2 years into uni & here are my regrets👎🏻😭

⚠️warning: lengthy post ahead; proceed with caution!!!⚠️

hey lemons!🍋 recently, as i was planning for my exchange program and what to do for the upcoming semesters left in uni, i was struck by a sudden wave of regret for things i wish i knew before entering uni and should have done during uni.

i get that struggle of not having any help from seniors or family members to navigate uni life with, either because you’re the first in the family to go uni, or you just don’t know/aren’t close to anyone who’s going to the same school & faculty as you are…and that’s perfectly fine! as much as this post is a digital dump of my regrets, i also hope this would serve as a thread of general advice to those who are starting uni soon or are in need of navigating uni life in NUS! (and i’m really sorry that this content can only cater mostly to NUS students☹️)

1. Commitments📞:

• Don’t take up too much commitments. Instead, take up a diverse few commitments (to pick up new skills and showcase different skills) you can cope with while also overloading for the first 2 years of university.

• Don’t dig your own grave by overloading by a lot. Overloading by at least 2-4mcs per semester is enough. And iirc, you can’t overload in Y1S1 unless you write in to school to request, but usually people don’t do that.

• Join NUS Clubs/CCAs rather than dedicating your whole life to hostel committees. Trust me on this one. I feel that NUS Clubs/Committees, or at least committees within the faculty, can help you gain SO MUCH MORE exposure, skills, and opportunity for you to compete in the real world.👍🏻

2. Exchange Program🗺️:

• Have a rough plan at least by the end of Y1 or at the start of Y2

• The plan should involve knowing at least which school or country, which semester, and what modules you WISH to map over. Keyword is “wish” because some schools might indicate that they offer that module but what they don’t tell you is which semester the module is available for taking (this is in the case of NUS edurec). You can only find out about this if you do THOROUGH research with that specific school & module you’re looking at.

• IMHO, going for exchange in Y3S1 is better because you don’t have to worry about not being able to take up summer internships at the end of Y3 if your partner university has a much later semester duration as compared to the rest.

• If you’re an NUS biz student, you should know: Applications for exchange in sem 1 opens in sem 1 (the year before), and sem 2 in sem 2. If you plan to go certain Canadian schools like UBC or University of Toronto in sem 2, you need to apply in sem 1 as these schools will not be open for applications in sem 2.

• 🙋🏻‍♀️If you need help planning for this portion, feel free to reach out to me via DMs! Even if you’re in other faculty, I’ll try my best to help you! :-)

3. Internships👩🏻‍💼:

• If you’re still waiting to get into uni, I’d say don’t do F&B jobs (my F&B job was fun but i regret not doing something more beneficial). Do something that allows you to learn a new skill be it excel, photoshop or even social media planning — something you know would be useful to you in the future.

• If you plan to do credit-bearing internship in Y3, ensure you’ve overloaded at least once or twice. If not you have to overload in Y4, where your grades have more weightage than usual.💩

• If you can, take up part-time or credit-bearing internships in Y2S2! You can also take LOA if you wish to (people i know who took LOA don’t regret). But if you’re like me, concerned about the financial aspect, don’t LOA because not only will it delay your graduation, you have to pay ALOT MORE for the semester you’re exceeding by.💸

4. Module planning🗓️:

• It would be good for you to KNOW and PLAN the modules you need & wish to take on a document for you to keep track before you enter uni. I’m sure you can research on it. Make sure to check on your graduation criteria too!

• As you can tell, I regret not overloading the first 2 years in uni and spending most of my time juggling many commitments. So I would advice to cut down on the commitments and overload for the first 2 years to maximise your S/Us. However, with that being said, please still try your best and put in effort to student because using too much S/Us can inflate your CAP such that if you get a B the next time, it will pull down your overall CAP more than it usually does.

• My biggest regret on module planning is insisting that I map over DAO2703 for exchange. Because of that, I faced a lot of difficulty trying to find partner universities that offer it during sem 2. But I obviously failed and so now I have to take DAO2703 in Y4. @ NUS biz students, if you don’t intend to specialize in FIN2704 (core mod), you can map that over for exchange, I promise it’s easier to map over. Or alternatively you can also take both in Y2 (if you know you can cope with both on top of commitments).🤠

In life, we will always have regrets but we can't cling onto them for too long and cry over it. So I hope that sharing my regrets and the things I wish I did differently would be helpful for those who are lost in the next stage of life, aka navigating uni! To whoever reading this: If you need help on anything, just feel free to comment or drop me a dm, I’d do my best to help out :)🫶🏻

Till next post🤍

#BeReal #advice #university #MyLemon8Diary #regrets