hangovers.
Fatty foods 🥓 Having fatty and carbohydrate-heavy foods slows down the absorption of alcohol in the stomach. This can give more time and space for the alcohol-break down enzymes to do their things. Win!
Keep the minerals 🥑 Dehydration is one of the worst side effects of alcohol. Besides drinking water, it helps to consume food that is rich in minerals which will help retain fluids in your blood. Banana or avocado before or a bowl of soup after drinks can be a game-changer!