In this episode, our hosts Amaan and Dalal are joined by four student guests from different school curriculums, years, and majors as they discuss their high school experiences and transition to university life.
Intro Music Credits: composed by Pooja Maniyeri and Joshua Thomas
Editing Credits: Amaan Shad
Speaker1: Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of TeawithGenZ, the podcast, where we discuss the latest topics by you and for you, I'm your host, Dalal, and co-hosting with me today is our producer, Amaan Siddiqui.
Speaker2: Everyone's excited to be here, let's get this party started.
Speaker1: This episode is a super special one as we have four new guests joining us today. These people were selected to be an application to be part of this episode, and today we're going to be talking about the transition between high school and university. Allow me to introduce you to our new guests Miss Pinar Khan, Abdul Hamid Hodja, Joseph Henry and Ziad Hammett's.
Speaker3: Hi everyone. Hey, guys.
Speaker1: Would you guys like to introduce yourself to our audience members today?
Speaker4: Hi, everyone, I'm Pinar, I am a third year student majoring in environmental science, and I come from the IB curriculum.
Speaker3: Everyone, my name's Hamid. I am a second year student majoring in biology. I go by the name biomass. If you do recognize me. That's me. I come from the British curriculum.
Speaker2: Everyone, my name is Joseph Henry. I'm currently in my third year and I'm majoring in marketing and I come from the Indian School Certificate ISC.
Speaker5: Everyone, my name is Ziad. I am a first year majoring in psychology. The curriculum that I'm coming from is the American A.P. curriculum.
Speaker1: So to begin today's episode, I wanted to ask you all to describe your high school experience a little bit and let us know what it was like for you.
Speaker2: So coming from the Indian curriculum is contrary to what most people think, I had a lot of freedom to choose my own courses. There were a lot of options given to me, just like in university, so I had a brief understanding on how university works based on the courses I could choose.
Speaker4: Ok, so when you say high school experience, I'm thinking grade nine to 12. So that also encompasses the IB part of it. I would say grade nine and 10 was a breeze. And so that's why I kind of underestimated Iby. So I would describe the IB experience as when you're getting on a roller coaster. But then when you're on the roller coaster and realize that. There isn't an end to the roller coaster, and it just kind of you fly off, that's that's what that was. So it was like, am I going to make it or am I not? It was kind of that situation, but at the same time, the beginning was honestly, you go into really excited because it's this new thing you've heard about and you and you get to choose all your courses similar to what Joseph said. And but then later on, you kind of realize, OK, this isn't all that fun
Speaker1: Or someone who suffered the IV system. I can totally relate, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone describe it as perfectly as you just did. It is a rollercoaster with no end. And I still feel like I'm on the roller coaster now, even though it's been over three years since I graduated. I do get flashbacks every now and then of the trauma that I experienced, and I be so I can definitely relate to you
Speaker3: To add to what Joseph I just said yes or high school for me was a little a little different. We didn't get to really choose our courses. So coming from the IGCC and the British curriculum, the whole goal is to is to help you become more well-rounded person. So regardless of what you want to do, whether you're going to go to, for example, like medicine or engineering. Everyone still takes the same courses. For some schools, it's a little different. I'm not entirely sure how they how they pull that off. But grades nine through 10 for most people. I think like I was a priest, 11 and 12 becomes a little bumpy. You start really questioning your sanity throughout that entire process.
Speaker5: I find that the transition between uni and high school and uni wasn't that difficult for me, because the way that the American curriculum is structured is obviously very similar to iOS in the sense that you just have credit requirements and you get to choose like what classes you need to take in order to fulfill that credit requirement. Then you have some classes where you have to take some classes, where there's learning so you can choose whatever you want. So overall, it was very similar and I felt like it wasn't as rigorous as other curriculums. It was still a quality education, but it wasn't as rigorous in the sense that you still had time to live your life and you still have time to partake in extracurricular activities or school clubs, or it seems like whatever it may be. So I think that the American curriculum really gave people like the opportunity to be more well-rounded students instead of purely focusing on the academic aspect alone of being a student.
Speaker2: I agree with Ziad because even for the Indian curriculum, the one that I did, it really allowed us a lot of freedom to explore the things that we're interested in. But as an IOC student, I was given so much freedom and to pursue an interest as well as academics, they give equal importance to both those spheres of your schooling. And I think that was a very important factor coming into the U.S. because even a U.S. does promote a lot to make sure that you're completely a well-rounded individual when you graduate.
