Biomedicine Opinions?

[ddvv]

I just graduated year 12 in Brisbane and am deciding between biomed courses at various unis.

I was looking for any opinions - how interesting the content is, how hard it is (to maintain a good GPA), the course structure, and how you find picking a major (as Melbourne seems to be one of the only biomed courses where you pick a major). Any other helpful information about the course or UniMelb would also be much appreciated! Thank you!

[vox nihili]

I just graduated year 12 in Brisbane and am deciding between biomed courses at various unis.

I was looking for any opinions - how interesting the content is, how hard it is (to maintain a good GPA), the course structure, and how you find picking a major (as Melbourne seems to be one of the only biomed courses where you pick a major). Any other helpful information about the course or UniMelb would also be much appreciated! Thank you!

I found the content very interesting and engaging. I'm not sure it's enormously useful though. The course is very, very content focused (unless it has substantially changed) at the expense of developing the kinds of skills you would at Monash for example. For me, it did a really poor job of trying to equip its students with the skills they ought to get out of a Biomedicine degree, namely the ability to write scientifically, to deal with and think about scientific evidence and to think critically about science. It does, however, do a good job of cramming you full of info.

Maintaining a good GPA is a fairly straightforward process. It's challenging to do well, but there's no real secret to it. Keep up with the information that's crammed into you in lectures and you'll be fine.

The course is more rigid than science courses but less rigid than other Biomed courses. I personally liked that I didn't have to start choosing my subjects for myself until second year when I had a little more clarity about majors. Your choice of major will become clearer as you get through the degree. YOu really ought to just choose what interests you. If med is what you're after, you'll hear a lot about what is a good major for med, but imo a lot of people's opinions on that are very narrowly focused on what will help make your first year of med easier rather than what will actually set you up for a good career.

[Billuminati]

The course is very, very content focused (unless it has substantially changed) at the expense of developing the kinds of skills you would at Monash for example. For me, it did a really poor job of trying to equip its students with the skills they ought to get out of a Biomedicine degree, namely the ability to write scientifically, to deal with and think about scientific evidence and to think critically about science. It does, however, do a good job of cramming you full of info.

Looks like I have to shatter the utopian view on Monash biomed. It isn't better or easier in regards to content, I've compared what I learned in 1st year with my Unimelb biomed mates' content, they're very similar in that both biomed degrees are extremely content heavy with a huge emphasis on theory over application, especially in the bio subjects. It may depend on the degree because in Monash biomed labs you have your hand held by your demonstrator the whole way with recipe-like experiments, whereas in chem labs ran by the science faculty you get thrown in the deep end and do a self designed lab every other week to grind your independence and transferable skills. Although biomed labs ostensibly emphasise scientific communication, problem solving and critical thinking etc as transferable skills, it's pretty tokenistic and no one really cares about it because the demonstrators usually use these subjective assessment criteria as excuses to inflate our scores (not that I'm complaining ). As a result, the students don't take it seriously and see labs as a bludge task. I think this isn't a good sign because most of the theory you're taught in biomed won't be used in non-med fields which many biomed people end up in, so like vox implied, having no transferable skills means you have gotten precisely nothing from your time in biomed.

[ddvv]

I found the content very interesting and engaging. I'm not sure it's enormously useful though. The course is very, very content focused (unless it has substantially changed) at the expense of developing the kinds of skills you would at Monash for example. For me, it did a really poor job of trying to equip its students with the skills they ought to get out of a Biomedicine degree, namely the ability to write scientifically, to deal with and think about scientific evidence and to think critically about science. It does, however, do a good job of cramming you full of info.

Maintaining a good GPA is a fairly straightforward process. It's challenging to do well, but there's no real secret to it. Keep up with the information that's crammed into you in lectures and you'll be fine.

The course is more rigid than science courses but less rigid than other Biomed courses. I personally liked that I didn't have to start choosing my subjects for myself until second year when I had a little more clarity about majors. Your choice of major will become clearer as you get through the degree. YOu really ought to just choose what interests you. If med is what you're after, you'll hear a lot about what is a good major for med, but imo a lot of people's opinions on that are very narrowly focused on what will help make your first year of med easier rather than what will actually set you up for a good career.

Thanks for all this info and your opinions on the course, it is really helpful!

[VanillaRice]

Although biomed labs ostensibly emphasise scientific communication, problem solving and critical thinking etc as transferable skills, it's pretty tokenistic and no one really cares about it because the demonstrators usually use these subjective assessment criteria as excuses to inflate our scores (not that I'm complaining ). As a result, the students don't take it seriously and see labs as a bludge task. I think this isn't a good sign because most of the theory you're taught in biomed won't be used in non-med fields which many biomed people end up in, so like vox implied, having no transferable skills means you have gotten precisely nothing from your time in biomed.

While it's not perfect, I would say that there is a decent effort at developing transferable skills in second year (and from what I've heard, in third year as well) in the BMS course at Monash. Some units/subjects definitely do it better than others, but after completing the level 2 units this year I can safely say that my ability to present and synthesise scientific information (in oral, written and visual forms); problem-solve and work in teams is better than it was at the start of the course.

To address this more generally, I think a large part of the skill development in university also comes from extracurricular involvement (whether this be a part-time job, volunteering or joining a club/society). As a personal example, volunteering has allowed me to greatly develop my leadership and communication skills, which I have then been able to apply to my studies.

[Sine]

Yes I would have to agree with VanillaRice on this. Having completed the third year biomed units they definitely do their best to get students job ready with the type of assesments they give out along with the workshops.

At times it can be cringe-worthy the stuff we need to do but at the end it is all done with the intent of making us more rounded individuals.

As a result I know plenty of students able to score jobs during the final year of the degree which some of that success can be attributed to the transferable skills developed. (Some of the jobs were not even health related.)

[vox nihili]

Probably worth adding that you'll find these issues in a lot of university degrees in Australia. The movement towards degrees for knowledge as opposed to degrees for universities have made it a lot more content-focused and less skills-focused, which is really a pity.