How university works

[MagicGecko]

I'm curious, from your experiences were there a lot of friendless people during the first year, as in they didn't know anyone in their course?

I don't know about other courses, but for me, uni felt just like high school 
I guess it was because my course is a new course (started in 2012), I had a fixed timetable (everyone had the exact same subject's at the exact same time) so everyone saw each other every single time, not to mention that there were only around 21 of us in the course so it felt like a homeroom.
Anyway everyone quickly got to know each other and whatnot and in about the 2nd week everyone had formed 'groups'. You had the hard smart worker group, the Indian group, the loud group that just wont shut up, the TALL WHITE GIANTS and 'the rest'.
Answering your question....no there were absolutely no friendless people.
Also surprisingly it seemed that the adults already knew each other (its a small world).

I'll probably be the only person from my school in my course so I'm not going to know anyone.

I was too, just make an effort to talk to some people because you will have to talk to them eventually (horrid group projects).

[scribble]

insights on bio tutes at unimelb: .just.don't.go.

[nerdgasm]

Hey pi, sorry to provide a lack of information but in Monash Biology (from the Science faculty), we don't really get a tutorial each week that is separate to our lectures and labs. The closest things I can possibly think of are in physiology, where we would occasionally have a one-hour session to go through the theory and questions behind a lab we had just done, and in DEV2022 (anatomy/developmental biology), where half an hour to one hour is set aside at the end of each week's lab to have a discussion and talk about some features of the anatomy we learnt that week, through image-based slides.

I'm doing Biochem this semester, so will let you know if we get any tutorials there, but that's about all I can say for now.

[vox nihili]

I second what scribble said, but in the interests of being a little bit more detailed.

Biology labs are quite similar to VCE classes. The tutor has a specific agenda and covers specific topics. Normally this is usually just a review of the lecture content, going over tricky concepts and seeing whether or not the students can recall the information presented to them in lectures. Particularly in the genetics component of biology, tutorials will be more focused on skills. The tutors will run through methods of setting up and completing questions. They will sometimes do this in other ares, but mainly that's for genetics. In essence though, the tutes at UniMelb were just sitting around doing worksheets with 5 minutes of the tutor hastily running through answers.

Scribble's right, don't bother.

[alondouek]

As the start of semester gets ever closer, now is as good a time as any to revive this fantastic thread! Incoming jaffies, feel free to ask any burning questions about university life here and someone will answer.

[Rod]

As the start of semester gets ever closer, now is as good a time as any to revive this fantastic thread! Incoming jaffies, feel free to ask any burning questions about university life here and someone will answer.

Thank you!

[Teagan_18]

I am currently taking a gap year so I am not going to uni (RMIT to study biotechnology) until 2016. I am just wondering what a typical week is like at uni though. I know this will vary depending on courses, uni's, etc. and I know it will be quite different from VCE where you go to school five days a week and have maybe five lessons a day and a study period every day for each class you take. How is uni different to this? I understand there are lectures, tutes and pracs but how often and for how long? Does someone have an example of their timetable they could post?

[keltingmeith]

I am currently taking a gap year so I am not going to uni (RMIT to study biotechnology) until 2016. I am just wondering what a typical week is like at uni though. I know this will vary depending on courses, uni's, etc. and I know it will be quite different from VCE where you go to school five days a week and have maybe five lessons a day and a study period every day for each class you take. How is uni different to this? I understand there are lectures, tutes and pracs but how often and for how long? Does someone have an example of their timetable they could post?

I've included a picture of my timetable, however it is very important to note that this stuff is very, VERY different based on not only the course you're doing, but the units you choose to take.

This is actually one of the most empty timetables I've ever had - hell, I basically have Friday off. In my first semester, I was needing to go in every day, and three of the days were 8/9-5/6, and the other two were still 9-3 days. The next semester was a similar story, but more of the days were only 9-3. The reason this timetable is so good ISN'T because of my course, but because this semester I am taking a core science unit which has very small contact hours (SCI2015)

Hell, this isn't even indicative of the "average" student - most of my friends in the same degree have similar spreads, but I have friends who can squeeze their timetable into two days (which are normally fairly full, in fairness), or even three/four half days, and they're still running full time loads.

Another thing to note - there's no general trend of tutes/labs. Most units will have between 1 and 3 lectures a week, but not all units have labs, and not all units have tutes. This semester, I have 1 lab, but 3 tutorials - next semester, I'll have at least 3 labs, but only 1 tutorial. (also, SCI2015 and MTH2025 workshop - no workshops next semester)

There really is no definitive answer to your question, so just worry about it when you get there.

[Orson]

Hey guys! Can someone please explain the GPA system? The course I'm looking at needs a 6.7+ GPA (MD at UoM) and I'm probably going to do BSci & BEng (at Monash) for my undergrad. What actually is a HD (Highest grade? Is it like 80%?) and how hard is to achieve it? Thanks!

