Hey JohnWright!
I’m actually a Bachelor of Science (Honours) graduate who did an extended major in genetics (I know it’s not immunology, but I had classmates who did immunology), with minors in Chemistry and Japanese Studies (which is the official title of a minor in Japanese language at Monash). I did two more years of Japanese at Monash after VCE Japanese to get the minor (4 units). It seems like I’ve been in a vaguely similar situation to what you’re discussing.
Now basically all year I've been planning on doing Biomedical Science at Monash - I'm aiming for scholars but if I don't get in, the normal course will be fine. My second preference is biomed/science then just biomed.
While looking into the Biomed course, I've just discovered that immunology isn't a major or really part of the biomed course at all. I'm a bit bummed as this was my favorite unit of VCE biology this year and really interests me so I wanted to learn more about it at Uni.
As Sine has said above, you get bits and pieces of immunology littered throughout the Biomed degree.
Does anyone know if it's possible to do [immunology] as an elective for the biomed course? If I use my electives for this would it mean I could still major/minor in it (idk the difference).
First things first, there’s a thing called a course map you can check up
here. Basically it lists the timeline of your degree and a guideline to help to plan said degree, although you don’t have to follow this to the letter. You should be looking for “commencing in 2021” ones. Here’s a few that you might be interested in (note: I couldn’t find the Biomed Scholars program one.)
-
Biomed (normal) -
Science (normal) - After you complete the degree, you can choose to add an Honours year (a research year) if you wish, but you need to apply separately in your final year of the normal Bachelor of Science.
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Science - Research (Advanced) (Note: This is a 4 year Bachelor of Science course with Honours included, which means you’ll be able to do research too)
Using the course map, you can clearly see some spots are marked as “electives” and others, compulsory units (units = subjects in uni talk). You can choose what you want to study in the elective units as long as your faculty permits it. (Something like Japanese, the language, usually requires you to sit a proficiency test to gauge where you’re at and which level you can/ should start in and is run by the Faculty of Arts.)
From the Biomed handbook entry (course guide in broad strokes, basically), I found the following:
You must complete 48 credit points of free elective study. Elective units can be chosen from across the Faculty and used to deepen your knowledge of the biomedical sciences. This includes those with the prefixes BCH, BME, DEV, GEN, HUP, IMM, MIC, MIS, NUT, PHA and PHY.
...IMM is the code for immunology units, so you
can do immunology units as electives in the (normal) Biomed course. And most rules for Biomed (Scholars) are similar to that of the normal Biomed course, so I’m pretty sure it should be OK. Once you get an offer, you should check with your faculty’s Student Services, who offer course counselling.
If I use my electives for this would it mean I could still major/minor in it (idk the difference).
A major is at least 8 units at Monash and a minor is 4 units, but you need to compete the correct units to satisfy the requirements of a major/ minor successfully in order to achieve that major or minor. For immunology, you can check the units you need
here for a major/ minor. Just note that some units might need other units (prerequisite units) in order to be able to study that unit that aren’t listed as part of the major/ minor itself. For a minor in immunology, you’ll need to take the following units: BIO1011, BIO1022, IMM2011 and IMM2022. I don’t think you’ll be able to take a major in immunology with a Biomed degree, regardless of Scholars or normal course, as there are prohibitions, units that don’t allow you to take them if you’ve taken certain units. This usually happens when the content in the two units is similar. However, you should check this, as I haven’t had a deeper look at this, so I might be wrong about the possibility of doing an immunology major using up all your Biomed elective spaces.
However, I was thinking of doing Japanese for my elective but now I don't know.
You could. Just need to do the proficiency test and plan well.
Also, scholars requires you to do at least one of select electives -- does anyone know if this is just for one semester in our whole course or once a year??
I can’t quite remember but the
course handbook entry says that one of your electives must be one of the listed research project units, so it might be only a semester? I would check this.
[I just checked and immunology is one of the research projects available for it so that's awesome but I'd still love to study about immunology as well]
Actually I think they usually mean it’s one of the
areas that you can do your research project in. Usually the research project itself is
very, very specific.
Side note: It’s also possible to do research project units in the Science course and pretty sure you can in the normal Biomed course too. I did one myself in my normal BSci.
