ATAR Notes: Forum
Uni Stuff => Universities - Victoria => University of Melbourne => Topic started by: dfos on February 04, 2016, 07:48:46 pm
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Hi,
I'm currently enrolled in Science at Melbourne - I completed my first year last year (2015), and I received an offer for Biomed at Melbourne. My end goal is to get into Medicine. Does anyone have any advice on which is more beneficial? I know that they do not distinguish between the degrees when you apply for the MD, but surely there is some advantage for the students doing a harder course such as biomed.
Also, I have choose to do the following subjects in my science degree:
First semester: Principles of human structure (ANAT20006), Human Physiology (PHYS20008), and Principles of Immunology and Microbiology (MIIM20001).
Second semester: Microbes, Infections and responses (MIIM20002), Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BCMB20002), and Research-Based Physiology (PHYS20009).
How different are these subjects compared to the Biomed second year subjects in terms of content and difficulty?
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biomed isn't harder. that's a myth. it's just that there are some subjects that are exclusively for biomed students. for example, there's a subject called human structure and function which includes content from anat and phys. from what i heard, the difficulty is basically the same since the subjects are similar but named differently.
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The main benefit of biomedicine is that BIOM20001 Molecular and Cellular Biomedicine counts as four subjects PATH20001, BCMB20002, CEDB20003 and MIIM20001 which can allow you too have a choice of majors in third year if you are still indecisive but I doubt it gives the same amount of knowledge if you did these 4 subjects separately rather gets the core elements of each one. BIOM20002 Human Structure and Function is just a subject that poorly tries to integrate physiology and anatomy should just be two separate subjects.
In regards to the third year core biomed subjects BIOM30002 Biomedicine: Molecule to Malady and BIOM30001 Frontiers in Biomedicine I personally didn't find them that interesting and BIOM30001 was specifically a very annoying and dull subject.
In hindsight I probably should have done a science degree with the med prerequisites with a major in maths, chem or physics.
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You'll definitely have a slightly more competitive cohort in Biomedicine so everyone would seem to be studying a lot, after all that's what got them here. But the study content is definitely comparable between Biomed and Science. If anything, the only advantage there might be in studying Biomedicine (if you really have made up your mind about doing postgrad Med) is that the course is tailored for entry into medicine so you don't really have to fuss about quota and subjects selection to make sure you have all the prerequisites. But otherwise, pretty much the same. Some subjects in Science actually have better lecturers, or so it is said by my Science friends.