[pi]

Hey guys! Can someone please explain the GPA system? The course I'm looking at needs a 6.7+ GPA (MD at UoM) and I'm probably going to do BSci & BEng (at Monash) for my undergrad. What actually is a HD (Highest grade? Is it like 80%?) and how hard is to achieve it? Thanks!

Explained in the main post.

Relevant questions:
"How will I be graded in uni, will I get a Uni-ATAR to show my proud mummy?"
"What is a "GPA"?"

Also relevant: GPA for PostGraduate Medicine Explained

Cheers.

[Orson]

Oh thanks Pi! Just a few more questions. 80% in a subject really seems doable, but is it really as head as people say it is? Is it like doing one VCE subject in a semester? Also, are subjects more streamlined and clear cut? Syllabus wise? Is there a clear outline of what you need to know, unlike VCE Accounting where it's really a mish-mash of stuff. Lastly, if you request more practise questions/exams, will you be supplied with them?

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate all that you've helped me with!

[extremeftw]

Oh thanks Pi! Just a few more questions. 80% in a subject really seems doable, but is it really as head as people say it is? Is it like doing one VCE subject in a semester? Also, are subjects more streamlined and clear cut? Syllabus wise? Is there a clear outline of what you need to know, unlike VCE Accounting where it's really a mish-mash of stuff. Lastly, if you request more practise questions/exams, will you be supplied with them?

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate all that you've helped me with!

 It is very much doable to get an 80% average.

  You do need to keep in mind that for some areas of study (like Arts, for example) it is easy to get a decent mark of say 60+ but it can be extremely difficult to churn out assignments at a high distinction (80+) level every single time due to the subjective nature of marking the assignments. It really isn't very difficult to get an ~80 average if you invest enough time, particularly for first year subjects which are generally marked pretty forgivingly.

 As for how streamlined units are, I would probably say that they are not quite as streamlined as VCE units (varies from unit to unit) but you can pretty much get a good overview of everything you need to know by reading the unit guides that they upload for every subject.

 For requesting practice exams, generally you won't be given anything that isn't publicly available through the library service or Moodle. I mean, you could always ask the lecturer/tutor for more exam materials but it's pretty unlikely they will give you anything. Each subject varies in the availability of past/practice exams, for example one of the statistics classes has like 20 past exams uploaded on the library website whereas one of my science subjects last semester had zero avaliable past exams and zero practice exams.

[Orson]

It is very much doable to get an 80% average.

Thanks! I'm mainly (if not completely) going to be going Science and Mathematics subjects (BSc & BEng). The reason I ask is because the criteria to apply for the Gippsland MBBS is around a 70+ WAM for Biomed students (Thus like a 90+ for Science students to be competitive (apparently, as Biomed kids are given the upmost preference)), and GPA for UoM MD is like 6.7 . Also, what's with people not buying textbooks for subjects, and saying that they are a waste of money? And, where would you get more questions if you needed them?

Thanks heaps!

[Stevensmay]

Also, what's with people not buying textbooks for subjects, and saying that they are a waste of money? And, where would you get more questions if you needed them?

Textbooks are expensive and most of the time the course notes provided by a lecturer will be more than sufficient. In the case, for the earlier year subjects you can often find many free resources on the internet. Essentially wait a week or two into the course and see how you are going without a textbook, don't just buy them all at the start of the semester.

If you do decide to buy, try and obtain a used copy as these are normally 50-60% the price of new, and normally equally as useful. Might also be able to find practice questions online.

In later year subjects when things become much more specialized the amount of free content available may drop, simply because there isn't as much demand for it.

[Orson]

Hey guys...I'm back with more subjective questions.

Difficulty:

As you probably saw in my previous post, I'm looking at graduate medicine, and obviously it needs an extremely high GPA [MU: ~4, UoM: ~6.7]. I was wondering how hard is it to pull off such a feat. I mean, does it require raw talent of the likes of all you guys, or hard work. I'm willing to put in the effort, but is it something only those will pure skill can pull off? At the moment I think I currently sit in the 85 - 95 bracket in terms of ATAR (who knows). I can see that you guys that got 99.00+ are managing to pull HD after HD, but will this be possible for someone who achieves significantly lower?

Time Constriants:

How do people that do 5+ subjects a semester manage time? Are you in any groups? Do you have a part-time job? How many hours do you put in a day?

Resources:

Are the lecture notes provided by the lecturer sufficient to do well with? Or do they have holes in them. Do you take notes during the lecture, or just soak it in and rewatch/go through the slideshow again in your own time?

The people:

Are people more friendly and outgoing in uni that high school? Could you ask your lecturer questions and stuff?

That's it for now. Thanks for putting up with my weird questions that you are all probably sick of by now. Lastly, I really enjoyed going through your guide to uni! Thanks pi!