High school didn’t prepare me for university in the slightest. Our teachers always told us that at uni, if we were a minute late to class, the doors would be locked and we’d be marked absent, and that nobody would remind us about assignment dates and we would be expected to do all of our learning by ourselves.
Maybe it’s just that I’m only in my second week and they’re trying not to scare us off early but I already have the due dates for my major assignments in three of my classes, one of my professors told us in the first lecture last week that he’d like to start his morning lecture ten minutes late – he wants time to have his morning coffee and cigarette – and all of my lecturers have office hours and actively encourage us to come to them with any questions or concerns we have about the course and the content. They don’t exactly give off the aura of ‘do it by yourself because I’m not going to help you’ that our high-school teachers prepared us for.
In true first-year style, I scored a horrible timetable for my first semester. I’m taking two writing classes, each of which has a one-hour lecture and a two-hour tutorial per week, and my Dutch and Literature classes each have two hour-long lectures and a one-hour tutorial. Yet these twelve hours of class time are spread over four days.
Today I’m filling the break between my lecture and my tutorial by meeting Elliot for lunch. He goes to the top uni in the state, which is only about fifteen minutes from my campus.
The professor finishes his lecture by instructing us to take notes on the excerpt of Monkey Grip in the reader before class next week and reminds us that our tutorials begin this week. ‘Please make sure you double-check your timetable. It has been updated a number of times over the past few weeks and I don’t want any of you heading off to the wrong room.’
I slip my notebook into my backpack and file out of the theatre behind my classmates. Just being at uni is still kind of a surreal experience.
Once we’re out the door, everyone disperses, going off in different directions. At school, everyone followed the same study pattern and it was uncommon to find somebody who wasn’t studying at least three of the same subjects as you. But uni is different. With the way my course is structured, some of my peers could be headed from the writing lecture to criminology, others could be headed to ecology. Or economics. People can really do whatever they like here.
I have to walk through a group of smokers, who are taking up a small alleyway, to get to the tram stop. I quietly excuse myself as I slip between them, through the cloud of cigarette smoke, trying not to inhale. The urge to cough builds inside me but I wait until I’m out of their line of sight to do so.
About twenty students climb onto the same tram, which is already packed. I take one of the only remaining seats, next to an old lady who shifts her handbag across to make room.
‘Just finished uni, have you?’ she says with a smile. ‘Make the most of it, because you’ll miss it when it’s gone. What are you studying?’
I smile back and tell her about my course. My gut reaction on receiving my offer was to do a double major in Creative and Professional Writing and Dutch. But after attending a few information sessions and talking to course advisors, I’ve ended up with a much more complex study plan. As part of my Bachelor of Arts I’m majoring in Creative and Professional Writing and taking a minor in Literature. Although it adds an extra semester to my study, I’ve decided to take Dutch as part of a Diploma of Languages. I can cross-credit some of my second-year Dutch subjects towards both my Bachelor’s and my Diploma.
The old lady chuckles. ‘Things weren’t that complex back in my day,’ she says. ‘What type of writing do you do?’
‘Well, I don’t actually do a whole lot in my free time but the course covers heaps of stuff. Short stories, novels, scripts – a few different creative types – but we also do journalistic writing, interviewing and editing techniques and stuff like that.’
‘Sounds fascinating.’
‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘How do you spend your days?’
Her answer surprises me. She’s easily in her late seventies, if not older, yet is still a working academic and a practising veterinarian. She’s on her way to Elliot’s uni, where she has a class to teach on advanced surgical procedures in veterinary medicine. Her class, she says, is one of the last classes people take before becoming qualified vets.
I don’t often think about skills like that being taught. Mum probably went through a similar thing, learning how to perform surgery on people. I imagined that she studied textbooks until she knew human anatomy backwards and could perform surgery with little to no hassle. I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be if I were the first patient a young surgeon ever operated on.
I say goodbye to my travel companion at the tram stop as we head off in opposite directions. It takes me about ten minutes to find the cafe Elliot told me to meet him at; the campus has such a complex layout.
Elliot greets me with a hug and we find a table.
Since high school has finished and we’re no longer driving across the country together, it feels weird not seeing Elliot every day. To be fair it’s only been three or four days since I last saw him but it feels like much longer.
‘How was your first week?’ I ask. ‘I feel like I’ve hardly spoken to you.’
‘I already have three assignments due by Friday,’ he says. ‘They’re giving us all this stuff to memorise. If we don’t understand all the basic terminology and really simple stuff, we’re going to have no chance of understanding case law and the more complex stuff.’ His bag bulges with textbooks. The zip is a few centimetres away from being fully closed. It looks ridiculously heavy.
