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Author Topic: walking through the labyrinths of VCE  (Read 2108 times)

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labmember009

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walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« on: January 23, 2021, 04:22:03 am »
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Hey everyone! I’m in year 11 this year and thought it might be a nice idea to start a vce journal to track my progress and stuff. It’s so hard to believe I’m an actual vce student already. I’m pretty nervous about exams and sacs but also looking forward to seeing how I perform.

So on to subjects. I had originally planned to take physics and a lote as my ¾s instead of psych. But then I decided that I wanted to do medicine (and also found physics pretty hard) so I changed my mind. Since that happened after subject selections were over, it was hard for me to change subjects. I somehow managed to change to ¾ psych and ½ bio, which I am so happy about.

If you told my past self about my current subjects, she’d probably laugh at you and say something along the lines of “there’s no way I dropped physics for psych. And only one ¾ instead of two?!”

Psych was a kind of last minute decision. I knew I wanted to drop physics and a lote for bio but I wasn’t sure about the other one. One of my friends had chosen psych and she was telling me how good it would be so I took a look at the textbook. I found it surprisingly interesting and thought I could even apply a lot of that knowledge to my own life. So I took the plunge and applied for a change to it.

I’ve always liked maths but haven’t been the best at it. Like I’m not bad at it but I feel like it doesn’t come as naturally to me as other people. Nevertheless, I chose spesh because I think it’ll be really fun.

Chem and methods are prerequisites for a lot of medical courses so I had to take it. I would have done it anyway though since I love maths and science.

And finally, eng lang. I absolutely loathe writing essays about novels and movies. So naturally, eng lang was the only option for me. And I’ve always liked linguistics as well!

There’s more I want to write about but I don’t want my posts to be long and boring so I’ll incorporate little bits of it throughout the year. I also realise that I might not sound very cheerful here, but in real life, I’m actually quite loud and lively.

I think I’ll try to update every week or so but it really depends on my mood.
Good luck to all the other vce students here! And thanks for reading this  :D
2021: Psychology [43]
2022: English Language, Methods, Specialist, Biology, Chemistry

cmati

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2021, 11:48:01 am »
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Welcome to the VCE Journal! Can't wait to follow you on your journey :)

Also - VCE psych was my favourite subject! I finished Year 12 last year and find myself still applying my psych knowledge in real life situations, I hope you enjoy it ;D

Also what draws you to studying medicine? :) Where are you hoping to study? Are you looking to do under-grad or post-grad?


*Edit: Grammatical errors, oops

« Last Edit: January 23, 2021, 03:21:18 pm by cmati »

ConFinCMC

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2021, 02:12:53 pm »
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And finally, eng lang. I absolutely loathe writing essays about novels and movies. So naturally, eng lang was the only option for me. And I’ve always liked linguistics as well!

Take this from an English Language Flunkie; Eng Lang is NOT the easy way out of English. There is a lot of memorisation into metalanguage, note taking, and studying that needs to be taken in order to achieve a good study score. You will learn essay structures different to anything you'll ever see in other subjects. You'll need to take contemporary examples of Standard and Non-Standard English throughout the year from various media sources, such as the news and Aussie TV Shows, and SACs and the Exam are anything but forgiving.
If you want to do English Language, by all means, I'm not trying to scare you or anyone else away from it, but just be cautious that there is a high-standard of work that needs to be fulfilled if you want to get that 25.

P.S, SACs aren't necessarily based on novels or movies, though some require you to read through a small text and pick examples of metalanguage (<<stg, you will learn to hate this word) to use in your essay
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Doogie38

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2021, 06:30:12 pm »
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Heyy and welcome to the VCE journal community!!!  ;D

I'm also in Year 11 this year and we're doing a lot of the same subjects. I'm doing English, english language, spec maths, PE, chemistry and 3/4 biology (pick up methods again in yr12). Good luck for this year and I look forward to future posts from you! :)
2021: Biology 3/4
My Journal Journey :)

The Cat In The Hat

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2021, 07:59:34 am »
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Have fun in VCE! is all I can say. :)
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labmember009

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2021, 02:20:26 am »
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Welcome to the VCE Journal! Can't wait to follow you on your journey :)

Also - VCE psych was my favourite subject! I finished Year 12 last year and find myself still applying my psych knowledge in real life situations, I hope you enjoy it ;D

Also what draws you to studying medicine? :) Where are you hoping to study? Are you looking to do under-grad or post-grad?


*Edit: Grammatical errors, oops


It’s great to hear that you’ve found psych so useful  ;D

There are SO many things about medicine that draw me to it.

Some of them include:
- there’s a pretty even mix of theoretical and practical knowledge that’s required. I love working with my hands but also analysing and thinking about something deeply
- The variety. Every day and every patient is so different. It’s not the exact same thing day after day after day
- The human body is so interesting. It’s amazing how everything works together to keep the body alive
- It’s very fulfilling to have such a direct impact in making someone’s life better
- Job security is good
- There are so many specialties to choose from (but you do have to stick to it). There really is something for everyone
- I’ve always really liked the general atmosphere of hospitals and clinics. All the equipment look so cool

My dream course is the BMedSci/MD at Monash. It’s so competitive though ahhh  :-\ But I'll probably be applying to every single university that offers something like this to maximise my chances.

