UoM General Chat

[clarke54321]

<snip>

Excellent. I appreciate the feedback!

[Shadowxo]

As a general question for everyone, would it be worth me finishing half a year earlier, with a (most likely) slightly lower WAM from increasing my planned load? 

It depends. If doing more subjects at once will destroy your free time and you think it'll stress you out then I'd probably recommend against it. The WAM is less of an issue unless it'd be significant, you obviously want to do well but if it changes from 76 to 74 for example it's not much of a difference.

I'm not sure whether you've done this or not but doing summer subjects is a good way to get extra subjects done without too much of a change in workload at once.

If you think you can handle the extra workload then it might be good but doing too much at once can be difficult, so don't feel like you need to finish early

[Orb]

Thanks for advice I probably should have elaborated more, but I was originally planning to under-load + do summer subjects, so my degree and diploma would take 4 years and I'd do 3/semester, but I think I'm just going to go for the 3.5 yr finish, with summer subjects, and some 3 and 4 subject semesters. I'm working part time which puts a bit of pressure on, but I survived with decent grades semester 2 last year with 4 subjects while working, so hopefully I can do it a couple more times. Definitely not planning to over-load though, hahaha

What's the advantage of doing 3.5 over 4? Are you thinking of travelling? The WAM drop won't be huge, although be careful as some companies do have a min cut-off (so if you drop from a 76 to a 74, you might drop below the 75-min). I'd do 4 and take it chill-ish, but just my personal 2-c

[appleandbee]

Just wondering how strict are the Biological Sciences faculty in regards to not completing a 2nd or 3rd year pre-req subject? Probably won't affect me since I'm more interested in Neuroscience, Immunology and Microbiology, Pharmacology and Biochem rather than Physiology or Genetics, but I'll still like to consider Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics and Frontiers in Physiology.

[vox nihili]

Just wondering how strict are the Biological Sciences faculty in regards to not completing a 2nd or 3rd year pre-req subject? Probably won't affect me since I'm more interested in Neuroscience, Immunology and Microbiology, Pharmacology and Biochem rather than Physiology or Genetics, but I'll still like to consider Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics and Frontiers in Physiology.

Just saying that Biochem requires two pre-reqs in second year.
It really depends on the faculty and the individual coordinator. Would be surprised if you made it into a capstone subject (Frontiers) without completed the pre-reqs. Genetics is probably a better bet

[tashhhaaa]

hey guys

how bad does a WD without fail look on a transcript (with a mediocre WAM)?

[appleandbee]

hey guys

how bad does a WD without fail look on a transcript (with a mediocre WAM)?

I may or may not be the best person to answer this since I have a couple of WD/LWD from the last two years (thankfully no financial penalty though since I got fee remission), but personally I'm not too concerned. Most graduate courses on take your WAM into account, and once you enter the job market your WD or a poor subject grade in your undergraduate degree is far less relevant than your graduate degree (especially if it's related to what you want to pursue after) and well as the experience you have after your undergrad degree. Even if you are asked about it, as long as you have a reason and explanation of what you've learnt/ how you overcame your problems you should be fine. Plenty of people have gone to places career wise (including careers like medicine, law, academia) having drop-out/failed their first degree as well as other academic setbacks. That said, I have never applied for a commerce related job/internship (where they are stricter about your transcript), so I don't know how employers over there would would it.

[dankfrank420]

3rd year Microeconomics has pretty much destroyed my interest in the major 

Wish I'd known it wasn't compulsory before I got 7 weeks into the semester lmao

[stolenclay]

3rd year Microeconomics has pretty much destroyed my interest in the major 

Wish I'd known it wasn't compulsory before I got 7 weeks into the semester lmao

How so? For my own curiosity and future Economics major wannabes

[dankfrank420]

How so? For my own curiosity and future Economics major wannabes

I'll probably end up doing a full length review in the subject review thread, but basically there's an extreme focus on mathematical notation and proofs. I understand this is a mathematical-based subject, but come on if I wanted to study real analysis I'd have done a math major. They try to remove the advantage that students who've done real analysis have by not being too harsh on notation in assignments, but some of the lectures are just ridiculously hard to decipher. It gets to the point where the lecturer is basically spending 20 minutes to derive a proof and most of us feel overwhelmed. I've done Linear Algebra and Engineering Math, so I'm no slouch, but I find some of the proofs here ridiculously hard to follow.

Also, it goes the complete other way too. There are times when the math is conceptually pretty straightforward, but there are LINES AND LINES of differentiation and optimization and rearranging. Most of the difficulty in these sections is remembering not to forget a negative sign or multiplying numbers correctly, it doesn't feel like "economics" at all.

Basically the subject is "lets look at the mathematical intricacies of this model under this super limited set of assumptions". It just feels like we're doing real analysis and rearranging algebra for the sake of it. The scope of the examples are so limited and the models are so abstract and far from reality that they border on useless.

That said if you enjoyed proofs and real analysis then you'll probably like it, but it's not for me (and the vast majority of my cohort, from what I've gathered).

[tashhhaaa]

I may or may not be the best person to answer this since I have a couple of WD/LWD from the last two years (thankfully no financial penalty though since I got fee remission), but personally I'm not too concerned. Most graduate courses on take your WAM into account, and once you enter the job market your WD or a poor subject grade in your undergraduate degree is far less relevant than your graduate degree (especially if it's related to what you want to pursue after) and well as the experience you have after your undergrad degree. Even if you are asked about it, as long as you have a reason and explanation of what you've learnt/ how you overcame your problems you should be fine. Plenty of people have gone to places career wise (including careers like medicine, law, academia) having drop-out/failed their first degree as well as other academic setbacks. That said, I have never applied for a commerce related job/internship (where they are stricter about your transcript), so I don't know how employers over there would would it.

Thank you so much for this!
Commerce internships probably aren't in the cards for me any time soon but I definitely want to do further study, maybe JD down the line

Does it matter that I'm getting a WD in third year though? It's a level 2
I just think I have a high chance of getting a bad grade or failing at this point in my life (I should have taken a leave of absence...) so yeah :/

[esile52]

What is a WD?

[Sine]

What is a WD?

withdrawing from a subject after the census date but before the last day to withdraw. Your end result is a "WD" appearing on your academic transciprt along with fees incurred for that unit.

[tashhhaaa]

update I withdrew because sometimes we need to remember that health is more important than academics

[appleandbee]

update I withdrew because sometimes we need to remember that health is more important than academics

If you have health issues, you should try to apply for a fee remission as well (I have done it before as long as you have letters from a health professional you have a reasonable good chance). The process of doing so is a worthwhile one if you plan to do further studies as a HECs loan limit exists (it's quite high like $140,000-$150,000, but still you never know whether you might need it ).

Does it matter that I'm getting a WD in third year though? It's a level 2
I just think I have a high chance of getting a bad grade or failing at this point in my life (I should have taken a leave of absence...) so yeah :/

It doesn't make a difference what year/level you get a WD (people can run into problems at any point in their degree), but JD selecters take 3rd year grades (WDs are probably not looked upon, and even if they are you are given a chance to explain your circumstances) more seriously than first year (was told this first hand). Just try to maintain the best possible WAM.