‘You know my dad said he’ll help you with anything you’re stuck on, right?’ Dad tells me to pass on that message at least once a day. He likes Elliot and he likes the law, so he said he’s happy to tutor Elliot if he wants.
‘Your dad’s a superstar. I don’t want him to do my work for me, though.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m pretty sure he means he’ll help explain things if you get stuck or confused or whatever. You know, talk you through the judgements and laws … I don’t really know what I’m talking about.’
‘You don’t say?’
‘Shut your face. Just ask Dad if you need help.’
Elliot smiles his stupid half-smile. ‘What about you?’ he says. ‘How was your first week?’
I tell him about my bad timetable and how unlike all my expectations uni has turned out to be.
‘Made lots of friends?’
‘Not yet,’ I say, ‘but I’ve only had lectures so far and it’s tough to talk to people in a lecture.’
‘Fair call,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you’ll make a million friends very soon and find a cute boy and be happy forever.’
I’m about to call him an idiot but a buzz on the table distracts me. I apologise to Elliot and take the call. Our food arrives (my French toast and Elliot’s bacon and eggs) as I answer.
‘Hi Mum.’
‘Hi Jen. What’s the date of your performance, again? I just went to mark myself as unavailable to work that night but I forgot the date.’
‘April fourth,’ I say. ‘It starts at seven-thirty, I think.’
‘April fourth,’ she repeats. ‘Okay, brilliant. Have a good day and I’ll see you tonight. I love you.’
‘I love you, too, Mum.’
‘Well, things seem to be going swimmingly there,’ says Elliot.
I shrug. He’s not wrong.
‘What’s happening on April fourth?’
‘My dance concert,’ I say. ‘You’re coming, too, by the way. You don’t have a say in the matter.’
‘Oh right. I’d forgotten you’d gone back to dancing,’ he says sarcastically. ‘If only you mentioned it every five minutes …’
‘Dude, shut up,’ I say. ‘I don’t talk about it that often.’ Except that I do. Along with uni, it’s pretty much all I’ve talked about for the past two weeks. Without the pressure of year twelve, I figured I’d be able to fit it back into my week. Mum thought it was a good idea, too, because she thought it might be easier to study if I had something to do that wasn’t related to my education. I’m not too fussed about reasons like that. I just really missed it.
Maybe a week after I got my uni offer, I called my old instructor and she was happy to put me back into one of her classes. I’m still getting back into the swing of things but Thursday nights are now the highlight of my week. As soon as I’d gone back to dancing, my instructor had immediately given me a spot in the next performance night. I’ve spent the past few weeks working on a tap ensemble performance and a contemporary hip-hop routine with three other girls. It’s tiring but so much fun. I always come home with the most ridiculous smile on my face. I don’t know how I lived without dance for an entire year.
Elliot has half-finished his plate of food by the time I pick up my knife and fork. A butterscotch sauce coats my toast and it’s garnished with bacon, banana and crushed pistachio nuts. It’s possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten.
It doesn’t take long for me to lose track of time and much too soon I have to say goodbye.
I get back to my campus twenty minutes before my class is scheduled to begin. My timetable says room G23 in the Humanities building, but I have no idea where that is. Map in hand, I wander across the campus trying to find the right spot.
Five minutes before class, I enter the building. Now where the hell is room G23? Just inside the entrance is a lecture theatre. I head up a staircase and walk along the hallway. Room 102, 103, 104 …
This isn’t helpful.
I head up to the next floor. Room 203. Room 204.
It’s an embarrassingly long time before I realise the first number refers to the floor number. The G must stand for ‘Ground floor’.
I race back down the stairs to the ground floor and look for room G23. I slowly push open the door. Six round tables occupy the room, each with three or four people at them.
‘Is this the tute for The Craft of Writing?’ I ask.
‘It sure is,’ says a middle-aged woman sitting by herself. The stacks of paper on the table before her and her general look of organisation tell me she’s our tutor. ‘Take a seat and we’ll get started in a few minutes. I’m expecting four or five more people, so we’ll give them some extra time to find the room.’ She gives me a warm smile, which I return.
I glance around the room at the different people. A few of them are keeping to themselves, others are in the early stages of getting to know their neighbours, while some talk to people they’ve obviously known for years.
Where’s the best place to sit? A few people make eye contact and give me warm smiles.
I take a deep breath. I can sit anywhere I like.