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For the past few weeks, university students in Perth have been on their semester break and my tutoring efforts have focussed more on high school students. This has provoked me to think more about the similarities, differences, and transferable skills between high school and university. We tend to use the term ‘transferable skills’ when discussing career changes, but the transition between school and university is similar in many ways. Content Overlap Although it is fine for s

Study stress is a widespread problem, with the majority of Australian university students experiencing at least some level of excess stress (Papier et al., 2015). Given the distressing and often counterproductive nature of ‘getting stressed out’, it is easy to wonder why we are so prone to feel this way. Among the hormones involved in our body’s reaction to stress is Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which is responsible for stimulating the adrenal glands to produce cortiso

A study by Richardson et al. (2018) examined the study habits of Australian university students in the health sciences. 48% of these students were studying Sport Science, while the rest were from fields such as Physiotherapy, Podiatry, and Medical Imaging (Richardson et al., 2018). On average, these students were studying for around 4 hours per day (Richardson et al., 2018). This may not sound like a massive amount of time, and it may be slightly below the recommended hours f

Introduction Whether you are working out how to order the body paragraphs of an argumentative essay or polishing the executive summary of a mock business report, getting to grips with assignment structure can be difficult for students. It would be irresponsible to suggest that assignment structure is not important, but it is important to remember that you don’t have to have it all worked out the moment you start writing. Body Paragraph 1 Assignment structure refers to how stu

It sounds funny, but I still have nightmares about university assignments. Research has found that the stress experienced by students is associated with lower quality of life in areas ranging from the psychological, social, and physical (Ribeiro et al., 2018). Personally, a lot of the anxiety I experienced during my early years at uni stemmed from a struggle to maintain motivation, as well as the guilt that came from this. My lulls in motivation were usually provoked by setba

Try to imagine yourself standing in a kitchen, kneading a ball of dough on the bench. While you’re carrying out this task you see a child ride a bike past the house. Now think about how you would explain to someone else how to carry out these skills? When attempting to improve their academic writing, students often look for a toolkit of explicit rules to follow. A writing toolkit may include elements such as correct grammar, clear syntax, well-formatted citations, and correct

Diagram - Study methods as a code to crack. The extensive list of mistakes that I made during my first year of uni include such gems as, not realising that PowerPoint presentations required references and forgetting to complete weekly e-tests multiple weeks in a row. If you are new to tertiary study or have switched to a new course, the essential ingredient is balance. You should allow yourself to make enough mistakes to learn important lessons, without becoming too complacen

Anyone who has engaged in tertiary education will know that there is a common attitude that university/TAFE is primarily a means to an end, rather than a meaningful journey in its own right.

I have, at times, thought about taking my private tutoring in a direction that more explicitly specialises in neurodivergence. However, without being flippant, I feel as though private tutors end up specialising in neurodivergence by default, given that neurodivergent students are especially likely to require extra help (Wolpe, 2024) . In my own case, I did not fully come to terms with the impact that my ADHD was having on my studies until I started my master’s course in 202