UoM General Chat

[pi]

but freely giving out notes doesn't necessarily mean you're being collaborative - rather, you give students who don't deserve the help an opportunity for a free ride

Harsh af, but I agree. Giving people notes fosters their laziness. I don't mind sharing my notes to someone who needs them (for a good reason), but I'm with Stick on this one, wouldn't share them widely despite your selfless intentions.

[vox nihili]

Your intentions are admirable, but I think you need to be more smart about it, protect yourself and be more careful about what you share. I'm not someone that keeps everything to himself, but I wouldn't allow my hard work to be exploited like this. I understand you wanted these resources to be shared with everyone so that it didn't become a matter of "it's who you know rather than what you know" and no one was "disadvantaged" per se (I haven't seen them though :S) but freely giving out notes doesn't necessarily mean you're being collaborative - rather, you give students who don't deserve the help an opportunity for a free ride. I frequently take part in group study where it's evident everyone is working together, contributing and there is fair give and take. It's not helping everyone, but at least I know my input is being respected and valued, and that I have made a difference nonetheless.

Anyway, I'm just trying to pass the time between my two exams today lol. So close to finishing!

Harsh af, but I agree. Giving people notes fosters their laziness. I don't mind sharing my notes to someone who needs them (for a good reason), but I'm with Stick on this one, wouldn't share them widely despite your selfless intentions.

I've had a lot of conversations with people over the past few years about sharing my notes, and unsurprisingly many have raised a lot of the same issues that you've raised. Each semester I've considered whether or not to continue sharing them and have considered all of things the two of you have just said, along with other things as well of course.

In my mind at least, I don't think the notes give people a free ride nor is it inherently lazy to use them. There really is no benefit to the notes unless you take the time to read them (300 pages+) and digest the material therein.
It is true, however, that people do have the option to use my notes instead of writing their own. I accept that, inevitably, there is going to be a section of the cohort that will choose to do this and that supplying my work allows them to get out of doing their own.
With that said, however, the majority of people seem to write their own notes and check them against mine or look to mine if there are parts of the course that they don't understand. So long story short, yes some have taken advantage of my hard work but the vast majority use them appropriately. Irrespective of how people use them, it doesn't diminish the work I do or hurt me in the slightest.

As a resource, they're only helpful up to a point. The critical reason I share my notes is to try to foster a more positive and collaborative attitude in Biomed. Biomed has a reputation for being competitive, neurotic and somewhat selfish. Our cohort, in many ways, has bucked that stereotype. Our cohort shares answers to practice exams, shares diagrams they've found useful and many are genuinely happy to take some time out of their day to help each other out. Perhaps I'm overdoing it in my head, but I think that sharing my notes—as Shenz0r did before me too—plays a part in encouraging that attitude.

I do appreciate your concern and completely understand what the both of you are saying. But I don't feel the same need to protect my work. The two of you are worried about a very small group of people in Biomed. Lazy is just not a word you could use to describe the vast majority of the cohort; otherwise, they simply wouldn't be there studying Biomed—or at the very least they wouldn't be for long!


PS: I got a response from StudentVIP and they've pulled them down temporarily

[vox nihili]

PS: not trying to start something either. I actually really do appreciate what the two of you are saying and have thought long and hard about it myself. I just figure that if the majority who use them are getting a benefit, then fuck the people who don't use them properly

[CossieG]

How come all the other university forums are depressingly empty compared to ours?

[ferrsal]

So the other week I let one of the second year biomeds share all my HSF notes on their Facebook (she asked for them but I didn't think it was fair for one person to have that resource just because they knew me) and one of the sneaky fuckers has been selling them online on StudentVIP.

Dude that sucks so much I'd just like to say how incredible your notes are and how many times they've helped me out in second and third year. I can't believe people would take advantage of it to do something like that 

[uoiea]

How come all the other university forums are depressingly empty compared to ours?

Probably because people who used atarnotes tended to get higher atars -> monash and melbourne have highest entry atars-> noone wants to go into a course with an entry atar significantly lower than their atars / everyone and their mothers want to get into medicine here -> most atarnotes vce graduates go to monash/melb as a result, and only these boards are active

massive simplification but I think it's somewhat accurate

[vox nihili]

Dude that sucks so much I'd just like to say how incredible your notes are and how many times they've helped me out in second and third year. I can't believe people would take advantage of it to do something like that 

Thanks for that, that's really kind Great to hear it!

