UoM General Chat

[cameronp]

Interesting to hear so many voices coming out in favour of Science over Biomed.

It's pretty clear that science is more versatile, but I would have thought that the big advantage of Biomed would be a fairly tight-knit cohort. You guys all do pretty much the same first year subjects, and there are much less Biomed students than Science students. I remember that even at UWA, which is much smaller than UniMelb, science could feel pretty isolating at times. One of the things I really love about my current course is the small size (~ 60 students total for a two-year course) and we all get our own desks in an open-plan office, so everyone quickly gets to know everyone else.

Mieow, it's not too late to change to science if you want to!

[lzxnl]

I've only done one semester of biomed and even I would say that I would have done Science had I known then what I know now. Not that there's anything wrong with Biomedicine (I lied, Chemistry is a freaking tragedy) but pretty much everything you do in Biomed you can do in Science, minus that Health Informatics major. Plus all the engineering pathways are available and you pick all your subjects.

Just wondering tho, would it be easier to apply for exchange with a Science degree than a Biomed degree? It sounds impossible to get the credits to make up for HS&F/MCB while doing subjects on exchange...

Depends on what science subjects you do. I mean, if you're happy to, you could fill up your exchange semester with breadths to fill in to miss nothing.

I keep telling people that science is more flexible and that I don't regret choosing science despite having more biomed friends (at least last year). The few things biomed has going for it are:
Tight knit cohort because it's tiny
Everyone has similar classes
'Prestige'?

I've heard, from a friend who transferred from biomed to science, that science subjects are taught heaps better than the corresponding biomed ones; there's that to think about as well

[yodascat]

Depends on what science subjects you do. I mean, if you're happy to, you could fill up your exchange semester with breadths to fill in to miss nothing.

I keep telling people that science is more flexible and that I don't regret choosing science despite having more biomed friends (at least last year). The few things biomed has going for it are:
Tight knit cohort because it's tiny
Everyone has similar classes
'Prestige'?

I've heard, from a friend who transferred from biomed to science, that science subjects are taught heaps better than the corresponding biomed ones; there's that to think about as well

What are you planning to do after BSc lzxnl?

[Shenz0r]

Interesting to hear so many voices coming out in favour of Science over Biomed.

It's pretty clear that science is more versatile, but I would have thought that the big advantage of Biomed would be a fairly tight-knit cohort. You guys all do pretty much the same first year subjects, and there are much less Biomed students than Science students. I remember that even at UWA, which is much smaller than UniMelb, science could feel pretty isolating at times. One of the things I really love about my current course is the small size (~ 60 students total for a two-year course) and we all get our own desks in an open-plan office, so everyone quickly gets to know everyone else.

Mieow, it's not too late to change to science if you want to!

The cohort is a plus and pretty much the reason why I picked Biomedicine over Science (I figured that if I did Science I was going to do biomedical subjects anyway). You can find lots of motivated people in the cohort and it's easy to form study groups.

I'm probably one of the minority who would pick biomed over science, but only because I never really saw myself doing Chemistry/Physics/Maths/IT.

I've heard, from a friend who transferred from biomed to science, that science subjects are taught heaps better than the corresponding biomed ones; there's that to think about as well

*cough HSF cough*

At least everyone in the cohort collectively suffers together...

[TrebleClef]

I understand! Especially exams worth 80% - it's pretty barbaric. If you've kept up with the tutorial and practice problems and assignments during semester then you should be well set for the exam, though. Good luck!

Thanks!
I don't know if this is a common thing, but those around me who have chosen biomed have all made that decision because of the "med" part of it, and never considered other options such as science.
Although, telling your not so informed relatives you're doing biomed gets a lot more "Ooohs" than science, I've witnessed, haha   

[cterminal]

Thanks!
I don't know if this is a common thing, but those around me who have chosen biomed have all made that decision because of the "med" part of it, and never considered other options such as science.
Although, telling your not so informed relatives you're doing biomed gets a lot more "Ooohs" than science, I've witnessed, haha   

hahahaha very true.
only difference b/w biomed and science is that one sounds better than the other fullstop.

