UoM General Chat

[LeviLamp]

Seriously? I wouldn't say I've fallen behind; I just need a major memory rehash on bio and maybe business law and I'll be fine. Surely uni students keep up.

"surely uni students keep up"
even the people who get over 90 are rarely caught up throughout semester across the board (if in any subject at all)

[Shenz0r]

For first year, if you're 2-3 lectures behind in summarising it's still ok. When you fall around 5-7 lectures behind then the alarm bells should start ringing. For other subjects like Maths and EDDA just make sure you can do each week's tute questions and understand them.

I've heard that's the case, although I'm probably doing it wrong because I literally have no life right now. It's worse than VCE because instead of investing a lot of time to achieve perfection, I'm just trying to keep my head above the water. Although, workload aside, I definitely enjoy university a lot more and I really love my course. The only exception is practicals - I don't get the reason as to why they have to be so fast-paced and stressful. Wouldn't it make more sense if we just completed a few tasks properly, rather than trying to rush through multiple tasks and have little idea of what's even going on? What also doesn't help is my lack of practical skills in the laboratory. XD

Every student has gone through this, it's just adapting to university-style learning. It used to take me like 3-5 hours to write summaries for one lecture, but by the end of the year I cut it down to maybe 1.5-2 hours. You get better with time management.

[hobbitle]

Seriously? I wouldn't say I've fallen behind; I just need a major memory rehash on bio and maybe business law and I'll be fine. Surely uni students keep up.

I'm confused by the point of your post. Are you trying to make others feel worse about their situation or something? Maybe Uni isn't hard for people who get to skip straight through to Reactions and Synthesis in first year but for most of us, it's a challenge.

[alondouek]

I've heard that's the case, although I'm probably doing it wrong because I literally have no life right now.

I would advise that it's not worth worrying about this right now; for most people, the first year of university is very much a formative experience, where you're kind of 'acclimatising' yourself to a whole new system. I know that for me, first year was essentially a means of working out how best to approach things like timetables and self-managed deadlines (which, up until uni, were all managed for me). When second year comes around, you'll be far more used to how things work and although (in some cases) it's something of a step up in intensity and workload, you'll have the mental tools available to put yourself in a good position from the outset, and that = less stress (hopefully).

That said, I'm certainly behind on my work, but that's purely down to my tendency to be the quintessential lazy bastard

Good luck!

[Hancock]

"surely uni students keep up"
even the people who get over 90 are rarely caught up throughout semester across the board (if in any subject at all)

Lel/10. I was behind on every class, every semester. Do whatever works for you == my opinion.

[MelonBar]

For first year, if you're 2-3 lectures behind in summarising it's still ok. When you fall around 5-7 lectures behind then the alarm bells should start ringing. For other subjects like Maths and EDDA just make sure you can do each week's tute questions and understand them.

Every student has gone through this, it's just adapting to university-style learning. It used to take me like 3-5 hours to write summaries for one lecture, but by the end of the year I cut it down to maybe 1.5-2 hours. You get better with time management.

It still takes me hours and hours to write a lecture summary, especially anatomy which is doing my head in right now. I'm in second year and I haven't learnt jack chit about how I should really be doing this. It just feels so inefficient. I did ok in first year, not great.

[hobbitle]

It still takes me hours and hours to write a lecture summary, especially anatomy which is doing my head in right now. I'm in second year and I haven't learnt jack chit about how I should really be doing this. It just feels so inefficient. I did ok in first year, not great.

Hey, maybe lecture summaries aren't the most efficient way for you to learn.  I stopped writing them because I realised I was spending hours doing something I gained nothing from.  But you seem to be doing well so it's got to be working to some extent!

[vox nihili]

Seriously? I wouldn't say I've fallen behind; I just need a major memory rehash on bio and maybe business law and I'll be fine. Surely uni students keep up.

It's great that you're smart and a great student and all that, but dude, you seriously need to work on your people skills.

[simpak]

lzxnl tone down the pretench tude for a sec kay?

I'm joining the BEHIND CLUB pls
Writing (aka, researching for) this shit assignment for 10 yrs coursework should not even be in Honours no!

