The Otago Exercise Programme: Fill & Download for Free

You don’t really need to prep. It’s essentially the first year of a degree (whether that’s a medical degree, physio degree, science degree, or even arts degree), Otago just likes to funnel everyone through the same programme.That being said, there are some skills to work on that will make your life easier. They’re also just generally useful skills.Study skillsWhile you’re in school, work on identifying strategies that help you study. For me, I like to be doing/writing things while I study- it helps me focus. So I did a lot of practice exams in undergrad and when studying for my high school exams. This works quite well for HSFY, because the previous exams are quite similar to the current ones. (This works extremely well for GENE222, should you ever do that paper.) You’re not losing out on deeper integration, either, because a lot of the questions are short-answer questions that require you to describe or integrate knowledge. I know some other people love flashcards, I’m not a great fan unless I have to memorize a list. Try out different test-taking and note-taking strategies until you find a few that work for you. These may be different for different subjects.A specific side-note: you’re allowed a cheat-sheet in your physics exam. I would highly recommend making this as soon as you start studying for the physics exam. Constructing it is a great overview of the material, and when you’re studying you can add things you’ve missed to it. And when you sit the exam, you’ll be very familiar with where everything is.DisciplineIf you procrastinate assignments and studying until the night before, work on disciplining yourself to complete assignments sooner. For university, assignments typically cannot be done in one night, so it’s really worth working on this. This is not HSFY-specific advice, you’ll need it whatever Uni course you do and in the workplace.Self-careYou need to sleep, eat sensibly, exercise and take time off study to be a happy and healthy human. The sooner you work out strategies to achieve this, the happier you’ll be! (I’m still working on this one, especially the “time off” bit. And I was quite bad at this in HSFY… though free hall meals helped with the “eating” bit.)HobbiesIt is really important to do things that are not HSFY and school! Whether that’s joining a club (I was in the orchestra in my first year) or something else. Consider doing something that gets you away from the university students as well, it’s good for perspective. I’d also recommend taking an elective course that interests you, rather than doing the “easy” papers… I took Media Studies and it was a lot of fun.Learning the material in advance?Don’t bother. If you’re doing some math and science classes in Year 13 you’ll be fine. If you want to learn more about biology beyond your classes, in my opinion you’d be better off reading books that look interesting. When you get into HSFY there will be a lot of very smart people who are paid to help you learn the material, you don’t have to do it on your own.I also wouldn’t advise stressing over hall choice too much. I chose my hall in about an hour the day before applications were due, in part because it had a worm farm. Whether you’re at St Margarets or Arana or Unicol, you’ll be fine.