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[Azated]

First, a bit of history.

I dropped out of school in the tenth grade due to social anxiety, a lack of a desire to learn, and a general hatred of a schooling system that I could never understand. I was then in distance education for another year or so before dropping out of that as well, for similar reasons.

Now, I'm thinking about attending university and focusing on software engineering; something I've always been interested in. I'm reasonably certain that the freedom to learn in my own way without having to deal with techniques I can't use would make schooling much, much easier. However, I wanted to do some asking first.

I live in Australia. I'd like to know from people with first-hand experience what attending a university entails. What kind of learning experience should I expect? Was it easier to learn your chosen course at your own pace than learning dozens of topics at the same time in primary and secondary school? Would you say the cost and time investment is worth it, either for a career or some other reason?

[Blargityblarg]

First off, I'm also Australian, and studying at Monash Uni in Melbourne.

In my experience, uni is very different to high school; you have fewer subjects (full time load is four, with contact hours per week varying wildly depending on faculty- Arts students can only have a few hours a week, whereas science and especially engineering subjects can be 25+ hours for a full-time student's week.) Of course, many of those hours aren't absolutely necessary; most lectures (at Monash, at least) are recorded and put on the Internet, so you can watch them at your own pace (one guy I know watches them at double speed for efficiency)

As for being 'worth it' I'm one of those people who compulsively learns, and I don't feel I'd be able to reach my potential with tertiary education. It does depend on the person, though HECS debt can definitely soften the punch of fees by spreading them over several years without any interest.

[Zrk2]

First off, I'm also Australian, and studying at Monash Uni in Melbourne.

In my experience, uni is very different to high school; you have fewer subjects (full time load is four, with contact hours per week varying wildly depending on faculty- Arts students can only have a few hours a week, whereas science and especially engineering subjects can be 25+ hours for a full-time student's week.) Of course, many of those hours aren't absolutely necessary; most lectures (at Monash, at least) are recorded and put on the Internet, so you can watch them at your own pace (one guy I know watches them at double speed for efficiency)

As for being 'worth it' I'm one of those people who compulsively learns, and I don't feel I'd be able to reach my potential with tertiary education. It does depend on the person, though HECS debt can definitely soften the punch of fees by spreading them over several years without any interest.

Four is considered full-time in Australia? I have to take six pretty much every semester.

[sneakey pete]

Never figured out how the American system works, what with your compulsory studies that aren't related to the major you're doing. I had trouble cramming all the engineering stuff i needed to do in full time, don't' know how i could have possibly learnt enough if i'd had to go take a language or something like that.

As for the OP... are you able to get into university with whatever education results you have? While you may find that learning in your own way is helpful, you also may find that it is not. My main advice would be, be realistic and take stock after your first semester. If you aren't doing well enough to get through the entire 3-4 year degree, don't be afraid to drop out. It'll just be wasted time and money otherwise (or only time if you move to another country to work  )

[Leatra]

As someone who hated school with a burning rage because it tries to teach you everything regardless of what you want to study in the future, I found being able to study what you are interested in way better. I'm studying translation, something I already know and do, so it's not difficult for me. But software engineering... I don't know about that. Still, I believe everyone can do everything if they are interested in doing it.

Education system is shitty here too. It changes every 3-4 years.

[Osmosis Jones]

Also an Aussie here, currently doing my PhD in Swinburne Uni in Melbs; I did my undergrad at Curtin University in Perth, then tutored for a year or so before starting the PhD. So, if you have any specific q's about a science undergrad, a PhD, or even what your tutors or lab demonstrators will really think of you, let me know.

Anyway, lessee; straight off, uni is oh so very different from school. You will probably experience a fair old shock going from one to the other; you are actually treated as an adult, for starters. Professors don't care if you show up or not, as long as you get the work done (with the exception of things like laboratory sessions, attendance is not taken, or is taken only to gauge student interaction). It is entirely possible to get a HD in a subject and only show up for the midsem and final exam.

