When Anna Day goes home to Launceston, the quiet takes some getting used to.
“I can’t just walk 10 metres down the hallway and have a friend,” she says.
Ella Wong feels it too. “I want to talk to someone. Where are my friends?” Harry Watson, whose family lives just ten minutes from Jane College, has a similar reaction when he visits home: “This is so boring.”
Anna and Ella are in their second year studying medicine at the University of Tasmania, and Harry is in his first. When asked what they love most about living at Jane, all three give the same answer: the people.
Ella and Anna knew each other before moving from Launceston. Harry arrived without knowing anyone at Jane.
“I didn’t know anyone when I came, but it was still easy to meet people,” he says.
Welcome Week helped them get to know other residents. So did meals, sport and time in the library. Harry, Ella and Anna became friends through mutual friends and studying together.
Harry had offers to study medicine at Monash and UNSW, and he could have lived at home while studying at UTAS. But his mum had enjoyed living at Jane, and his brother had loved college life in Melbourne.
“I was like, I want that experience as well,” Harry says. “So I figured if I stay here and do med, I should come to Jane.”
Studying together, switching off together
Coming from high school, one of the challenges of studying medicine is getting used to how much of the work is self-directed. At Jane, Harry has been able to turn to students a year ahead of him for advice.
“I can ask them for their tips and tricks, and how they’ve studied something or borrow their flash cards and that sort of stuff. I remember in the first week Anna showed me how to style my notes. It was a good way to get my head around how to actually study.”
Ella likes having other medicine students around to study with and talk to when things get difficult. Harry says being among people doing the same work helps everyone keep going.
“At Jane it is like another level again,” he says. “You’re even more in it together.”
Anna says she enjoys the close-knit feel of medicine at UTAS, where lecturers know students by name. She also values the hands-on experiences in Hobart, such as dissection and access to the Museum of Pathology.
But she doesn’t want every conversation to be about medicine. Anna enjoys coming home to friends studying marine science, engineering and other degrees.
“We have lives outside of med,” she says. “I love coming back here and having all my friends. It is like a brain break.”
Finding time for everything else
Whether it’s heading away on a camping trip, enjoying live music, attending Jane Ball or simply sharing a meal with friends, Jane offers countless opportunities to get involved and feel part of the community.
With lectures, online modules and study to fit in, the three have learnt to choose which Jane events they can make time for. Anna says that in first year, she felt she had to go to everything. Now she knows it’s fine to miss something when she needs to study.
Sport is something she tries to make time for.
“I love doing team sport,” she says. “Sometimes it’s hard once you’ve moved out of school to get a team together just to do something social.”
At Jane, sport is part of college life. The Student Club organises intercollege competitions in netball, cricket, rugby, badminton, soccer, AFL, table tennis and more, making it easy to join in.
For Harry, having sport close by makes it easier to fit into a busy week.
“It’s just out our back door if it’s on the courts, or we can get a lift down to the footy ground, play for an hour and come back and get into it,” he says.
Meals also give them a chance to pause and catch up with friends, even on a busy day. In summer, Ella loves it when dinner moves outside and no one is in a hurry to leave.
“You just stay there for two hours talking because you just want to sit in the sun with other people,” she says.
Someone down the hallway
For all the fun they have together, the friendships matter most on harder days.
“There are just people here all the time,” Anna says. “People to help you, people to support you, people to have a laugh with.”
Harry agrees. “If you need a laugh or a cry, or to crash out, if you think ‘I hate my degree’, there is someone there for you.”
He finds it hard to imagine studying medicine from home.
“I don’t think I could do med if I was living at home, it would hurt, because I’d just go to uni and go home and just study,” he says.
At Jane, the work is still there, but so are the friends to share a meal with when he’s done.
Anna calls Jane a good step between high school and independent life. Students manage their own time, but have support, cooked meals and friends close by.
“You don’t have to be like, ‘What do I cook tonight?’” she says. “You’ve got so much support, so it’s a nice in-between ground before you fully become independent.”
Ella agrees: “It helps you transition well into adult life.”
For Anna, that support has made all the difference. “I don’t think I’d be able to get through my med degree without being at Jane.”
Thinking about studying medicine at UTAS? Explore life at Jane College or book a tour to see it for yourself.