Subject Code/Name: ATS3083 - Translating Across Cultures
Workload:
Weekly 1.5h Lecture (called a "seminar" but really a lecture)
Weekly 2h Tute
Assessment:
Tute Participation Peer Review (5 x 2%)
Almost every week you either have "homework" or an assessed translation due. Weeks where you have homework due is where the peer review participation comes in. The homework is a short translation piece that you have to prepare beforehand and bring into class. During class, you'll swap your homework with a classmate, and you'll fill out a review sheet for each others' work. By filling out a review, you'll earn yourself tute participation marks for that week. Your review doesn't affect your classmates' mark (you can say their work was shit if you want, and it won't affect their mark). There are five peer review tute participation weeks, and each is worth 2%.
Assessed Translations (4 x 5%)
There are four translations during semester, each ~500 words. Two will be LOTE --> English translations, and two will be English --> LOTE translations. You also write a brief (~400 words) to accompany your translation, explaining and justifying the decisions you made while translating. The pieces you translate are selected by the lecturer/tutor, so everyone in your class will be translating the same piece.
Group Translation (1 x 20%)
Group of two or three people. Together, you translate a text of your own choosing either from LOTE --> English or English --> LOTE. I forget the word count exactly, but I think ~1600 words. You must also do a group presentation about your translation (15-20min presentation).
Long Translation (1 x 20%)
You translate a text of your own choosing either from LOTE --> English or English --> LOTE. The text should be ~1000 words. You also write a brief similar to those of the assessed translations, just longer (800-1000 words I think).
Final Exam (1 x 30%)
2 hours, plus 10min reading time. Purely practical. One translation from LOTE --> Eng, and one translation from Eng --> LOTE. Both translations are about 500 words. You must also write a brief no longer than one page for each translation. You can take a paper and/or electronic dictionary into the exam.
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.
Past exams available: No sample exam, and I don’t think there are any past exams in the database… I don’t think you really need any though.
Textbook Recommendation: This unit doesn’t have a textbook.
Lecturer(s): The unit coordinator is Kenta Koshiba, but he only does about two lectures himself. He organises for a different guest speaker to come in each week and speak about different topics related to translation. As far as I remember, the guest speakers are all university staff whom teach other units too. The unit as a whole is designed to be practical, so in the lectures there’s some theory but also lots of general discussion and examples. I think Kenta ran out of guest lecturers, because we only had lectures up until Week 10. Kenta himself is a really easygoing guy. The quality of the lectures varies week-to-week obviously, and is dependent on the quality of the guest speaker.
Year & Semester of completion: Sem 1, 2013.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: Exam results aren’t out yet, but HD overall for the in-semester stuff.
Comments:
This unit had five streams this semester: German, Italian, Spanish, French and Japanese. In past semesters there was Chinese and Vietnamese too I think, but I’m not sure whether they’ll bring those back or not. I was in the Japanese stream. It’s necessary for you to have a relatively high level of proficiency in your chosen language stream, otherwise you won’t be able to grasp the intricacies of what you’re translating. Lectures are in English. Tutes are streamed into your languages. There’s only one tute time for each language stream, so you’ll have to work around it in your timetable. Each tute stream will have two tutors – one native speaker and one English background speaker proficient in your LOTE.
I felt like the lectures were kind of a waste of time, because all assessment in this unit is practical. Beyond serving as a means for you to get an understanding of the key terminology, I honestly don’t think there’s much point to them.
I feel that your mark in this unit is largely dependent on your level of language proficiency more than anything else. For me, I was getting HDs in the LOTE --> Eng translations, but only Ds in the Eng --> LOTE translations because my Japanese proficiency isn’t exactly absolute (I’m not good with idioms, flowery language… that sort of stuff, which happens to be important in translation). I can’t speak for all the language streams obviously, but everyone in the Japanese stream for this unit was either a native speaker, or studying Japanese Advanced 5 concurrently this semester. I think perhaps you’d also be okay with Japanese Advanced 3.
The other thing that will help you get a good mark is your ability to bullshit. So long as you demonstrate a bit of commonsense and you can justify it in your brief, you can pretty much translate your work however you want.