Speaker4: Yeah, so like I get that, I know that as much as I ve students might seem like that inside, you know, I think at the same time, that's something else that might be different than I would say. Like the specific term, you used a well-rounded person, and that's something I'd be stressed on. So no matter how many cons there were within the the curriculum, there was one thing that they really pushed us to not just focus on our academics and really like, look into other interests, even though we might not have had the time, you know, to completely go and pursue these like, you know, interests. Certain people had. So I think no matter how much we look at ideas just like horrible thing, I think it taught us a lot of other valuable lessons at the same time.
Speaker1: I think the part that's most traumatizing about the IB program is because it was so well-rounded you were forced into it. You didn't have the freedom to, like, explore your own self. You have to do 60 hours of activity, which included sports. You had to do 60 hours of services and you have to do 60 hours of creativity. So even when you were expressing yourself in a way or distressing, it was still work. That's why it was so demanding and so overwhelming. So, Ziad, as someone who recently transition from high school into college, do you feel like your expectations were met? Do you feel like you fully are immersed into the university life or do you still feel attached to high school?
Speaker5: I mean, I might have a bit of a bias with answering this because I was so desperate to leave behind in the high school life like I was, I was so ready to just dive straight into you and you. I felt like in the beginning I didn't really have any expectations, like I didn't know what to expect because I didn't really have any sort of like predisposition as to what uni is. So I sort of tried to really broaden my perspective and just try to really get a feel for the various aspects that come with my life. So like, I try not to restrict myself to a certain perspective or a certain outlook on what I expect from uni. And so far, I've got to say it's been pretty fun challenging, but pretty fun adapting to a new life, adapting to a new form of academics. And this part might not be as fun, but definitely at that adapting to like a higher level of rigor when it comes to those academics
Speaker3: About what they just said. Honestly, I don't know about you guys, but for high school, a high school are the best years of my life and I was pretty sad to leave a Grade 11 and 12. Not in terms of academics. I mean, we're all I still have flesh, but I wake up in the night just reciting metabolic pathways, so there's still a scar in me. But I mean, in terms of the friendships that you make along the way, I think those are just forever.
Speaker2: Adding on to what Rahman said about high school being the best years of my life, and I completely agree with that because the memories that you make and the friendships and the bonds that you forge during that period of time, you know, they tend to stick for a long time because, you know, those are your formative years and you really as soon as the university starts, it's the first time you've actually moved out of that shell. You know that comfort zone because you know everyone you know, your teachers, you know your friends, and you pretty much know that two to three years where your life will take you. But once you come to university, it's this completely different stage that you're facing and the challenges that are thrown at you are completely different. Nothing in high school honestly prepared me for what university will be like, and that in itself was very challenging for me to, you know, try to find my own way, especially not knowing anyone since I moved back from India, like I had very little friends to start off with in Dubai.
Speaker1: So would you say that your expectations
Speaker4: For university were very different than what you experienced?
Speaker2: Absolutely, because I think I was a little bit naive coming into university because you have this whole Westernized or this Americanized version of what university will be like. You know, you think you ask your classes because, you know, this time you really know what you're getting into the courses that you like, the major that you've chosen. So yes, just like my expectations, nothing like anything that I could expect, it went the exact opposite. So, yeah, it was a wild ride first semester that I was in university.
Speaker4: Ok, so I would have to go the other route to Abdel-Hamid said about the lifelong friendships in high school. So I think in high school you're still growing and you're you're still like. Well, personally, I was still very naive and I would say that like the friendships I made, then they they weren't that like stable in the sense that we were all so mentally physically drained from Iby that all that, like all the negative and all that buildup would just be released onto the the friendships that we had. And I think that's where you you see the big difference once you come to university, because now you're more mature and you know how to handle your academics are on one side. You don't let it affect your friendships. You don't let it affect your social behavior. That's something that you have to keep separated. And so it's I see this massive difference because even now, like I have certain friends that I work with and we're in these professional settings and we're completely different when it comes to that. Whatever disagreements we may have in that sense, like in a club or an organization, does not let us affect our friendship. And that's something that's like a massive difference.
Speaker2: It's very interesting hearing how you guys have had such different, different experiences in high school and university, not just in the field of academics, but a lot of other things I want to know. What exactly did you all expect when you were leaving high school and entering university? Coming from the Indian curriculum, we're spoon fed a lot as far as notes go and what we study because I have a clear memory of my teachers coming to me and telling me, Alright, students, this is what you will study and I want you to take down notes for this particular topic because this is very important for you, exam and this will be on the paper. In fact, they even when we used to go through our textbooks, they told us what to highlight, what to pay more attention to and what do you know we can afford to leave? So I think, yeah, it was it was completely a very different experience to me coming into it, into university.