The counterpoint is, you will be expected to learn things in your OWN time. If you go to a lecture, it's to introduce a topic. Most tutes are there to help you answer any questions once you've attempted said topic at least once already. In STEM subjects like you're going for, you can expect to put aside time equal to between ~25% (1st year) to 100% (3rd/4th year) of your contact hours for personal study; expect longer if you're a slower learner than average, less if you're faster, though some units will need 100% even if you're brilliant (F*** you, Electromagnetism 302).
Also, because the lecturers expect you to be adults, they WON'T wait for you. If you struggle to learn a lesson, seek help straight away (there will always be plenty of options for this, from study groups to private meetings with the lecturers); the next lecture will be on something different. So, this isn't learning at your own pace; indeed, as you get to higher years, the course load can get pretty brutal. You will be juggling several unrelated topics at the same time and around exams, you can kiss your social life goodbye.
Learn time management though, and don't expect to be able to coast through on raw intelligence, and you'll do well.

You will find some subjects that you used to hate suddenly become exciting, because it feels less like rote learning; I despised maths in highschool, but by the time I got my BSc, calculus was my favourite subject and I had done enough optional maths that I would have qualified for a math minor, if my course had allowed them.
There will be stuff you learn that you will never use. Often, it's because it's a stepping stone to understanding how something else you use came about, othertimes it just is related to a part of your field you personally will never touch.
Of course, some things will always suck; you will grow to quickly despise statistics. I guarentee it.


Now, so far, I've probably painted a fairly lukewarm picture of uni; I won't sugarcoat it, plenty of parts do kinda suck.

BUT.

I personally feel my undergrad was the best time of my life. If I won lotto tomorrow, I would happily go back and spend the rest of my life doing bachelor's degrees. You are constantly learning new things. You are learning them from people who have chosen to devote their whole lives to the topic. The parties are pretty good too.

If you do something like engineering, you will definitely find it is a worthwhile investment financially as well; I know a civic engineer on $400k a year, which is pretty damn good for a job with no heavy lifting. That said, from what I've seen, education in general is more about providing job security than a solid paycheque; I'm going into academia, and unless I make it into the "management" equivalent (e.g. professor, head of department etc), I'm going to be stuck at around $60-90k depending on experience. While I could earn twice that going to the mines as a minimally skilled labourer, I have a job that can survive pretty much any recession; layoffs in academia are few and far between, and small if they do ever occur.
Something high demand like Eng, assuming you're working in industry, can net you a >100k income within 24 months of graduating if you find the right place, and still offer you the job security that many of the cashed up bogan crowd sorely lack.

So yes, go for it. Plus, remember, HECS allows you to at least try a semester without ever putting yourself in a serious financial situation.

Four is considered full-time in Australia? I have to take six pretty much every semester.

Most unis have full and half units; 4 full units represents a standard full load, but it could just as easily be 3 full + 2 half units, or 2 + 4.

[Muz]

Trust me, four subjects is more than enough in uni. Australian universities are about 6 credits per subject. Like when I did network engineering (basics), you're not expected just to learn the theories of it.. you're expected to build a server and client over two weeks even with no prior network experience. Now imagine four other subjects with the same workload. That leaves you only about 1.5 days over the weekend to build that server and client.

I did an elec engineering degree (at UNSW), now I've been doing software engineering for a year, and I'm already ahead of many people my age, despite not having a proper software degree.

IMO, education was perfected in the middle ages via the apprenticeship/guild system. You sign up to an expert for little wage, imitate him for years, eventually get to the stage where you can creatively experiment. The mentor will correct you when you're doing things the wrong way. It's far, far faster than learning by yourself.

Universities are... similar, but different.

Sometimes you have a bunch of experts teaching you - they will often dump information on you without you having a chance to experiment with it. You'll often be too focused on trying to breathe to learn to swim, but sometimes being thrown on the deep end makes you learn damn well.

Other times your lecturers are the kind of people who can't get a job. This is especially common in the software industry.. in fact, I'd rather not hire a guy with a Masters in IT applying for a programming job compared to someone with a degree in Math who is a hobbyist game developer or even just 4 years of experience and no degree. A lot of them may have mastered things like spreadsheets, programming methodologies, squeezing 3% extra out of an obsolete processor.. but can barely program anything properly.

The good universities often have full time lecturers who are also doing something amazing. They are rather painful to learn from, and you'll be glad you did. I'd say that going to a crappy university is a waste of time; it will kill your spirit and getting good grades will make you complacent. Go as high as you can get.. even if you fail or barely pass, it's worth it.

