9 hilarious and real differences between a first-year student and a final-year student

Last Updated on 2016-05-18 , 2:28 pm

If you are a final year student, your mentality should be totally different from a first year student. Not only are your priorities different, your plans regarding the future would be different too and you would probably be thinking about a lot more real life issues as compared to your first year. Here are the top 9 hilarious and real differences between a first year student and a last year student that all undergraduates must know.

What they care
As a first year undergraduate, you are probably being allured by the numerous opportunities that are being presented to you during your first year. You would probably be busy trying out various ccas and making new friends. However, for the final year student, gone are those carefree days.As a final year student, you would probably be busy scrolling through jobstreet and browsing through newspaper to get a sense of Singapore’s economy. You would probably be crafting your resume at wee hours, skipping all those suppers and gatherings, and be busy networking.

In school
As a first year student, you are probably very enthusiastic about all the new lessons and knowledge that you are going to acquire throughout the course of your studies. However, as a last year student, you are probably jaded by all the academic rigour that you just can’t wait to graduate. You lost the curiosity and the joy of learning, and school has become a dread for you.

GPA
As a first year student, you are probably very uptight over your GPA. Your priority in school is probably to maintain or to improve your GPA so to attain the class of honours that you hope for. However, as the final year student, your fate is probably sealed and you hardly pay any attention to your studies. Job is the new thing now.

Emotions
A first year student is probably exhilarated and is excited at all the new changes that are going to happen in the campus. However, a final year undergraduate is probably filled with lot of anxiety issues. She has to start worrying about her new job, start planning her future, think of her saving plans and if you are far-sighted enough, your retirement plans. Yes, some people do plan about retiring even before they start working.

Fashion
As a year 1 graduate, it is highly likely for you to be extremely motivated in wanting to wear fashionable clothes to school. Flip flops are a no-go for you,and you’ll never leave house wearing just a camp tee(unless you stay in hall). However, as a year 4, you seriously can’t be bothered anymore and you’ll probably leave house donning on just a pair of havaianas, camp tee and denim shorts.

Going for lesson
If you are a year 1 student, then you’ll most likely be punctual for all your lessons. You’ll do your tutorial readings diligently and you’ll be fighting for class participation points. However, as a last year undergraduate, you probably can’t be bothered with the lectures anymore. If you only have morning lesson, then you’ll probably miss it for good so you can sleep in. You’ll be late for half an hour for your tutorial, but you no longer feel anxious.

Navigating around school
It is pretty obvious to know who are the seniors and the freshmen during the first week of school. While freshmen would have to refer to maps to get around school, as a year 4 student, you’re well versed enough to know where are the shortcuts to the different venues.

Class participation
20% for class participation may seem a lot to most freshmen, but trust us, to a year 4 student, class participation probably doesn’t mean anything anymore. As a year 1 student, you’ll start to develop a keen sense of smell to detect any class participation chance. You’ll raise your hands endlessly to voice your opinion. But trust us, once you’re a year 4 student, you probably cannot be bothered with class participation anymore. You no longer speak just for the sake of it, but you’ll start to participate because you really got something interesting or brilliant to point out.

Exchange
While year 1 student is busy selecting which exchange programme to go for, you have your year 4 seniors who are relieving their exchange days. They’ll be the one convincing you to go for the exchange, and probably the further the better. They’ll tell you things that you have never seen or tasted before, and can’t stop telling you how amazing their exchange was.