Speaker5: I feel like throughout high school, one of the biggest like, I guess the motivation behind studying isn't necessarily studying here, you're not really studying to study your study to get good grades, if that makes sense. You don't want to. You don't want to learn. You just want to pass. And I feel like that's like a really dangerous mindset to have. And it's very common. It's I had that mindset before. I'm sure a lot of us have had it before as well. But once you get to uni, you kind of have to tell yourself, like, this is literally my future and this is what I'm actually going to work in. So I need to shift away from studying for grades and start studying a manner that actually benefits my knowledge and my comprehension of the subject.
Speaker2: Well, that's very interesting and something I want to know, since we have different experiences with regards to note-taking and several other skills that help us cope with courses at school and at university. How did you guys get accustomed to those changes? What did you do to learn those skills and fill the gaps that high school could?
Speaker3: I think really, it's just trial error while the there's a general like protocol, if you will, that I follow and anyone who asks me like, this is what I do. It works for me. Feel free to go for it. And it's it's active recall, spaced repetition. And those are pretty much the two. The two fundamental techniques that I use, as opposed to something like passive recall, which everyone does in high school. It's you take notes verbatim what the teacher professor is doing and then what a day, two days a week at best for the exam, you just you start flipping through the pages. Yup. Yup, yup. Yup, yup. Yup, I know that. And then active recall much, much, much more challenging your brain when you really feel your brain work, OK? Active recall is when you don't rely on your notes, rather, you rely on your memory and pose questions to yourself and answer them. So, yeah, active recall is the way to go. Ok. Spaced repetition. Another one of those. So if you're just let's so let's say your exam is like a week from today, the last thing you want to do is leave it till the day, the night of the exam, and you're like, Oh, I'm going to brush through this. I'm somehow going to watch all forty eight hours of pre-recorded lectures, and I'm going to miraculously understand all of this, this content. And that's impossible because be realistic. So what you do is leading up to the exam. You revise, you revise chapter one two three four on day three, you revise Chapter one and Chapter two again. And then you just repeat the cycle of returning back and forth. And that way, you really you solidify these pathways in your brain. And then when you go to the exam, you feel your brain firing like unlike anything before.
Speaker5: I really like what Hameed said about active recall because memory obviously is the forefront of what's being tested on an exam. And as a student, you want to have your memory and just the sharpest condition possible. And I find that a little thing that I mean, especially it's more common now than before, since everything is online. A lot of people take their notes on like Microsoft Office or Google Docs, like typing, or that may be fast and efficient. It's not good for memory because it's a psychological fact that you are much more likely to remember something by writing it down. Because think about it like writing Darwinism, it's it takes more cognitive processes to actually write down a piece of information rather than typing it. When you're writing something down, you like, you sort of honestly yourself. You know what information you have and what you didn't write yet. And that allows you to sort of build like a personal connection with your notes. I know this sounds kind of weird, but you kind of start to personalize your notes. He's like different colors, different structures, like the way you organize your notes and the weird thing that happens when you start developing sort of just personalization of your notes is you start remembering things based on how they look like. Let's say you wrote down a certain definition of a word or you put something what kind of whatever kind of piece of information, like a certain box or you underline it in red, you start remembering it by Wait, what's that thing that I underlined the red or what's that thing that I put in the box? You know, these sort of little like, I guess you could say, unorthodox ways of writing information down. They make the information stand out more in your brain.
