Monash General Chat

[Dejan]

Hey all, hope everyone's uni breaks are going well. As exam dates are soon going to be released, I having been thinking about beginning to study for end of semester exams and my usual approach for exams is revising over my notes but the problem with that is I have made no notes for my 3 subjects. I wanted to make notes over the holiday break in order to catch up but is it worth it now to make notes or is there no point and just figure out a new study method?. Have no idea what to do, pls help, many thanks.

[M_BONG]

Hey all, hope everyone's uni breaks are going well. As exam dates are soon going to be released, I having been thinking about beginning to study for end of semester exams and my usual approach for exams is revising over my notes but the problem with that is I have made no notes for my 3 subjects. I wanted to make notes over the holiday break in order to catch up but is it worth it now to make notes or is there no point and just figure out a new study method?. Have no idea what to do, pls help, many thanks.

Hey!
I am definitely against making notes unnecessarily. It's too high school-ish and just wastes too much time plus you don't retain much information if you take everything down.

For my arts units (Human Rights 1 and Politics) I am basically going through the unit guide, reading carefully what is examinable. For some of my units, they specifically say "weeks 1-3 won't be examined" etc so it's helpful. Then, I look at what the key concepts/skills they are examing you on. Eg. For my Law units they will say the ability to problem solve and not the ability to memorise key facts etc, so I will cater my notes towards that.

After that, I will review the main concepts - the bigger picture. And yes, that involves taking some notes but not notes of everything. I tend to cross-reference between what is in the lecture slides and what's in the readings and do mindmaps (or concept maps whatever you call it) so I remember the concept, not the useless details such as the exact definition or example the textbook gave.

I then move on to do some extra research (enough to be above the textbook but not too much to be wasting time). And after that, I just do practice exams. At the end of my revision I will probably have around 10 pages of notes but the gold comes in the PRACTICE EXAMS - they are sooo useful. So basically prac exams, participating in tutes (applying concepts) > Notes (memorising, regurgitating).

[DisaFear]

Hey all, hope everyone's uni breaks are going well. As exam dates are soon going to be released, I having been thinking about beginning to study for end of semester exams and my usual approach for exams is revising over my notes but the problem with that is I have made no notes for my 3 subjects. I wanted to make notes over the holiday break in order to catch up but is it worth it now to make notes or is there no point and just figure out a new study method?. Have no idea what to do, pls help, many thanks.

If your usual method works for you, then have a crack at it.

I was and still am a note person. I find it always helps to write out things in my own words. Then again, things may be different in Arts.

Even in my Honours year, I am writing notes for the exams we have, summarising them to 1-2 pages and then attempting past exams.

[EspoirTron]

Hey all, hope everyone's uni breaks are going well. As exam dates are soon going to be released, I having been thinking about beginning to study for end of semester exams and my usual approach for exams is revising over my notes but the problem with that is I have made no notes for my 3 subjects. I wanted to make notes over the holiday break in order to catch up but is it worth it now to make notes or is there no point and just figure out a new study method?. Have no idea what to do, pls help, many thanks.

I think it comes down to preference ultimately, and how you learn the best. For me notes are an excellent way for me to sum up the lecture's content in my own words and it helps me realise if I've really understood the lecture or not. I imagine Arts is quite content intense though so I guess you'd have to decide whether or not to hand write them or to type them. I personally find that note-tacking+problems+past exams is the method that helps me the best. Although really working hard on assignments is almost as good of a substitute as you cover all the necessary content while doing your research. I'd definitely use assignments as a way to consolidate your knowledge.

[kevleee]

Is there free parking at Clayton during the mid-semester break?

[Hutchoo]

Is there free parking at Clayton during the mid-semester break?

Yeah. Mid-semester break is a non-teaching period.

Clayton
Free parking is available in the blue parking bays in the N1 and SE4 multi-level car parks during:

• the exam period
• non-teaching periods
• Swot Vac

You don't need a blue permit for the blue bays in these car parks during these times. You risk a parking fine if you use the other coloured bays without a valid permit.

Source

[slothpomba]

Hard to say. For arts subjects, my experience has generally been that it's super easy to get in the 60-79 window, and that you have to do really horrible to get less than 60 or really well to get more than 79. That's why people say Arts is a lark of a degree, because it's easy to do okay in. But it can be hard to do well in.

Uh, so what I'm saying is: it depends. I can't really say how easy it is for you to get a HD.