Overall, I think the assessment in this unit was pretty easy, though biased towards people with higher language proficiency. Putting the assessment aside though, this unit is practical and thus very applicable to real life. It doesn’t teach you about translation so much as it teaches you how to translate, which I think is far more useful and more important.
I felt like this unit was a good chance for me to be less concerned about assessments and more about learning for the sake of learning. It’s a third year unit, but I don’t think it’s particularly hard. Overall, this is a unit I found engaging, and that I would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the practical side of translation and linguistics.
This unit will help you a LOT if you're studying Japanese and intend to do ATS3152 later on, which also has a heavy emphasis on translation.
Subject Code/Name: MED3051 - Medicine and Surgery 1
Workload: per week: varies between sites, you're expected to stay between 7-8am (former for surgery, latter for medicine) to 4-5pm each day giving a total of ~50 contact hours per week, whether you stay that whole time depends on how you study and what you want to get out of being on the wards. Each site usually has lectures on Wednesday and it varies between sites how many lectures there are.
Assessment: 70% Mini Case Records (MCRs - two formative and two summative in this unit), 30% Evidence Based Clinical Practice "Therapy" Task, attendance (80% hurdle), completion of online pathology quizzes (14 in all - hurdle), complete submission of portfolio (hurdle), formative end of semester exam (non-hurdle or hurdle depending on site) .
Recorded Lectures: No.
Past exams available: No, the Faculty has now published a document with threats to expel students from the course if they are caught compiling past questions or distributing or using past compilations. All past compilations have been removed from the MUMUS site. Many EMQ/MCQ books can substitute for official exams though.
Textbook Recommendation:
- At a Glance - Medicine - Davey*
- Clinical Examination A Systematic Guide 7th - O'Connor and Talley
- Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine 22nd - Colledge, Ralston, Penman and Walker*
- Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine 18th - Fauci, Hanser, Jameson, Kasper, Longo and Loscalzo*
- Kumar and Clark's Clinical Medicine 8th - Clark and Kumar*
- Netter's Clinical Anatomy 2nd - Hansen
- Oxford American Handbook of Clinical Examination and Practical Skills 1st - Burns, Korn and Whyte
- Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine 9th - Baldwin, Longmore, Wallin and Wilkinson
- The ECG Made Easy 7th - Hampton
- Toronto Notes 2012 - Klostranec and Kolin*
- Underwood's General and Systematic Pathology 5th - Cross and Underwood
*Pick one depending on how keen or lazy you are
I'd also recommend utilising UpToDate as much as possible.
Lecturer(s): Many, depending on the series of lecture (reproductive, haematology, neurology, psychiatry, pharmacology, pathology, etc.)
Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014
Rating: 5/5
Comments:
This unit is something completely new! I'll keep this general given that every student will have their own unique experience depending on their site, their rotations, their group, and how keen they are to get what they can out of it.
Basically the sites Monash have are (I may be missing some!):
- Central: Alfred, Cabrini, Peninsula
- Monash (formerly "Southern"): Monash Medical Center, Dandenong, Casey
- Eastern: Box Hill, Maroondah, Angliss
- A bunch of rural sites such as Bendigo, Mildura, Bairnsdale, Traralgon, etc
It is completely randomised as to which hospital/site you get (other than the choice of rural vs metro sites), no more preferences!
Each site has their ups and downs in terms of a balance between practical skills and teaching and it's probably not up to me to make a comment on this, but the feedback I get back form peers is that the clinical years (so far) are SO MUCH better than the preclinical ones, and I'd agree with that 100% percent. Each student will have their own medical (gen med, oncology, cardio, neuro, rheum, etc) and surgical (gen surg, neurosurg, cardiothoracics, bariatric, vascular, etc.) rotations depending on luck and where they are placed.
The gist of a day on either surg or med plays out like this:
- Ward round starts at 7-8am depending on your team, this may be with a big team (think Alfred, MMC, etc.) or a small team led by a registrar (think Angliss, Casey, etc). Med students can write the ward notes, they may be asked questions by the consultant or registrar, they may be asked to see the patient later and report the case back to someone, etc. Always good to try and be /helpful/ (getting the patient files in advance, having a look at the obs, etc.) because they'll like you more and you'll probably get to do more things as a consequence.
