Uni Stuff > The University Journey Journal
"Sine"
gameboy99:
--- Quote from: Sine on July 23, 2019, 01:28:57 pm ---Sure will do!
what units are you taking this semester?
--- End quote ---
I'm doing BMS2042, BMS2052, BMS2062 and DEV2022. :)
Sine:
--- Quote from: gameboy99 on July 23, 2019, 07:01:55 pm ---I'm doing BMS2042, BMS2052, BMS2062 and DEV2022. :)
--- End quote ---
Hey! I definitely haven't forgotten about this - will post in the next few days :)
DEV2022 is the only one I haven't done, however, some of my friends are doing it this semester and some did it last year.
gameboy99:
--- Quote from: Sine on August 02, 2019, 06:37:02 pm ---Hey! I definitely haven't forgotten about this - will post in the next few days :)
DEV2022 is the only one I haven't done, however, some of my friends are doing it this semester and some did it last year.
--- End quote ---
Sounds good. Thanks once again for the amazing insight. :D
Sine:
Here is my BMS2042 review that I did last year - I feel i'll probably just repeat the same stuff here and below is how I found 2062.
Alrighty, last year I completed BMS2062 – Introduction to bioinformatics. The title sounds like a lot of use of computers and what not. There definitely is a big focus on however I found them to teach us very and you don’t have to be great at IT to do well. The thoery component is like any other biomed unit – although a little bit more about databases/searches and using software to look at protien structure so a bit of it will have overlap with your practical parts. However, you still go into some biological concepts like neurodegeneration, mRNA, protein folding/misfolding etc
The practical component they have done well to create worksheets with really clear steps in each practical so that basically anyone who is careful get this stuff done quite well. I think the most difficult part would be actually synthesizing the important information from the data you find in databases. I should note that as you go further in the unit – more and more will be assumed of you – so it is important that you understand each practical worksheet. I think I had overall 10 practical worksheets worth 2% each. The weighting for this component of the unit I felt was not that great since some weeks you had to put a lot of time into it to get full marks. However, some weeks you could do it within the time of the 2 hour class so it may have balanced out. For us worksheets were due 48 hours after the end of our practical, the main reason for this was so that we could get feedback quickly. My tutor was quite good and usually marked everythign within 4-5 days. Also, most tutors are very open to students asking questions and helping but like always this is tutor dependent.
For my year instead of a mid-semester test (which was there in 2017) we had 5 small theory tests. I think in 2017 with the MST the cohort did quite badly - maybe because they had MSTs for all the core units that year - idk really. Anyway the small theory test two of them worth 2% and three of them worth 3% - roughly 10 questions with some questions being double pointers (if application). Generally, the questions are quite doable if you have revised the corresponding lectures. However, sometimes there are some application questions at the end. I found them great since you could just derive the answer on the spot but for students who heavily rely on rote learning it wasn’t too great. So, I believe for this unit there is a large importance for actual understanding of concepts and being able to answer questions which you may have not considered or thought about before.
There are also two major assessment tasks (MAT) worth 10% and 15%. One of them was due in the middle of the semester and the second one due at the end of the semester. For these tasks all students were allocated to one of 4 different genetic disease conditiosn. I got phenylketonuria and that was the topic that we used for both assessments. This was quite nice since we were able to use a lot of the information from our first one in the second one and also didn’t have to start over and learn a whole new condition. The first task was to create a brochure on the disease with the target audience being families/people with this condition. That meant that we couldn’t really use the normal biomed language and had to bring it down to a standard of a lay person. You could assume year 10 science knowledge. Which doesn’t help much for the things that you need to discuss. Like mutations/protein folding/cofactors/clinical aspect. You also had to include a few diagrams that were self-made, this theme of creating visuals for an audience becomes quite important in third year as well. For my topic one of my diagrams was a family tree displaying how one could get phenylketonuria (both parents needed to be carriers) and then outline the chance of the child having the condition. Another image I did was a simple explanation of how genetic code mutations = gene mutations = amino acid mutations and showed the most common mutaiton there which was splicing IIRC. MAT2 was on similar concepts of MAT1 although some extensions – since MAT1 focused on the actual gene a lot more and MAT2 was more on the protein. Also, MAT2 was a website – we had to use google websites so it wasn’t too bad to make, even if you aren’t too create. The practical workshops prepare you well for both assessment tasks since one of them is dedicated to building a page of a website and also another one is using PowerPoint to create self-made images in the context of biology.
The end of semester exam was a paper based exam worth 40% of your total mark for the unit. From memory there was 50 multiple choice questions. 30 of which were worth 1 mark and 20 of them work 2 marks. I don’t think there was too much of a difference between the questions though. The 2 markers were probably more leaning towards extended multiple choice where there was a specific scenario and you had to derive information from that – which wasn’t necessarily what you might have learnt/studied so it is great if you like application of knowledge.
gameboy99:
Hi Sine,
I have loved the way you have taken everyone throughout your university journey.
Any updates? :)
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