I agree with this 100%. I've basically finished my science degree now im knocking off the rest of arts.

I feel science is a more linear/1-to-1 relationship with work put in and results come out. Especially true for the bottom and top ends. At the bottom end, if you do nothing, good luck bullshitting. At the top end, you really do need to work hard to get there.

Arts is insanely more variable i think. It's very easy to get into that moderate band provided you do your work to a reasonable quality and hand it in on time i think. It's much more situational and up to leniency. This particular unit doesn't even have a marking scheme. Our essays are going into a total marking blackbox and coming out with a result attached. I feel to score at the very high end of arts though (80-85+) you need to work your arse off. In some ways due to marking and design, its close to impossible even.

One essay i borrowed over 30 books for (the limit of the library) and then only got 85%. This is partly because of the difference in how you compose arts essays though.

I was a late transfer I think it was after the census date. I haven't been to a lecture for the subject yet. I have been on Moodle but it didn't show up, I only found out cause it was in a news article on Moodle. I think I've missed two but probably one tutorial for the subject since census date for a private reason lol.

Yeah I probably should but I have just been lazy. I still feel like I'm on holiday and uni is just a social place Tax payers money well spent!

I also knew about the textbook being the only resource. I'll just order it now and try e-mail my tutorial teacher telling him that I know I'm late but I'll try get it in by the end of next week? Lol. Have to wait for the damned book to arrive I guess

Just becareful man. They can kick you out if you consistently fail. If you treat it like a 100% social place, it wont be available for long  . Not trying to be a dick but i've been here 5 years and i've seen it happen. People have no idea what to do after the rug has been pulled out under their feet (even though they're constantly warned).

[slothpomba]

It's too high school-ish

Says the person with 5 weeks of uni under their belt :p.  I jest i jest of course.

Really, there is no one right way to do anything in uni. It's what confused me for the longest time. I had no idea what i was meant to be doing. In highschool there is kinda one set pattern most people do. In uni you have the dizzying freedom (and the cousin of dizzying freedom - terror) of having nothing like that.

It's really whatever works. Doing something is so much better than nothing though. Dont let a lack of a method hold you back.


Make notes now. Often i dont make notes (because often i dont listen to my lectures) until a few weeks before the exam period. It doesn't matter and it's still highly beneficial, especially so for arts. According to something i read, handwriting is better for remembering things. For arts and in particular philosophy/religious studies: *Read all your readings, read them more than once over time if you can. *Write down the key facts/main points. *Write practice essays if you get questions. If not, just make up your own.

Often in phil/religious studies, if you realise the main points, you can form an essay around that just simply by using your English language skills.

Science is a far different beast. If you dont know the facts, you cant really fill in the gaps, you're toast. If its anything like pharm, i usually hit the rote learning hard with flashcards/anki. I read a few different textbooks until i get a really intuitive understanding of the mechanisms that are going on here too. It's one thing to regurgitate X drug does Y effect by Z pathway. If you understand how it all ties into disease and dysfunction, how it works normally and what has gone wrong, you will be far better off.

The most important thing is to start now though.

[Reus]

Says the person with 5 weeks of uni under their belt :p.  I jest i jest of course.

Really, there is no one right way to do anything in uni. It's what confused me for the longest time. I had no idea what i was meant to be doing. In highschool there is kinda one set pattern most people do. In uni you have the dizzying freedom (and the cousin of dizzying freedom - terror) of having nothing like that.

It's really whatever works. Doing something is so much better than nothing though. Dont let a lack of a method hold you back.


Make notes now. Often i dont make notes (because often i dont listen to my lectures) until a few weeks before the exam period. It doesn't matter and it's still highly beneficial, especially so for arts. According to something i read, handwriting is better for remembering things. For arts and in particular philosophy/religious studies: *Read all your readings, read them more than once over time if you can. *Write down the key facts/main points. *Write practice essays if you get questions. If not, just make up your own.

Often in phil/religious studies, if you realise the main points, you can form an essay around that just simply by using your English language skills.

Science is a far different beast. If you dont know the facts, you cant really fill in the gaps, you're toast. If its anything like pharm, i usually hit the rote learning hard with flashcards/anki. I read a few different textbooks until i get a really intuitive understanding of the mechanisms that are going on here too. It's one thing to regurgitate X drug does Y effect by Z pathway. If you understand how it all ties into disease and dysfunction, how it works normally and what has gone wrong, you will be far better off.

