Accept UoM Chancellor Scholars (Biomed/MD)? or Monash (if offered in Jan)

[REBORN]

P.S. I've heard from ppl I know that the biomed cohort can get a bit competitive as many of them are aiming for med, but since we're all guaranteed, let's all help anjd motivate each other I didn't do bio in high school so everything is going to be overwhelming for me..How about you all? Did you do bio?

The cut-throat aggression is BS and severely exaggerated. All that's going to happen is that you're meeting people with insane work ethics...no one is trying to actively beat X or Y. I didn't do Biology either - first year Bio is straightforward and manageable without high school

[glueckspilz]

Hi REBORN,
Great! I was worried I won't be able to cope with it. But I think if I just put in the hardwork, it'll all be good
Just wondering if you mind answering a few qs below coz now that I've made my decision, just got a few further Qs:

1. Which textbooks are important for 1st yr? Esp. for us non-bio students, are there any books you found particularly useful?
2. Which subjects in the first year are easier/more difficult?
3. How did you find the exams/assignments in first yr? So around how much did you have to study to keep up and do well?- is it like a few hours every night/after lectures? (I saw your amazing results of H1 in all your subjects!)
4. What was your study method? like do you write out notes? revise weekly? study groups or did you go to every tutorial/workshop, etc.?
5. So sorry for asking so many Qs! I'm just quite excited for the year ahead. I would appreciate if you have any further insider's tips/advice for us freshers

P.S. I'm thinking ahead but I read that you can go on exchange in Year2 Semester 2. Around how many people do that, do you know which ones are the better partner unis to go to and is the whole process of application, etc. very complicated? Thanks so much!

[REBORN]

Hi REBORN,
Great! I was worried I won't be able to cope with it. But I think if I just put in the hardwork, it'll all be good
Just wondering if you mind answering a few qs below coz now that I've made my decision, just got a few further Qs:

1. Which textbooks are important for 1st yr? Esp. for us non-bio students, are there any books you found particularly useful?
2. Which subjects in the first year are easier/more difficult?
3. How did you find the exams/assignments in first yr? So around how much did you have to study to keep up and do well?- is it like a few hours every night/after lectures? (I saw your amazing results of H1 in all your subjects!)
4. What was your study method? like do you write out notes? revise weekly? study groups or did you go to every tutorial/workshop, etc.?
5. So sorry for asking so many Qs! I'm just quite excited for the year ahead. I would appreciate if you have any further insider's tips/advice for us freshers

P.S. I'm thinking ahead but I read that you can go on exchange in Year2 Semester 2. Around how many people do that, do you know which ones are the better partner unis to go to and is the whole process of application, etc. very complicated? Thanks so much!

1. PDF all except buy the Physics one.
2. Biology easiest; Physics most difficult. [that's extremely subjective]
3. No where near few hours per night. A lot of uni students 'cram' although I don't recommend it. Basically you can fall behind ~2weeks and still be fine.
4. Bio (write notes), Chem (annotate lec slides), Math (annotate lec slides), Physics (die, don't ask me)
5. PM me specific questions and I'll answer, including exchange q's.

Enjoy

[Stick]

Hi All, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I have decided yay I'm going for Melb. Biomed/MD and rejecting UNSW and Queensland despite the pain of rejecting.
But yes, hope to see you there!  @Stick @xenial @brightsky
And I got a spot at Queen's too

P.S. I've heard from ppl I know that the biomed cohort can get a bit competitive as many of them are aiming for med, but since we're all guaranteed, let's all help anjd motivate each other I didn't do bio in high school so everything is going to be overwhelming for me..How about you all? Did you do bio?

It will be awesome seeing you around this year!

I did Biology Units 3 & 4 but not Units 1 & 2, so I'm assuming that I'll be learning some stuff from scratch while just extending my knowledge on other topics which I'm more familiar with. I guess I can help you out with some stuff if you need it.

[Russ]

^^
A lot of first year is just rehashing VCE, you'll do good

Hi REBORN,
Great! I was worried I won't be able to cope with it. But I think if I just put in the hardwork, it'll all be good

Nobody who does well in VCE doesn't do well in uni because it's academically too demanding and they can't cope with the expectations; it's usually for other reasons that they do poorly. If you have a good study routine from day 1, you're already ahead of most of the other people in your course

[glueckspilz]

^^
A lot of first year is just rehashing VCE, you'll do good

Nobody who does well in VCE doesn't do well in uni because it's academically too demanding and they can't cope with the expectations; it's usually for other reasons that they do poorly. If you have a good study routine from day 1, you're already ahead of most of the other people in your course

Thanks Russ! May I ask if you mind sharing a bit of your study routine? Would really appreciate it!

[Russ]

My study routine now is very different to what my study routine was like in first year. When I was an ickle first year, my habits weren't particularly great and I probably took a year 12 approach to things and only really did what I was told to do.

Something like this:
1. I printed off the lecture notes and annotated them in lectures for biology/physics/maths. For chemistry I wrote freehand notes based on what the lecturer was saying (I always found chemistry easier though, so it clicked quite well)
2. When there were assignments or learning tasks posting on the online LMS I did them
3. Two weeks (or less) before the exams I started revising my lecture notes and so forth. Sometimes I really messed up and had to cram a lot of things. I learned physics in 2 days, since I had to spend so much more time on biology, which I'd never studied before.

After I realised this wasn't particularly efficient, I added

1a. After lectures, take the annotated notes and summarize them by writing them out into an A4 textbook. Try to summarize all lectures over the weekend (never happened) or at least fall no more than 2 weeks behind. Then revise the lectures by reading them out loud etc.

I dramatically preferred that method, since it meant I didn't really have to specifically study for exams due to the constant summarizing/revision. It also happens to fit the forgetting curve quite nicely.

I've since added a bunch of things and deleted other things due to new teaching styles and the fact that doing 1a. is no longer feasible - you'll figure out a lot of what works best for you, I'd just recommend hitting the ground running

[glueckspilz]

Thanks a lot Russ!! This is really helpful! Even though everyone has different learning styles, it's nice to get a different perspective, otherwise I would be absolutely clueless

[All†Fiction]

As far as I know your scholarship isn't for the MD but only for the 3 year Bachelors? The Monash one is for the whole degree and they can be quite generous too:
- 99.95 -> http://www.monash.edu.au/study/scholarships/sir-john/exceptional/
- 99.90 -> http://www.monash.edu.au/study/scholarships/sir-john/outstanding/

Do these cover the tuition fees at monash as well?

Thanks!

[brightsky]

Do these cover the tuition fees at monash as well?

Thanks!

no. monash just gives you the money. you choose what you do with the money. you can pay your tuition fees with the money if you want, but most people don't.

[All†Fiction]

no. monash just gives you the money. you choose what you do with the money. you can pay your tuition fees with the money if you want, but most people don't.

Ah right. Cheers!