Hi everyone, it’s your editor again! Through our earlier series of articles on the UK, we went into detail on the differences between choosing the UK and Australia for undergraduate and postgraduate study. Now, if in high school you were young and your parents held most of the decision-making power over your development, then by the time you enter undergraduate study, now an adult, you should naturally start planning your own future in this free and independent environment — especially when it comes to your plans for postgraduate study overseas.
If we say the Gaokao is a one-shot deal that decides everything, and can genuinely be limited by your academic foundation and a bit of luck, then with a postgraduate degree overseas, whether you end up at a good school or a lesser one is entirely something you can earn through your own effort and sound planning across four years of university!
After all, when applying based on your undergraduate coursework grades and related experience, as long as you’re willing to put in the time, no matter which undergraduate university you attended, you have a chance to turn things around at the master’s level, and give your four years of university effort the payoff it deserves.
Many students don’t start thinking about and preparing their master’s application until they’re just a year off graduating, which is essentially last-minute cramming that leaves everything to luck. If you want to win, you should obviously win from the starting line — in other words, follow a path of sensible planning and effort starting from first year, and if you’re determined to apply for a master’s in the UK or Australia down the track, this article can help you map out exactly what you can work on from first year, so you can build up your background and get prepared well ahead of time.
#Year One
(if it’s a three-year overseas undergraduate degree, this can also be understood as the foundation stage)
Improve your English
In first year, regardless of whether your uni offers English-language courses, you should first assess your own language ability — for example, by taking a simple test at an English training centre to see where you stand across listening, speaking, reading and writing. Then, based on your own situation, put together a detailed long-term English study plan. After all, while language tests can sometimes be cracked with a few tricks to hit the score you need in the short term, if your underlying foundation just isn’t there, no amount of technique will turn a Band 5 IELTS candidate into a Band 7 — at best you might squeeze out an extra 0.5-1 within your ability range, and that’s already impressive. So since you’re planning to study overseas, it pays to start on your English early, because poor English will seriously become a stumbling block across every subject once you’re doing your master’s.
Settle on your target major
Whether it was forced on you by the Gaokao or chosen by your parents, you’ll have a major the moment you start uni, and whether you actually like that major is something only you can know once you’re studying it. Some universities let you change your major during first year, so this is the time to properly experience it and work out whether you like your current major, and if not, which one you should switch to. If your university doesn’t allow a change of major, then you should research online in advance what career directions your major can lead to in future, and work towards a direction you can at least accept.
Get involved in activities, on and off campus
First year is just the beginning of your degree, and also when you have the most spare time, so make sure you use this period to get involved in plenty of activities on and off campus, things like campus competitions, student unions, clubs and societies, volunteering and so on — all of which can enrich both your life experience and your resume. At this stage you don’t necessarily need to be so results-driven as to head straight into an internship — broadening your life experience also boosts your future competitiveness in other ways. After all, no future master’s admissions officer wants to see an applicant who’s a blank slate outside of academics, and admissions officers at top universities in particular look for well-rounded students who approach every aspect of life with a positive, open attitude.
#Year Two
Master your core subjects
Most universities load up on core subjects from second year onward, so at this point you should cut back on on-campus and off-campus activities as much as possible, prioritise your studies, work hard, and push your average grade as high as you can, because grades will always be the number one factor in master’s admissions — and someone who can’t even do well in their core subjects won’t get anywhere no matter how many impressive activities or internships they list. If anything, it just makes people suspect everything else on your application is padded out or fake, so during second year, don’t get your priorities backwards — only take on other things once your GPA is secure.
Keep up the pace with your English
Learning a language is a long-term process — it’s fine to let it take a back seat to chasing a high GPA in your core subjects, but you must never let your English slide. And this isn’t just true for those back home — even students who came to Australia for their undergrad, using only the bit of English they need for everyday life and class, won’t see any real improvement in their English purely from being in a so-called fully English-taught environment, unless they deliberately keep building on it and studying. So if you genuinely don’t know how to study every aspect of English systematically and efficiently, start with learning vocabulary — this most basic approach is also usually the one that takes the most sustained effort to stick with.
Use the summer holidays for an internship
Whether you find one yourself or your parents help arrange it, doing an internship related to your own major is definitely the best way to start. This lets you apply what you’ve learned in your major in a real workplace — by seeing the whole workflow, including how the company operates, you’ll understand why you need to study these core subjects and exactly how they get used in real work, call it combining theory with practice — it’s what will help you study your core subjects even better going forward.
Opportunity favours the prepared
Given space limits, that’s it for this article. As you can see, even in the years everyone tends to overlook the most — first and second year — there’s actually this much you can be doing. As the saying goes, opportunity is always left for those who are prepared — it’s precisely because most students spend first and second year having fun and taking it easy that those willing to put in the effort get the chance to get ahead.
Of course, as Australia’s most professional education agency, Newstars, on top of our core English training services, our professional consultants can also help you with progression and transfer applications — if you’re still in first or second year and have strong grades, we can help arrange a transfer into an Australian undergraduate degree, giving you the chance to have a top university’s name behind you even at undergraduate level!
***Coming up***
Our next article will explain in more detail the important things you should tackle in third and fourth year, and how best to prepare — stay tuned!
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