The most important thing is to start now though.

You couldn't have posted this at a better time. For me that is.

[slothpomba]

Uck i always find it so hard to write arts essays. Lately i borrow the max limit of my library card (like 30 books).

I'm not sure if i'm doing it wrong but its a totally different beast to science essays. For science if i type in a query into a journal search engine, i get thousands of results back for the topic. I have the problem of not knowing which of the hundreds to use.

Arts, totally different. Type in the topic, often zero or only a handful of useable results. It's really infuriating, where to go from there? Where is there to go from there? I think it might just be religious studies cause its a fair bit obscure, i never had this level of trouble in philosophy. Now i gotta write 2500 words on a poorly defined and structured topic with little results. Insanity.

[chasej]

Now i gotta write 2500 words on a poorly defined and structured topic with little results. Insanity.

for the Talmud unit? 'What do Jews Believe' by Ariel may be helpful, maybe not for direct quotes but as a starting point, (well it's an academic text I used heavily in yr 12 but is aimed at uni level). At the back it has an index of different theological issues which links back to the pages those issues are discussed.

[Dejan]

For arts and in particular philosophy/religious studies: *Read all your readings, read them more than once over time if you can. *Write down the key facts/main points. *Write practice essays if you get questions. If not, just make up your own.

Often in phil/religious studies, if you realise the main points, you can form an essay around that just simply by using your English language skills.

Sorry for the late reply but thanks Zezima, DisaFear, EspoirTron and slothpomba for your very helpful advice . For religious studies should I make notes about the summary of that religion and main themes/points from the readings. Is that going to be sufficient amount of information covered for the exam? I am not really sure about how to go about making notes as the readings are so long which contain a lot of historical information but I was thinking of making notes based around content covered from power point slides and weekly tute questions?   

[slothpomba]

for the Talmud unit? 'What do Jews Believe' by Ariel may be helpful, maybe not for direct quotes but as a starting point, (well it's an academic text I used heavily in yr 12 but is aimed at uni level). At the back it has an index of different theological issues which links back to the pages those issues are discussed.

I'll see if i can find it, which is another issue in itself really. Complicating that for a 2500 word essay you probably need like 15-20 references as well.

A lot of the issue is people just dont write journal articles on topics like this often. It's usually either tied up in books that the library search cant find or monash doesn't have haha.

Sorry for the late reply but thanks Zezima, DisaFear, EspoirTron and slothpomba for your very helpful advice . For religious studies should I make notes about the summary of that religion and main themes/points from the readings. Is that going to be sufficient amount of information covered for the exam? I am not really sure about how to go about making notes as the readings are so long which contain a lot of historical information but I was thinking of making notes based around content covered from power point slides and weekly tute questions?   

Scott is really good about this. Near the end he'll probably drop some hints, particularly if you go in person (sometimes theyll turn the microphone off etc).

I think thats spot on. I wouldn't focus on things like Founded: xxx AD; Founded in: xxx AD. I would skip any kind of strictly "biographical" information which you might find in the heading of a wikipedia page. What you really want are themes just like you said. I wouldn't be surprised if they largely conform to what is covered in the lectures rather than the entire textbook chapter per se (but definitely read it too).

If its like last year, there is a list of questions from which you get to choose from. I wouldn't worry about being strong on everything. I didn't particularly like Hinduism for example but thats no problem cause theres room to write an essay on Buddhism instead.

It really depends how much time you have obviously. You could have a full out exhaustive approach and cover all those things. In priority though, i'd go for themes in lecture content first. After that build on that with readings from the textbooks and at least be generally aware of the content from tute questions. Have a good knowledge of everything but you're probably fine to abandon one (or maybe..maybe two) religions because you do get a choice.

[ShortBlackChick]

Yeah. Mid-semester break is a non-teaching period.

Clayton
Free parking is available in the blue parking bays in the N1 and SE4 multi-level car parks during:

• the exam period
• non-teaching periods
• Swot Vac

You don't need a blue permit for the blue bays in these car parks during these times. You risk a parking fine if you use the other coloured bays without a valid permit.

Source

So like. One day I ran into lidool Hutchikins at like 3.58PM in Campus Centre. Actually he ran into me, and this happened. My child is learning about parking

[anna.xo]

How on earth do girls go out partying in this weather wearing like nothing and not freeze to death ?! -.-