[kaybee94]

Interesting to hear so many voices coming out in favour of Science over Biomed.

It's pretty clear that science is more versatile, but I would have thought that the big advantage of Biomed would be a fairly tight-knit cohort. You guys all do pretty much the same first year subjects, and there are much less Biomed students than Science students.

You pretty much named all the positives plus Shenz0r is right about the cohort as a collective. In terms of difficulty in 2nd and 3rd year I found biomed subjects have required a lot more effort to do well in compared to others because the uni needs to 'separate' the students. A lot of peers have said the same so it's not just me. This is a major point, in terms of GPA, for anyone considering graduate study which 99% of biomed kids are heading towards.
In saying all of that it's been great to have met this many like minded and motivated people

[Stick]

Might as well weigh in on this Biomedicine discussion as well...

I really enjoyed first year despite a couple of shockers in terms of subjects, but by the end I was pretty certain that biology was the way forward for me. While first year chemistry was terrible it was taught much better this year, although I can still say that it's not an area I'd probably wish to actively pursue in its own right. I'd had enough bad experiences of physics throughout high school and university similarly confirmed that was not the way forward either. Given I did all three VCE maths subjects, and that my favourite topics were probability (Methods) and data analysis (Further) there was a chance maths could have been a possible avenue. That being said, I found that I wasn't very good at learning or studying the two core first year MAST subjects and didn't enjoy them as much as biology, despite them both being my highest results by far. 

This semester, on the other hand, has been far less enjoyable, and it's predominantly been due to BIOM20001. The first six weeks or so were good, then the course ramped up in terms of workload and for the first time I actually started to disengage, and then resent, my studies and what I was doing. Anyone who knows me by now would know that I'm not someone who welcomes excessive rote learning with open arms. I can tolerate it when it's reasonable and necessary (which is most of the time - don't get me wrong, if I didn't like any rote learning I'd be doing the wrong degree, and I know that a lot of the time it's really important to know all the details in a field like biomedical science), but I sometimes get frustrated over the fact that as students of science (I mean this in the more generic sense) we often don't get tested on our ability to think, or use logic and reason, in favour of knowing some tiny little detail that got a grand total of 5 seconds attention in class. Giving credit where its due, I felt the assessment for BIOM20001 this year was slightly better at testing understanding compared to previous years. I guess the fact that GENE20001 and UNIB20007 were so different just amplified how much I loved taking those subjects though. While they both took very different approaches to the same broad topic, I loved how it wasn't all about us becoming some walking random fact regurgitator. I'll be honest, I also feel the mix of maths and biology in genetics fits me perfectly, hence why I'm keen to keep it open as an option despite the fact that other areas of biology (e.g. microbiology, immunology and pathology so far) are more interesting.

All in all, I feel Biomedicine was the right choice for me because the first year subjects pretty much indicated to me that I was heading in the right direction in following biology over the other aforementioned disciplines. The nature of the cohort is also a massive plus for me (talking during lectures aside ). I guess I just need to figure out where to go to from here, but I always try to keep an open mind and see where things take me. One thing I don't think I could stand though is another semester like the one just past. I definitely have some changes to make and some thinking to do before I can move on.

[theshunpo]

How long before an exam do they put the seat number's on the exam timetable? Cheers
edit: Appeared this morning...one day before exam is scheduled

[mahler004]

I've only done one semester of biomed and even I would say that I would have done Science had I known then what I know now. Not that there's anything wrong with Biomedicine (I lied, Chemistry is a freaking tragedy) but pretty much everything you do in Biomed you can do in Science, minus that Health Informatics major. Plus all the engineering pathways are available and you pick all your subjects.

Just wondering tho, would it be easier to apply for exchange with a Science degree than a Biomed degree? It sounds impossible to get the credits to make up for HS&F/MCB while doing subjects on exchange...