IMO, the whole point of getting into university is being surrounded by some of the smartest people in the country/world, who also have an interest in the same things as you. Sure, you can learn by yourself, but you'd be missing out on valuable contacts. Some of the best business partnerships were by people who thought the same way, liked the same things, had similar, but complementary skills, and met in college.

Oh, and what you think you want now may not be what you really want. I strongly suggest just forgetting grades and going for the subjects you're interested in, even if they seem very difficult. There's a niche out there for everyone, and the fastest way of finding it is just following what you want to learn.

Heck, I did all kinds of engineering, and I found my niche was in optimizing people, not machines. It took a lot of pain to figure that out; pressure creates diamonds. Even if I choose to be something completely unrelated to engineering, the experience in handling large amounts of data and developing/destroying machines in uni teaches a lot of techniques that are well applied to any other field. I'm quite fond of any kind of engineering, since it teaches you a lot of practical stuff, but in more epic proportions.

[Reudh]

In my experience, uni is very different to high school; you have fewer subjects (full time load is four, with contact hours per week varying wildly depending on faculty- Arts students can only have a few hours a week, whereas science and especially engineering subjects can be 25+ hours for a full-time student's week.) Of course, many of those hours aren't absolutely necessary; most lectures (at Monash, at least) are recorded and put on the Internet, so you can watch them at your own pace (one guy I know watches them at double speed for efficiency)

Also Aus here, and yes, I'm doing 23 contact hours on my undergrad Bachelor of Biomedical Science.
I found it SO MUCH BETTER than highschool, it really is. Uni is to highschool as... primary is to kinder.

[Zenny the Spoon]

Because of the complicated German school system, I am allowed to study chemistry without having a proper university-entrance diploma. I got my secondary-school diploma at a Realschule after 10 years (it is roughly comparable with the American high school diploma) and then started an apprenticeship. At the vocational school I took additional subjects, so after finishing my apprenticeship I also got a technical college-entrance diploma.

It got even more complicated: In some federal states this diploma allows me to enroll at proper universities. So I moved from North-Rhine Westphalia to Hesse to enroll at the university in Gießen.

I have been studying chemistry for seven semesters now and I must say that it is quite brutal. You need to take 5-6 full courses every semester and the exams have failure rates of 70%. I had to repeat so many courses that I will need two additional years to barely get my bachelor's degree. It is quite hard but at least it is interesting and fun.

TL;DR: Did strange stuff, started studying Chemistry, failed gloriously but I bugger on because it is awesome

[Noodz]

My experience is quite different from yours, having studied at Brazil. However, one thing that i think you won't escape in university is having to juggle several subjects at the same time. Of course you won't be dealing with both history and math, but you will still have to take several courses and as a rule, most professors will expect you to dedicate a decent number of hours outside of class for study. So time management skills and dedication are necessary.

Some easier courses can be completed with little time for personal study, however, given you are aiming for engineering, expect a few brutal courses that demand 1 hour of personal study per hour of class. Every engineering haves one (mine was fluid mechanics)

Also, don't hate statistics basic statistics can be boring, but when you get into probability theory, statistics as a whole can be as fun as any other math. Though i'm not sure if software engineering will give you the opportunity to study it.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Disclaimer: I was an international student who did post-graduate honour degree at Swinburne University in Australia. I also did lecturing/tutoring for a semester there after I graduated.

I've been exposed to education systems in both my country of origin in SE Asia and in Australia and I will say Australian education system, while still lagging behind American, is still way better. I came from a country whose education system taught university-level subjects in high school and made students spend 8 hours studying in school five days a week. My high school was/is one of the best in the country but I loathed it because I believe they focused too much on "academic performance" instead of soft skills development and extra curricular activities (arts, sports, etc). This is how I come to appreciate Australian education system.

My experience with Australian university is you're expected to study in your own time. For me, it was a great way to socialise because I organised group studies with other students. We are all working now and still in touch and have even discussed the possibility of starting our own business. I do agree there's a disconnect between what you learn in a university and what you do in a job; however, I believe that going to a university teaches you how to learn, and to be more specific, it teaches how to learn topics that are relevant to your future employment.

Being able to learn is how one advances in life. Be it in your job or as a entrepreneur or as a parent.

[Osmosis Jones]

Wooo, Swinburne represent!