Speaker2: I think another major difference between our curriculums is the ISC, nobody cares if you did really bad on your first exams or your second exams, what ultimately matters is your final exams and coming into university. When every exam you give holds a certain percentage to your final grade was very different because I'm not used to studying for every single test coming from high school, you're under the mentality where you know what your first exams went. It's fine. Your second exams go. It's only the final one that comes shows up onto your report card, so you sit and study only for your final exam. But coming to university you this habit of sitting and coming home and trying to prepare everything studied on everything that you sat and did in university that day was something I couldn't internalize very quickly. It took me like my first semester. I couldn't second semester. I tried, but I couldn't. But it was. It really took a lot of effort, you know, to internalize that process within me, to come home and do everything that the university did that day so that for the midterms, I don't have to sit and cram everything at the last moment. And in high school, I'm so used to that last minute studying and you develop your own process for studying because as you as the nurse said, you cannot use somebody else's notes because you have your own process and making your own notes and studying from your own notes because you know you're done it and you have a certain level of confidence in what you've done. The same thing when you made up a process of how you sit and learn for your exams to come and completely change the dynamic in university, you're just playing catch up your whole semester. You end up playing catch
Speaker4: Like apart from talking about exams and note taking. I think also just assignments and whether it's like papers or reports or presentations, all of these assignments, we they they go hand in hand with along with your exams and your midterms and quizzes. And at the same time, professors aren't like one for a certain course if someone gives you an exam on a certain day. The other professors aren't not going to be like, Oh, poor thing, I'm not going to give you a presentation or report on the same day, you know, so you have to be mentally prepared and you need to have that skill of multitasking. Once we got into university, that really helped us out for me personally, I feel like I'd be really helped me out in terms of that, in preparing me to kind of not panic. Like I feel like no matter what comes my way, I'm like, it can't be worse than what I've done to us. So like at this point, you know, my my friends, they're like, We have this do today. Tonight, there's like this one assignment do. I really can't go out. I can't do anything, and I'm here. I'm like, I have three midterms. Let's go out. Let's go, you know, do whatever. And then and they're like, Are you OK? And I'm like, Yeah, like, this is just, this is just what we are. This is our normal. You know, there's nothing that can truly make me panic. So we're ready for it all. Throw it our way.
Speaker2: Since you guys did mention a lot about exams and everything, I do want to bring out something else, so I think it really depends. The grading structure and how the course works, depending on what major you are, like a lot of the strategies you all mentioned that are absolutely fantastic, but it really comes down to what major you are. I'd love to hear from you guys how your major has compelled you to switch your studying strategies.
Speaker5: As a psychology major, there is an insane amount of content and material that you have to know. And it's kind of goes back to what Daryl said about like memorization versus understanding. And I don't remember the thing, but there's like these different levels or tiers of like just knowledge and memorization is the lowest one. And I guess, understanding and applying concepts that would be more useful. And I guess science or math courses, which do have a lot of concepts and processes that you have to understand. But for me personally in psychology, there is just an insane amount of modules that you have to know, and you just have to memorize the various definitions of things you have to memorize and understand, of course, how things just work.
Speaker3: Up to answer what I'm honest and add on towards the outset, yeah, I think the way you approach studying for any of your courses is is like I a core specific. The way you study for math is not the way you study for biology. Ok, you can. You can only memorize so much in math before it becomes borderline useless. Like you look at a question, you're like, What OK? And the way and the way you study for biology is obviously different. And psychology, there's a lot of overlap between the two fields. You're going to be expected to memorize a lot of information. It's like drinking water from a fire hydrant, OK? You can get a couple of drops in. Ultimately, your approach is going to be different between the two courses. But a general outline that I think fits almost every every major is it's number one while you're in the lecture. Take rough notes. They don't have to be word for what don't do work for what the professor is saying because you're not studying that. You're just being a typewriter. So really rough. Ok. Just to connect the ideas when you go home.
Speaker3: If the professor will cause the lecture, which I hope would hopefully get you, I think every professor does that. Here you go home and you match up your notes, you match up your notes with the recorded lecture or or pre-recorded lecture and then the way you study it. I think a good way of breaking it up is much of you guys are familiar with this. It's called the Pomodoro studying technique, or Pomodoro method, which you study for blocks of twenty five minutes, five minute break, twenty five minute, five minute break. And you repeat that is, I think, going to to supercharge the way you, you absorb information, think critically regardless of the course. Ok, and then practice, practice, practice. You're going to be practicing a lot in math, whereas in biology, you're going to be more memorizing the information and retaining it long term, whereas math. It's a set of rules and you apply those rules. So again, it's super. It's core specific, measure specific, but those are just some some general tips that I think will help regardless of your major whatever course you take.
Speaker2: Thank you, everyone, for those wonderful tips, I'm sure our listeners will really benefit from that. Now moving beyond academic study skills and how you managed your time at university, I'm sure a lot of us wouldn't exactly join us because we studied in the UAE, it said. A lot of us have had to shift from another place or move away from family. So how has that experience been for you?
