I came back from the holidays feeling completely unrested, and so being back at uni was NOT what I wanted to be doing. It can be hard to keep up the study grind, especially in the second semester. I feel like the inter-sem break just isn’t long enough and a lot of people are still recovering from the burnout of the first semester, and so it’s always a bit of a struggle. I feel like I’m in need of a good reset this break, so here I am after the last day of the first term, trying not to make the mistakes I have made the past few breaks.
Unfortunately this isn’t really a time for a proper reset and recovery break, it’s technically a ‘study break’. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of this possible ‘downtime’, so I’m gonna put you in my shoes and share my plan/advice and my ideas for how to manage engsci over the break while still getting somewhat of a rest.
So what’s my plan for the break?
- As you guys will already be aware, to graduate with an engineering degree at UoA, you have to complete internship hours. People typically do this in the summer holidays after their second and third years. I will go into more detail about this in a later post, but I feel like there is a lot more engineering science specific information on internships that is needed compared to other specs. Engsci is a specialisation that in New Zealand is only taught at UoA, and while similar subject matter may be covered in other degrees around NZ and the world, many people actually aren’t familiar with the degree itself, and the skills of an engsci. I still am yet to get an internship 💔 But I still think it’s important to give you guys an intro into the sort of internships you can apply for as an engsci, to see the sorts of things you could do with it in the future. Some larger companies have hired from this specialisation before making it easier to sell your skills, but many companies know nothing about engsci so it’s up to you to convince them, which is definitely an extra barrier to this degree. Don’t stick to just ‘engineering science’ labelled roles, as there truly isn’t enough of them to go around, and with such a broad degree you can consider jobs/internships in so many other domains such as biomedical engineering, software engineering, data science based roles and more. APPLY TO AS MANY INTERNSHIPS AS POSSIBLE! Even if you only partially fit the criteria for certain internships (as an engsci), it’s worth putting yourself out there anyway. I’ll definitely apply to heaps more internships this holidays, wish me luck!
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- I feel like this semester stress has really been eating me alive. Engineering science is a pretty heavy spec in terms of coursework! Assignments were coming out within the first few days back, I was over committing myself to hours at work (tryna be on that money earning grind 😭), and then attempting to maintain somewhat of a gym schedule and a social life, and then just when I thought I could catch a break more assignments would be released. Honestly that was such a stress brewing concoction, no wonder I felt that way. But here I am learning life lessons from myself, DON’T OVER COMMIT YOURSELF! Obviously we all have commitments we have to fulfil, but I think it’s so important to first of all have downtime when possible, and second of all use it wisely. The break is a perfect time to actually have some space to breathe, so this is my note to self to leave a day or two completely free this ‘holidays’ to do absolutely nothing.
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- When I finally did have downtime this term I wasn’t using it to actually reset and reset, so that’s what I’m going to attempt to do this break. TAKE PROPER STUDY BREAKS, GET OFF UR PHONE! Last exam leave I found myself scrolling tiktok so much when I would take study breaks. While I was on tiktok I literally saw a tiktok about how scrolling on apps like tiktok doesn’t actually give your brain a break, and might actually make you more tired and ineffective when you go back to studying. So I deleted it from my phone. Honestly I love tiktok and I’m not saying you have to delete it, but it was so good for my productivity to not use it for a while, and I really needed that during exam leave. So that was a slay for a while. Unfortunately though, I’m kinda a fraud, I’ve fallen into the trap of scrolling instagram reels instead 😶 , but its kinda lame so at least I get tired of it sooner. This is a work in progress for me though I promise.This break is not the time for me to be wasting my brain power on my phone, and instead use it for my report writing, code writing and test study or whatever. The engsci work this semester all feels so foreign to me, and so it takes a lot more effort to actually learn and execute things for assignments, so I need all the study hacks I can find 🤠.
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- START THINGS NOW, REST LATER! There have been a lot of assignments that have ended up taking way longer than I expected this semester, for one of the compulsory engsci classes for example, ENGSCI 263, we have a massive report due in three days!! Some types of work you can manage in a short time frame and you can somewhat do them to a high quality in a ‘rush’, but writing is not one of them! This is a little bit of a throwback to the enggen 140 essay (if you guys still do that), as this is like the first report/formal writing I have really had to do since then, so if thats a selling factor for you, cause I think a lot of the other specs have to write heaps of reports, then definitely take that into consideration. This definitely does vary a lot though depending on your electives though, in second semester engsci’s get two electives, unless doing a conjoint where you only get one. Engineering science learning is a lot do with your interpretation of a solution in classes like ENGSCI 263 and 205, where there isn’t one right answer, so this is definitely a more time consuming learning process than most engineering students are used to, making this advice super relevant for engsci’s right about now.
Anyway, wishing you guys a somewhat relaxing break and amazing grades for the rest of sem <3
– Ava 🧚♀️🧸🍓