{"id":2367,"date":"2019-08-08T13:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T03:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2019-08-08T16:10:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T06:10:21","slug":"hooked-on-open-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/blog\/2019\/08\/hooked-on-open-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Hooked on Open Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have a confession, I love uni. I\u2019ve been going to UNSW Open Day since I was\u00a0fourteen. It\u2019s my favourite day of the year.<\/p>\n

My parents took me along to\u00a0various\u00a0university open days as a family outing, and I got hooked. I discovered all the things\u00a0a\u00a0university could offer\u00a0\u2013\u00a0so much more than a simple degree. I really like being prepared, so I went to\u00a0as many as\u00a0I could fit in, making it a family affair and having a great time.<\/p>\n

In Year 12,\u00a0I got serious. I needed to make decisions. Which university? What degree? Should I do a double or focus my efforts? What was the right combination? Should the degree trump the campus vibe?\u00a0S<\/i>o<\/i>\u00a0many questions with so little time to decide. I was pretty sure what I wanted to\u00a0do, but\u00a0I\u00a0needed to be certain.<\/p>\n

My parents had studied at\u00a0UNSW,\u00a0but\u00a0didn\u2019t pressure me in any direction. The weird thing was,\u00a0the moment I set foot on the campus I knew. It just felt right, you know? UNSW was \u2018the one\u2019.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d planned my day out beforehand, so I knew exactly where I needed to be to get the info I wanted. You\u00a0have\u00a0to\u00a0be selfish. This is\u00a0your<\/i>\u00a0day to find out what you want to know. It\u2019s great travelling in with friends,\u00a0but make sure you plan the day to get what you need.<\/p>\n

Asking questions is the most important thing. You might want to\u00a0find out\u00a0about the degree and course options. Staff and current students in the\u00a0Advisory\u00a0Centre are a good starting point.\u00a0While you\u2019re there, also ask\u00a0them\u00a0about the course structure, what type of assessments are required and how many contact hours. The answers can vary dramatically between courses\u00a0\u2013 it was a bit of a shock to me when I realised how many readings were involved in the courses I\u2019d chosen. I also wanted to know about specific\u00a0courses,\u00a0so I went to a couple of the lectures. I knew I wanted to study marketing, but it wasn\u2019t until I went to a lecture in the Business School that I realised how combining it with a commerce degree would\u00a0open up\u00a0more career opportunities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just the academic questions that make\u00a0Open\u00a0Day a must-go-to event. Ask personal questions too. It\u2019s just as important to find out about student life, parties, how easy is it to make friends. You know, the stuff that isn\u2019t on the website. The Student Ambassadors \u2013 walking around in yellow shirts \u2013 are a great source of information.\u00a0 And if they don\u2019t know,\u00a0they\u2019ll know someone who does. They\u00a0are\u00a0where you\u2019ll be in a year or so, so make sure you ask them about their experiences. What courses are they enrolled in, what are they planning to do in the future, what are their career aspirations? They\u2019re all eager to share their stories.<\/p>\n

Remember, Open\u00a0Day isn\u2019t a typical\u00a0uni\u00a0day. So, it\u2019s a good idea to visit the campus on a \u2018normal\u2019 day as well. Having said that,\u00a0Open Day gives you the opportunity to ask all the questions, explore the campus and focus on you and your future.<\/p>\n

So how did I make my decision?\u00a0While\u00a0UNSW had an exciting and fun\u00a0vibe,\u00a0it was my conversations with Student Ambassadors that swayed me. Everyone was friendly and helpful \u2013 which is what I wanted for my university experience.<\/p>\n

Open\u00a0Day is still my favourite day.\u00a0Now\u00a0I\u00a0participate as a\u00a0Student\u00a0Ambassador, offering advice and a friendly face,\u00a0just like all those people who helped me when I was trying to make my decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a confession, I love uni. I\u2019ve been going to UNSW Open Day since I was\u00a0fourteen. It\u2019s my favourite day of the year. My parents took me along to\u00a0various\u00a0university open days as a family outing, and I got hooked. I discovered all the things\u00a0a\u00a0university could offer\u00a0\u2013\u00a0so much more than a simple degree. I really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[50748,1],"tags":[53179,53180,53181,53178],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-future-students","category-uncategorized","tag-student-life","tag-unsw-open-day","tag-year-12","tag-year-twelve","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8PON4-Cb","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2544,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/studentlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}