by Lauren Okely

Created on: February 03, 2009   Last Updated: March 17, 2009

I'm a girl from Western Australia, employed by the government doing data entry for education security and I live with my family. I'm also a student just about to launch into her second year of a Business and Arts double degree. I study by correspondence through a country uni in NSW, Australia. Reflecting on my first year of studying business, I have one word: fascinating.

When I left Year 12 I hadn't a clue what I wanted to do. I knew I loved history, science and logic. Over the holidays, I considered a number of different courses at various universities. I found myself gravitating toward my love of history but I felt that maybe it wasn't the most fiscally rewarding career choice. And then I discovered the Business and Arts double degree. This discovery reawakened interest seeded by the business report on the radio and discussions with my sister-in-law about property markets. And so I set out to become a business student.

Within my first few weeks of study, I found the subject had captured my attention: the logic, the clarity (at least for the most part!), the theories. Despite this, study often lost out to other activities. I worked three days a week and, although I lived with my parents, I still had to keep my room tidy and help out. And then there were the social commitments!

I think study taught me a lot about time management. Because each day of my week varied greatly from the last, my schedule couldn't run to the clock. Through the year, I tried many different methods of organizing my day. I discovered fairly simple to do lists worked well. I gave each chore, study task or event a time estimate and found a place to slot the task into my day as I worked. When I had spare time, I started with the quicker tasks to build up momentum. When I had limited time, I worked on the task with the best fitting time estimate.

I'm very excited about the coming semester of study. I have introductory units on business statistics and marketing. I'm excited to see how much I will learn about those subjects but also how much I will learn about myself and the world. I'm still nervous I won't find the time to fit everything in or that it'll come to exam time and I'll be cramming again. But mostly, I'm fascinated by business.

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