[alondouek]

Hey, maybe lecture summaries aren't the most efficient way for you to learn.  I stopped writing them because I realised I was spending hours doing something I gained nothing from.  But you seem to be doing well so it's got to be working to some extent!

I'd agree with you, I'm in a similar situation to MelonBar and it's pretty damn frustrating. What do you find is a more efficient learning method?

I suppose that as tempting as it might be to try, university might well be designed such that you can't do all the things haha

I'm joining the BEHIND CLUB pls
Writing (aka, researching for) this shit assignment for 10 yrs coursework should not even be in Honours no!

If I'm reading that right it sounds pretty terrifying lol. What exactly are they getting you to do?

[simpak]

If I'm reading that right it sounds pretty terrifying lol. What exactly are they getting you to do?

It's not hard per se it's just time consuming because you have to research crap completely unrelated to your project (aka, influenza).  But MIIM has entirely different coursework to every other MDHS major in the world because they're 'special' or whatever so whilst others get to do MCQs for their assessment we are forced to write 500 News and Views articles.  Which is super annoying when you're writing on something from 2009 like it is something that came out yesterday so you have to pretend nothing has happened from 2009-2014 and you can't use articles from 2010 onwards basically.  Ew.

[alondouek]

It's not hard per se it's just time consuming because you have to research crap completely unrelated to your project (aka, influenza).  But MIIM has entirely different coursework to every other MDHS major in the world because they're 'special' or whatever so whilst others get to do MCQs for their assessment we are forced to write 500 News and Views articles.  Which is super annoying when you're writing on something from 2009 like it is something that came out yesterday so you have to pretend nothing has happened from 2009-2014 and you can't use articles from 2010 onwards basically.  Ew.

I still 50% envy you

[hobbitle]

I'd agree with you, I'm in a similar situation to MelonBar and it's pretty damn frustrating. What do you find is a more efficient learning method?

It's so personal that I hesitate to even suggest other things.  I just realised quickly that I gained almost nothing by rewriting and summarising a lecture. 

Me, I do these things...
1) Use lots of different resources, and because I'm an aural learner, these are usually video/iTunes U collections in conjunction with lectures.  I use Khan Academy and Coursera a lot but I understand that this approach will get more difficult as content gets more specialised in later years.  I basically just read and watch as much stuff as I can from as many different resources as I can, and then follow it up by...
2) Doing as many related questions and exercises as possible, and then...
3) Explaining the concepts aloud to a teddy bear.

Basically I suck at rote learning, so summarising a lecture and then trying to learn the points just doesn't work for me.  My methods are dorky and probably just as time consuming but at least they are effective for me.  At the end of the semester, I have no notes apart from the lecturers original slides and an exercise book full of worked answers for exercises. 

I've just noticed that almost everyone at uni on AN seems to be preoccupied with lecture summaries............. I'm sure its a great way to learn for a lot of people but I also wonder if maybe it's just what you got taught in high school or something?  I don't know hey....

EDIT: Yes I realise that most of you are life science majors.  I'm not trying to tell anyone to stop doing lecture summaries.  I'm just trying to say if one thing isn't working for you then maybe try something else.  Hey, the teddy bear thing works great for basically any major. 

[LeviLamp]

For me, problems and mistake-making (like for many people) are the most effective way to retain things, but I find lecture summaries extremely helpful.

1. Go to lecture, take notes (by hand for chemistry, on computer for other classes).
2. Listen to lecture at home and take tidy notes from the lecture as a summary.
3. Read over hand-written notes (and skim textbook chapters if applicable) as the assessments approach.
(4. For biochem, do the practice questions available.)

This way you get exposed to the content three times in various ways - it's especially helpful as the textbooks for life sciences don't tailor their solutions to the courses we're personally taking, so answering every question in the book is going to take precious time without being relevant on the exam. In a perfect world, I would definitely learn the material required to answer all the questions.

Personally I'd say this wasn't something I learned to do in highschool, but I find it very effective, particularly for MCQ recall (since the info has been pushed into my subconscious three or four times over). Obviously I can't vouch for everyone, but the people I know seem to (for the most part) enjoy this study method. The downside is that it's really boring.

[Dejan]

What's better hand-writing notes or typing them up, or is it just personal preference?