They've pulled the notes now and blocked the user. Now it's a matter of trying to recoup the funds StudentVIP and the user made. It's only about 75 bucks, but I think that'd be 75 bucks better given to a charity than 75 bucks in the hands of some dodgy prick

Probably because people who used atarnotes tended to get higher atars -> monash and melbourne have highest entry atars-> noone wants to go into a course with an entry atar significantly lower than their atars / everyone and their mothers want to get into medicine here -> most atarnotes vce graduates go to monash/melb as a result, and only these boards are active

massive simplification but I think it's somewhat accurate

ATARNotes tends to draw its audience from inner city more than rural (don't have numbers so just anecdotal) so that may feed into it. Also, other unis tend to have better fora on Facebook for discussion, so that probably has an impact too

[sjayne]

the weirdest thing just happened. when i applied for spec consideration i only applied for 3 of my exams (because it wasn't within 4 days of my last one) online and i just got notification that it was accepted for all FOUR of my exams, the last one which is tomorrow  so someone fixed up my application hahaha.

thank you kind unimelb staff <3 I can now sleep peacefully tonight

[Shenz0r]

So the other week I let one of the second year biomeds share all my HSF notes on their Facebook (she asked for them but I didn't think it was fair for one person to have that resource just because they knew me) and one of the sneaky fuckers has been selling them online on StudentVIP.

Shits me up the wall. I've shared my notes with my cohort for three years now and not once has that been abused. Give it to the second years and within a day they're being sold online -.-


Disclaimer: not actually shitty with the second years, just really disappointed that one of them abused the privilege. Uni is nowhere near collaborative enough and trying to make money off other people's shit is a pretty good explainer as to why it's not.

What a fuckwit.

I've had a lot of conversations with people over the past few years about sharing my notes, and unsurprisingly many have raised a lot of the same issues that you've raised. Each semester I've considered whether or not to continue sharing them and have considered all of things the two of you have just said, along with other things as well of course.

In my mind at least, I don't think the notes give people a free ride nor is it inherently lazy to use them. There really is no benefit to the notes unless you take the time to read them (300 pages+) and digest the material therein.
It is true, however, that people do have the option to use my notes instead of writing their own. I accept that, inevitably, there is going to be a section of the cohort that will choose to do this and that supplying my work allows them to get out of doing their own.
With that said, however, the majority of people seem to write their own notes and check them against mine or look to mine if there are parts of the course that they don't understand. So long story short, yes some have taken advantage of my hard work but the vast majority use them appropriately. Irrespective of how people use them, it doesn't diminish the work I do or hurt me in the slightest.

As a resource, they're only helpful up to a point. The critical reason I share my notes is to try to foster a more positive and collaborative attitude in Biomed. Biomed has a reputation for being competitive, neurotic and somewhat selfish. Our cohort, in many ways, has bucked that stereotype. Our cohort shares answers to practice exams, shares diagrams they've found useful and many are genuinely happy to take some time out of their day to help each other out. Perhaps I'm overdoing it in my head, but I think that sharing my notes—as Shenz0r did before me too—plays a part in encouraging that attitude.

I do appreciate your concern and completely understand what the both of you are saying. But I don't feel the same need to protect my work. The two of you are worried about a very small group of people in Biomed. Lazy is just not a word you could use to describe the vast majority of the cohort; otherwise, they simply wouldn't be there studying Biomed—or at the very least they wouldn't be for long!


PS: I got a response from StudentVIP and they've pulled them down temporarily

I stopped distributing my notes after first year mainly because of what Stick pointed out. That said, I do share my notes with people I know who work hard and who agree not to actually distribute them without my permission so we can check what each other is missing. I wouldnt really post out my stuff in public to people I dont really know well though.