Speaker4: Oh, it's going to sound hilarious, but I live in Abu Dhabi, I love what you said, move away from family in a different country and I'm like, yeah, like two hours away. Yeah. So anyways, I'm a I'm a very social and extroverted personality, but at the same time, I'm very close to home. I need to, you know, I'm very close to my parents, and that makes sense because I'm an only child. So like what I've known most of my life is like, OK, being around my parents and my mom, being my best friend. So it was it was a rough transition in terms of leaving, leaving home and having to kind of self sustain in the sense that it wasn't like, Oh, I don't know how to wash dishes or laundry or whatever like dorms wasn't that that wasn't the problem. The problem was just like being alone. Like, that's why I would try to avoid going back to dorms as much as possible. Like, I would only go there to sleep and I would just spend most of my time on campus.
Speaker5: I also live in the dorms here as well. And I agree with what you said in the sense that you don't want to stay in your room all the time because it definitely can get lonely and you kind of need to have a mix of being friends, being on family and also being by yourself. You sort of have to think of the dorms. It's like your own safe space. You know what I mean? Like a place to cool down, to just relax and be yourself for a while. But if you stay alone for too long, that's one. Yeah, no one likes to be alone with your thoughts for too long, so you definitely need to find a balance between your social life and your personal life.
Speaker2: Thank you all for sharing your experiences with your transition from high school to university, especially beyond academics, extracurriculars and your social life and family and living alone. Now before we wrap up this episode, although you guys have already given amazing tips for our listeners out there to benefit from, if you had to encapsulate them into like one strong line, what would you tell our listeners? I think these four years that you have, you can know, push yourselves into doing things that you traditionally would not have done. I think this is the time to really explore what you can do, what you cannot and what you were interested in, what you want to pursue. You know, just try to get a better understanding of who you are as an individual and push yourself to do things that you know you didn't think was possible that you could do. I think it's really interesting time and all in all our lives. And I think it's going to be a great journey wherever we end up, because these four years are really going to mold you into the person that you will become.
Speaker3: Um, to add to that, ultimately, it's not your intelligence that determines how good your grades are, whether it's your work ethic and the amount of time that you're willing to put into studying after class and preparing for an exam, leaving everything to the last day and cramming. And then just like, Oh, wait, why do I not do good in this course? It's work ethic. And, you know, it's pretty much hard work. It's super cliche here on Instagram all the time, but that's in a sense it is the that's it in a nutshell.
Speaker4: I think Joseph and Abdel-Hamid covered the academics, but I'm going to go towards the other part of it, I'm going to tell the audience the first years that are coming in or people who are already have already started their university journey that don't be afraid to put yourself out there. I know that's a very cliche line, but at the same time, this is like a fresh start. You know you're you're starting new or starting fresh university. No one knows you here. Maybe some people do, but you're still this is your chance to do something different than you did before. So don't be scared when it comes to meeting new people. You know, having making new friendships, being a different version of yourself, a better version, hopefully.
Speaker5: I would say like to sum it up. Be independent and discover yourself because you shouldn't depend or rely on others because no one's no one's going to tell you. Go study. No one's going to tell you revise for that test. No one's going to tell you to get off of Netflix or get off of the video game. No one. It's just going to be you, and you're going to be the only one that's that should be holding yourself accountable. So you should discover yourself so that you know what works for you, what doesn't, what your limits and capabilities are. And through that, it allows you to be honest with yourself when you're holding yourself accountable and sort of just wrap that up optimization. I think Abdel-Hamid brought up this point earlier about trial and error, and I feel like it's definitely a huge part seeing what works for you, what doesn't and try your best to optimize your studying, living social experience and sort of cut out the areas in your life that are lagging or unofficial or inefficient? Sorry. And, yeah, independent self discovery and optimization.
Speaker2: Those are some amazing depth who have given, and I just want to wrap this up into like one capsule that should somehow work for everyone. So the education system is not perfect for everyone. So what may work for someone else might not work for you? The GPA is a number that doesn't define who you are as a person or that intelligence, so it's going to be a trial and error system for all of you. You have to find out what strategies work best for you, and the university experience will give you an output that isn't just defined by your major degree or the fact that you're at a loss, but how you use your time at the US. So make sure you're out there exploring and coming up with the best blueprint of yourself for yourself.
Speaker1: With that being said, we are wrapping up today's episode, thank you, guys, so, so, so much for joining us. It was amazing to talk to you, amazing to get a new and fresh perspective on all of your high school experiences. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at Gen-Z underscore to stay updated with our posts, episodes and for future chances to join our episodes. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.