So given this, I found out that you can major in immunology in the bachelor of science but I don't really know much about the basic science degree and it's structure as I haven't looked into it because I've been pretty set on biomed and confident that I'd get into it.
The BSci is kind of a more flexible version of the BBiomed, with more majors/ minors to pick from and less compulsory units. It’s also usually considered less intense, especially if you want good grades for things like higher degrees e.g. Honours or Masters, want to apply for prestigious research institutes e.g. WEHI, go into academia for your career, etc.. (The biomed cohort is typically more competitive and academically focused.) The biggest weakness it has compared to the BBiomed, is that it doesn’t have much of a health/ medical focus and the first year is usually more broad and open e.g. you don’t study immunology on Day 1, but biology in general.
Now last year (yr11) I was really keen on continuing Jap at uni but this year it kinda faded a bit but I think its sparked again as after just doing the exam I realize how much I like it and don't want to lose my knowledge of it (although I'm not very good at it tbh). I was talking to someone on the monash website today about doing languages and they said i'd be able to use my elective for Japanese. Does anyone know what happens if I use all my electives for Japanese, will it mean I minor/major in it?
Tbh, I wasn’t good at Japanese either but I did it anyway. I actually fared better in uni with its more formulaic structure and strict lessons than in VCE.
And yes, if you complete the requirements of a Japanese Studies minor, you’ll be able to get the minor. (You have to elect it on the enrolment portal though for it to show up.)
I don’t think you’ll have enough room for a major. (And you probably wouldn’t want to do it if you did VCE Japanese as Japanese Advanced units are
intense, as is Translation, so says pretty much everyone I know who did them.)
I was also reading about a diploma of languages but apparently I think you can only start in your second year. If I do scholars, I think I have to do specific units for some of my electives so I think I wouldn't be able to Japanese for all of them so I don't know if that would cause a problem... ?
Depends on what you want to do. You could do the Biomed Scholars course and throw in some Japanese electives where you can, if permitted by faculty or do the Diploma of Languages (Japanese) which is another year, if I recall correctly.
Dependent upon how language diploma works, is it possible to do Biomed scholars using my electives to do immunology and then do a diploma in Japanese alongside it? Or would I be better off to do biomed/science double degree with major for science being immunology and then diploma of Japanese on the side??
Up to you.
I would definitely contact Monash about the Diploma of Languages though because I can’t remember how it’s run - whether it’s done concurrently and overload (do 5 units a semester), do concurrently and do normal load (do 4 units a semester) or simply attach to the end (1 extra year of Japanese only).
UPDATE: just checked and you aren't allowed to major/minor in immunology when doing biomed for some reason?
> also i don't think you can major in immunology in a science degree, you can only minor in it :/
See above posts, especially Lilac’s.
> I'm thinking now biomed scholars + some units of immunology as electives + diploma of Japanese/ Japanese as electives too??
> or maybe biomed scholars + Japanese major/minor by using electives ( I guess I wouldn't be able to do immunology if I did that :/)
You have a lot of options and a bit of time to consider it. You don’t actually need to have a solid plan from Day 1 of your course, as long as you figure it out along the way (preferably in the early half the the degree for more leeway).
Honestly, I was also considering maybe doing some linguistic stuff if I had free electives as I've loved doing EngLang at school but I doubt I'm going to have the space now!
We’ll see! Once you set things more in stone like whether you want to do a single vs. double degree (which you can still transfer in/out of each semester) and whether you want to do a Diploma of Languages, then maybe you’ll find space.
I know I still have a while left till Uni but I thought I should start finding out what I want to do so I'm prepared (particularly if I want to change my preferences)
Fair enough! Remember that things aren’t necessarily set in stone once you start. As Lilac said, there’s a lot of room for flexibility if things go awry or you decide on a change in direction.
On a related tangent, have you got a Tax File Number yet? Time to get that sorted too now that you have time. You’ll need it if you want to postpone your uni fees and for work and it takes a while to arrive (read: up to 6 weeks), so you may as well do it now!
Note: Edit post as promised. It’s a long post I know, but hopefully that helps. Let us know what your final decision was!