Graduating from Monash University

Cheers to the life I experienced in university.

In many ways, a tertiary education experience could lead one to have a broader view of life. Obviously, carving out a career path was why most of us sign up for the course. Looking back, studying for a bachelors degree in engineering was really more of a personal reformation than just a 4-year-long attempt to gain knowledge. This article will be a summary of my major takeaways from the 4 years I spent in university.

Friends

Meeting the people I surround myself with now is the biggest testimony that I studied in Monash university. Engineering school was a big pressure pot with multiple assignments, tests and lab sessions to prepare for. I may be speaking for myself but I could not have done everything without collaborating with people from my course. The amount of stress and anxiety was mostly bearable because I was surrounded by people in the same boat.  Over hundreds of group assignments and exams, you meet a friend or two. If you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself an oasis in a group of people.

Culture

I grew up in a school where more than 90% of the student body were Malaysian Chinese. We spoke mandarin all the time and were groomed to have very similar work ethics. A change in study environment was what I needed to simulate the real world, a world of multiple cultures. My transition to experiencing and learning cultures of local and foreign communities gave me a better overview of how the world is like.  I learnt to respect and coexist with people with different priorities and habits. What mattered most to us in university was to complete an assignment given, we had to learn to look past our differences and focus on our goal together. After a while, we would realize that most of us have more in common than we think.

Skills

As I signed up for school of engineering, I thought I would learn how things work and build stuff. Indeed I learnt all those, but there were some underlying skills unmentioned in the course book that gave me more value than the hard skills I picked up. Soft skills and communication were crucial to making it in the working world. Honing skills to understand and express what I have in mind during my studies made me more comfortable in communicating with my team mates at work right now. Learning to be patient wasn’t part of the school package but I’m glad for it. <LINK TO THE SOFT SKILLS PAGE>

Independence

The 4 years of university was an intermediate step towards adulthood. I am fortunate to have both my parents growing up. They take good care of my wellbeing when I was home. When I left to study, I was on my own but I still had their support. Learning to deal with bills, my health, groceries and others with allowance from them was a real blessing. I was grateful I got through an adulting practice round before starting the real game. I think learning independence is to learn how to learn. Picking up skills and habits that will move us towards the direction we want in life.

Growth

If I have to condense my years in university into a word, it would be ‘growth’. Life in university was a sneak peek of what is going on in the real world. It gave my personality and mindset an avenue to gradually evolved to prepare for what comes after. The challenges we took on as students made us realize the importance of time management, attitude and luck.  There are so many things beyond our control and we could only really do so much. Little growth each day over a long period was more sustainable than getting everything done in an instant. Many times working alone is great but having a team can get you further. Unless your teammates are irresponsible as shit, then you’re better off working alone. The lessons I took away from studying to get my degree are invaluable. I am grateful for both the good and bad times.

If you’ve read up till this point, thank you. I hope you will or you had a great time in university as much as I did or even more. I hope the good times will never leave your memories and the bad times turn into good lessons. My biggest regret during that time was to not take more pictures and document it along the way. So if you are still a student studying for your degree, I hope you’d take my advice to spare some effort for pictures to look back to.