[simpak]

I'm always happy to share my notes with people, but I would never sell them. Because anyone who has my notes would know selling them is a actually a punishable offence. And that's probably true for anyone else's notes (although I haven't read yours, Travis) because they either contain direct quotes from copyrighted lectures or paraphrasing from the textbook...which anyone who has obtained/referred to my notes in any subject would definitely know. My notes were always just a collection of different copyrighted sources, interspersed with my ramblings, for my own personal use...and whoever else bothered to ask for them. Even though you spend like a million years writing out your own notes, most of the content isn't actually 'yours' and it comes from the lecture/is based around the lecture therefore you're basically breaking the copyright if you distribute them for $$, especially if they include any figures from lectures.

Anyway, on an entirely diff note, I always used to be like 'but why is it so hard to just mark my shit quickly and give me my results' in undergrad and NOW I GET IT because it's taking me like 1 hour to mark each one of these student reports and I already spend like 24 hours at work in the lab per day. I've been correcting them while I'm in the lab I kid you not. So now I have a newfound appreciation - don't be so impatient while you wait for your results in the coming weeks guys ):

[Shenz0r]

Anyway, on an entirely diff note, I always used to be like 'but why is it so hard to just mark my shit quickly and give me my results' in undergrad and NOW I GET IT because it's taking me like 1 hour to mark each one of these student reports and I already spend like 24 hours at work in the lab per day. I've been correcting them while I'm in the lab I kid you not. So now I have a newfound appreciation - don't be so impatient while you wait for your results in the coming weeks guys ):

Lolololol hope you're having fun correcting our crappy reports. That said you guys put a lot of effort into actually giving detailed feedback though.

Are all of the demonstrators marking our Techniques exam or just Odilia?

[CossieG]

I emailed a department member about a relatively important subject (to me at least) yesterday morning and still have not received a response. What is the socially acceptable amount of time to wait before sending a follow-up email if no response? lol

[Russ]

If it's time sensitive then 24 hours is fine (but only if it's actually time sensitive, like you're about to get on a plane and need it resolved beforehand etc.)

Otherwise, I think 3 days is a good rule of thumb.

e, on the topic of notes, I very strongly disagree that you shouldn't give them to people because it'll just make them lazy and help those who don't help themselves. I did a lot of work to make sure junior students had access to resources that I had to organise/construct and I did it because you can't just receive a bunch of study material and magically do better.

[Stick]

I've had a lot of conversations with people over the past few years about sharing my notes, and unsurprisingly many have raised a lot of the same issues that you've raised. Each semester I've considered whether or not to continue sharing them and have considered all of things the two of you have just said, along with other things as well of course.

In my mind at least, I don't think the notes give people a free ride nor is it inherently lazy to use them. There really is no benefit to the notes unless you take the time to read them (300 pages+) and digest the material therein.
It is true, however, that people do have the option to use my notes instead of writing their own. I accept that, inevitably, there is going to be a section of the cohort that will choose to do this and that supplying my work allows them to get out of doing their own.
With that said, however, the majority of people seem to write their own notes and check them against mine or look to mine if there are parts of the course that they don't understand. So long story short, yes some have taken advantage of my hard work but the vast majority use them appropriately. Irrespective of how people use them, it doesn't diminish the work I do or hurt me in the slightest.

As a resource, they're only helpful up to a point. The critical reason I share my notes is to try to foster a more positive and collaborative attitude in Biomed. Biomed has a reputation for being competitive, neurotic and somewhat selfish. Our cohort, in many ways, has bucked that stereotype. Our cohort shares answers to practice exams, shares diagrams they've found useful and many are genuinely happy to take some time out of their day to help each other out. Perhaps I'm overdoing it in my head, but I think that sharing my notes—as Shenz0r did before me too—plays a part in encouraging that attitude.

I do appreciate your concern and completely understand what the both of you are saying. But I don't feel the same need to protect my work. The two of you are worried about a very small group of people in Biomed. Lazy is just not a word you could use to describe the vast majority of the cohort; otherwise, they simply wouldn't be there studying Biomed—or at the very least they wouldn't be for long!


PS: I got a response from StudentVIP and they've pulled them down temporarily

If you've carefully considered your decision, don't let me stand in the way. I only raised it out of concern - the last thing I want to see is someone as hardworking as you being exploited.

[Rod]

And...... IM DONE! FINALLY! Longest exam period for me ever.

Time to catch up on 2 months worth of sleep.

First year down, two to go!