Take this from an English Language Flunkie; Eng Lang is NOT the easy way out of English. There is a lot of memorisation into metalanguage, note taking, and studying that needs to be taken in order to achieve a good study score. You will learn essay structures different to anything you'll ever see in other subjects.

Thank you so much for all the advice. I actually did an elective on linguistics last year which broadly covered everything in eng lang and I really enjoyed it so hopefully I’ll continue to like it. I didn’t mean to imply that it was an easy way out. But I think it’s the subject that’s best suited to me.

Heyy and welcome to the VCE journal community!!!  ;D
I'm also in Year 11 this year and we're doing a lot of the same subjects. I'm doing English, english language, spec maths, PE, chemistry and 3/4 biology (pick up methods again in yr12). Good luck for this year and I look forward to future posts from you! :)

Oh wow we really do have many subjects in common  :o Doing PE seems like it would be a nice break from sitting in classrooms all day. I love sports so I’m really going to miss not having PE anymore haha. Good luck to you too!

Have fun in VCE! is all I can say. :)

Thanks!
2021: Psychology [43]
2022: English Language, Methods, Specialist, Biology, Chemistry

labmember009

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2021, 07:29:20 pm »
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Two days down, hundreds more to go! Wow year 11 is pretty different to year 10. I was exhausted at the end of yesterday with the information overload. Classes are more intense now and I’ve been taking a lot more notes. I’m enjoying it so far though. My school switched to a new timetable this year and we have singles (45 minutes) and doubles now (1hr 30 minutes) with 5 minutes between each period. To me, a single feels a bit too short and a double feels a bit too long haha. I really like having the 5 minutes because I don’t have to rush to the other side of school for my next class.

Since I’ve had at least one class for all of my subjects so far I can talk a little bit about them.

Bio: In my school, pretty much every year 11 who does bio does it at the ¾ level. So in my ½ class, I only have about 15 people in it. I really like my teacher. She’s really bubbly and funny. I’m excited about the excursion that we’ll go on at some point this year.

Chem: I didn’t do any chem at all last year (I did ½ physics) so I’m a bit behind everyone else. I wish we were told about memorising valencies BEFORE the holidays so that I could take my time with it but we’ll be tested on them on Friday which doesn’t leave me with a lot of time haha. It’s just a pre-test though and won’t count for anything so it’s okay.

Spesh: I’m surprisingly doing pretty well so far. I think all the holiday homework prepared me well for class and it feels good to be able to fully understand stuff that I had no idea about just a few months ago. My teacher is really good at explaining and I feel so lucky to have her.

Methods: It’s been pretty boring to be honest. Probably because we’re only revising linear and quadratic equations and stuff. My teacher for it is okay?? Like he’s not super good at explaining or anything but he’s not too bad.

Psych: we had to learn research methods over the holidays but we’re going through it again right now. I feel like our pace is a bit slow since we’ve had two singles and have only done sample and population and variables so far. But my teacher is going through it very thoroughly so I guess that’s good in a way. Like most people, I find research methods boring and just want to get to the fun stuff.

Eng Lang: we did a few activities to get to know the class and then we discussed a little about how animals communicate. We’ll start learning subsystems from tomorrow. I’m glad I took the linguistics elective last year because there’s so much content to be learned and it made me quite familiarised with most of it.

2021: Psychology [43]
2022: English Language, Methods, Specialist, Biology, Chemistry

wingdings2791

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2021, 12:37:52 pm »
+1
Hi labmember! Enjoying your journal very much so far. I totally understand that year 11 shock, definitely a bit of a difference from year 10 but nothing you won't be able to handle :)

Admittedly I'm pretty jealous of you having 45 minute periods! My school's classes are an hour long, which just feels dreadful sometimes (especially with those two-hour doubles... no thanks). If only we could switch! It must be really nice having those extra few minutes though, kind of a little period for your brain to just pant from the mental exercise (or for mine at least hehe)

It's great that you are going well in all of your subjects! Especially having a really passionate teacher in Bio, it really rubs off and makes everything so much more interesting to learn. Plus, similarly to what cmati said, Bio has quite some applications in real life too so it really does let you appreciate it even more. In Methods and Spesh too, it's so good that you're already solid! Most people enter Methods without such a great foundation in the basics so if you ask me I think you're setting out on a very promising path.