Like, third hand knowledge here, but the options are to do (science) anatomy and physiology in first semester of second year, along with MCB (which would be like, an insane semester,) find replacement subjects for the third year biomed core subjects (difficult) or extend your degree by a semester (really not a big deal).

Regarding the discussion around the cohort - I found that once you got towards the end of second year and into third year, and got out of the broad subjects, people do start to get to know each other. First year was a different story - hard to make friends in a subject with 1500 other people.

It's pretty clear that science is more versatile, but I would have thought that the big advantage of Biomed would be a fairly tight-knit cohort. You guys all do pretty much the same first year subjects, and there are much less Biomed students than Science students. I remember that even at UWA, which is much smaller than UniMelb, science could feel pretty isolating at times. One of the things I really love about my current course is the small size (~ 60 students total for a two-year course) and we all get our own desks in an open-plan office, so everyone quickly gets to know everyone else.

This is a feature of most post-grad courses in general.

How long before an exam do they put the seat number's on the exam timetable? Cheers

A week or so? They put up a poster out the front of the exam building on the day anyway, but I'd definitely check it beforehand.

The first six weeks or so were good, then the course ramped up in terms of workload and for the first time I actually started to disengage, and then resent, my studies and what I was doing. Anyone who knows me by now would know that I'm not someone who welcomes excessive rote learning with open arms. I can tolerate it when it's reasonable and necessary (which is most of the time - don't get me wrong, if I didn't like any rote learning I'd be doing the wrong degree, and I know that a lot of the time it's really important to know all the details in a field like biomedical science), but I sometimes get frustrated over the fact that as students of science (I mean this in the more generic sense) we often don't get tested on our ability to think, or use logic and reason, in favour of knowing some tiny little detail that got a grand total of 5 seconds attention in class.

I definitely felt that some subjects really just ended up testing trivia - particularly in first and second year (first year biology was probably the worst offender.) My chemistry exams never had this problem nor did my third year biochem exams. Learning the details - at least once is definitely important (if only because it makes learning it a second time a lot faster.) Ultimately, it gets down to the question - what's actually the point of doing a science degree? Is it just to learn a lot about science?

The other thing is that forms of assessment are much more expensive to run (i.e. labs/assignments.) When you've got a subject of 600 biomeds, sometimes you just have to do what's practical, not what's ideal.

(Sorry, rambled a bit at the end there.)

[heart]

What if you do medicine mate? Apparently you cant do any other study at the same institution - i.e. I asked whether it would be possible to do dentistry/medicine/optom with a diploma of languages (and they said no )

My plan was to do deakin or monash med as it would be very unlikely I get into Melbourne given my low gpa (would be high 5s low 6s)

[sjayne]

science could feel pretty isolating at times

^^^ this. It took me weeks to make any sort of relationship with anyone because I kept losing them lol

but I sometimes get frustrated over the fact that as students of science (I mean this in the more generic sense) we often don't get tested on our ability to think, or use logic and reason, in favour of knowing some tiny little detail that got a grand total of 5 seconds attention in class.

This is partly why I want to major in psychology because you get to think so much more. Though I did really enjoy first semester bio.

[Stick]

This is partly why I want to major in psychology because you get to think so much more. Though I did really enjoy first semester bio.

I've never really taken the chance to study psychology but it does look interesting. I'm just not sure if it's the right fit for me in that it appears to have a strong humanities flavour to it, in which case I can appreciate the approach but it's not something that I find comes particularly easy to me. Next semester I'll get a taste of neuroscience which might be a happy balance. We'll have to wait and see.

[Shenz0r]

Don't watch GoT season finale before your exams guys, unless you wanna cry instead of study

[Belgarion]

Don't watch GoT season finale before your exams guys, unless you wanna cry instead of study

I just finished watching it after getting home from the genetics exam. That ending had me like