University resources: Biomedicine and Medicine, Science
So, after a couple of months of studying biology at the year 12 level you’re probably so deeply enthralled by the subject that you want to go on to study it at a university level. But you might also be intimidated, or curious as to what you will actually be learning about at uni, how much more difficult it gets, what the pracs are like etc. Hopefully, this article answers those questions.
Content and Difficulty
The pace gets much faster at uni. As opposed to having a full year to learn the content in year 12, you have 12-week semesters at uni where, in first year, they’ll cover just about as much (or more) as you do in half a year at year 12 level.
To give you some sort of idea: there are generally three one-hour lectures a week, with each lecture covering about one full chapter of your textbook. For those of you that found the pace too slow in year 12, you’ll love this – others might feel slightly intimidated. For these people, you’ll be glad to know that a large amount of first year university level bio is only slightly more detailed than the content you learnt in Year 12, and is just an extension of year 12. This means you’re looking at things in more detail and, since you’ve already got a solid base understanding from year 12, it makes it much easier to study and learn quicker.
In terms of the content you cover, I found it much more interesting than year 12 bio. It answered so many of my questions from year 12 and raised even more. I realised that the more I learnt, the more I still didn’t know about this subject. You also cover some new things, like a bit of physiology, embryology etc., which admittedly is a lot of content, but extremely rewarding if you put in the effort to learn it.
Also, there is a little more chemistry and maths involved at uni which is unavoidable if you want to actually understand why certain things happen; for example, why polypeptides actually fold up into a tertiary conformation. So I would recommend doing some chemistry at uni too, as well as some maths if you haven’t done methods or specialist in year 12.
Pracs
Forget about those little ‘pracs’ you did in high school where your teacher would basically do everything for you. In biology pracs at university, you will pretty much have to read your method and do the prac yourself. Of course, there are demonstrators to get help from if you really need it, but the expectation is that you work individually or with groups of students.
The pracs are also much more interesting – you do things like heart dissections (which is not as gruesome when you actually know the structures you’re looking at) and extract DNA from bacteria. They also give you a much deeper understanding of what you cover in lectures and, since you’re kind of forced to do everything yourself, it’s much more rewarding and interesting when you successfully complete a prac.
And yes, you are assessed on the accuracy of your pracs at uni (i.e. how well you actually complete the experiment), among some other things like in-class questions, answering certain questions, giving results etc. So do pay attention in your pracs, prepare for them, and do not underestimate how largely they can impact your final score for bio at uni.
Final remarks
All in all, if you’re enjoying biology at the year 12 level, you’ll love it at a university level. Whereas you only really touch the surface in year 12, you’ll dive right into it at university, getting a much better understanding as to why things are – not just how they are. Yes, the content is slightly more difficult and the pace gets quicker, but this is something that can easily be adapted to (and is true of basically all subjects – not just bio). If you can stick with it, you will reap the rewards.