Curious: which subject is your favourite? What do you like to do for fun?
Hope you have a good rest of the week!
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labmember009

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2021, 12:24:06 am »
+1
Hi labmember! Enjoying your journal very much so far. I totally understand that year 11 shock, definitely a bit of a difference from year 10 but nothing you won't be able to handle :)

Admittedly I'm pretty jealous of you having 45 minute periods! My school's classes are an hour long, which just feels dreadful sometimes (especially with those two-hour doubles... no thanks). If only we could switch! It must be really nice having those extra few minutes though, kind of a little period for your brain to just pant from the mental exercise (or for mine at least hehe)

It's great that you are going well in all of your subjects! Especially having a really passionate teacher in Bio, it really rubs off and makes everything so much more interesting to learn. Plus, similarly to what cmati said, Bio has quite some applications in real life too so it really does let you appreciate it even more. In Methods and Spesh too, it's so good that you're already solid! Most people enter Methods without such a great foundation in the basics so if you ask me I think you're setting out on a very promising path.

Curious: which subject is your favourite? What do you like to do for fun?
Hope you have a good rest of the week!

Thanks! I’m enjoying all my subjects right now in general (except eng lang kinda, but I hate english anyway). My favourite would probably be psych. The content is pretty easy and really interesting. As for hobbies, I like reading. I recently read “do no harm” by Henry Marsh and I loved the insights it gave me into neurosurgery. Over the holidays, I got into soldering little electronic kits and that’s been fun. I’m hoping to eventually build my own circuits and make some cool stuff someday.
2021: Psychology [43]
2022: English Language, Methods, Specialist, Biology, Chemistry

labmember009

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Re: walking through the labyrinths of VCE
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2021, 12:29:38 am »
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Long time no see!  ;D

Bio: We finished learning about cell organelles last week. One of the things we had to do for it is make a model of an organelle and hang everyone’s organelles on this wooden box thing to make a giant plant cell. And also give a presentation on the organelle. I chose lysosomes because I find them really cool. I don’t really like crafts so I procrastinated and did the whole thing at like 1am on the day of the presentation. It surprisingly turned well and I had a bit of fun making it. In the middle of the presentations, we ended up having a random discussion about the mitochondria and my teacher and I had a fun conversation about it. She seemed pretty impressed with my knowledge haha. We’re working with microscopes right now and I think I really have a knack for them haha. Like I can make them work really easily. I hate trying to figure out the scale and stuff but other than that it’s really fun. I love how small our class is. I don’t know most of them that well but the class feels tight knit. We started learning about the plasma membrane too and it’s all sooooo interesting. Bio would probably be my favorite if not for some of the annoying prac work.


 Methods: I’m so behind on work!! It’s week 5 and I’m still doing week 3 stuff. We’re moving so fast and that kinda kills my motivation to do work. But I’ll definitely be able to catch up in time for the test which is the week after next so I’m actually not too worried.

I’ve always hated asking for help from teachers in maths because they do this thing where they do some of it and ask you what the next step is and basically guide you along and I hate that because it really puts me on the spot. But today, there was a question I really needed help with so I mustered up the courage to ask my teacher. I’m so glad I asked him. I found out exactly what I was doing wrong and it cleared up a lot of my misconceptions. I’d actually made a decision at the start of the year to ask for help if I’m having trouble, no matter what because I knew that if I didn’t build a solid foundation, there was no way that I would do well. I’ve been tutoring a few primary school kids in maths for a while now, and I feel like teaching has really helped me become a better learner too.


Spesh: maybe it’s just my school but spesh has been way more chill than methods for some reason. We’re going through content pretty slowly and it’s not too difficult. I had my first test today on trig and I think it went really well. I think I should work on time management though because I finished at the nick of time but overall I feel like it went really well. I was revising for it a little last night but I didn’t stress about it too much. I was almost a little disappointed that the test was so easy compared to the practice tests haha. Well I’m just glad it’s out of the way now.

English Language: ughhh I hate English. I understand why it’s compulsory but I still wish it wasn’t. We’re going through lexicology right now and the different types of verbs are hard to understand. But it’s still pretty interesting I guess. I don’t really know anyone too well in my class and that makes it way worse. But I recently made a friend there I think so that’s good.

Chemistry: So for the first few weeks, I was behind on work (as usual). I found lessons a bit boring because of that. But this week, I knuckled down and finished everything that I was procrastinating on and after that, lessons felt way more interesting. We learned about RIM and RAM last lesson and are going to start on the mole soon.

Psychology: Ahhh I have my SAC in two weeks. I attended a vce webinar today and I realised that I actually need to start studying for it soon. We only just started on acculturative stress in class and I don’t know how my teacher expects us to get through so much content in class in two weeks and still revise. I’m going to finish off the rest of the AOS in the next few days by myself though. My rough plan is to read through all the relevant textbook chapters and my notes at least once a day. My teacher told us that she would be putting us under time pressure so I’ll do timed practice questions and just learn everything very thoroughly basically. I found out today that writing down everything I remember from what I’ve just read is really really helpful. I’d tried using active recall over the holidays too but instead of writing it down, I said it out loud. Writing it down definitely works a lot better.


2021: Psychology [43]
2022: English Language, Methods, Specialist, Biology, Chemistry