- After the ward round there will be an allocation of tasks (more-so in medical rotations), if you're in the good books with the team you may be asked to do a few tasks such as "cannulate the gentlemen in Beds 3, 14 and 25 for us, and we'll need bloods from Bed 13, 15 and 17, oh and also if you could chase up 17's GP and get them to fax over her lung function tests that'd be great". Simple stuff and they'll love you if you can help out plus practical skills are so exciting!
- Your tasks can span the whole day depending on the urgency, usually try and get your cannulas and bloods done ASAP. Throughout the day you may have tutes (more details later) and have the opportunity to clerk patients (basically take a history, perform an examination and report back to a senior on the ward) and go into surgeries (obviously only in surgical rotations, you may get to scrub up and assist with suturing and whatnot depending on the surgery).
- Repeat.
So I mentioned a few practical skills above. The new ones to clinical years include: cannulation (putting in a "drip"/"bung"), venipuncture (taking bloods), urinary catheters, rectal examinations, injections, performing lung function tests, and some unofficial ones that your team might teach you such as taking arterial blood gases, taking blood cultures, and so forth. You also may be able to help out and learn about more complex procedures such as ascitic taps, pleural drains and lumbar punctures. Some sites it may be very difficult to get any practice but in other sites you may be able to do a few of each practical skill a day (think smaller hospitals). The practical skills I mentioned (the "official ones) are important to do because you need to mark them off in a "logbook", a small book which has a list of skills which need to be done including histories and exams from all systems and a bunch of practical skills as aforementioned. This needs to be handed in as talked about later.
To further your skills, and if you're on a good basis with your team, is to get involved with doing admissions, ie. admitting patients to the ward or to the hospital (sneak into ED!). I've had the opportunity to do this a few times both supervised and unsupervised and it's a really great learning experience. If you ever get a chance be sure to put your hand up first and take it!
In terms of tutes, there are may kinds and the amount of them depends on your site. Medical and surgical bedside tutes are commonplace, here you have a small group and a consultant and as the name suggests, you have a tute at a patient's bedside learning about their condition and examining them. Other tutes include PBLs, specialty tutes, practical skills tutes, clinical skills tutes, epidemiology tutes, law and ethics tutes, etc etc. Some sites have an attendance that includes these tutes, others do not.
Another thing I want to touch on are a few of the assessments:
- MCRs: These are basically mini-OSCEs. Either a history or an examination on a patient where you're getting marked by a senior doctor such as a registrar or consultant. They count for a lot of the year and are a really good place to put your clerking of patients into practice to show off your skills and demonstrate your clinical knowledge (they'll ask you questions wither throughout or afterwards).
- ECBP task: This is a very similar task to the epidemiology assignment from Year II. Personally, not the most exciting task out there.
- Portfolio: This is a bit of a pain, it's a checklist of things you have to submit at the end of the semester: group assessments (such a any PBLs your group may take), feedback sheets you get marked off by your seniors so that the Faculty knows you actually come to ward rounds, the EBCP assignment and the logbook.
Now with so many differences between sites and hospitals and student experiences, a fair question to ask is: "how do they examine this theory later?". The simple answer: "The Matrix". It's a huge table of conditions, a total of OVER 250 conditions that are examinable. If it sounds scary and daunting, it's because it damn well is.
Just at the end I feel I should mention some of the areas of clinical medicine which are often overlooked by all the exciting things. It's important to remember that you're in hospitals and that people are sick. Some sicker than others, and some of your patients may pass away whilst you are there. We get taught about this sort of thing during preclinical years but it's something completely different to experience it in real life. It's hard to deal with, and if you need some help with it seek assistance from your seniors, they'll always have a handy word or two. Here's something I wrote about this on Med Students Online, copied here for convenience:
Spoiler
My introduction to clinical years
Not sure how to feel, but my first few weeks on the wards have been interesting. Being on an oncology rotation first-up I can't say I didn't expect it (I certainly did), but I don't think any amount of pre-contemplation prepared me for the real deal: when a patient passes away in front of your eyes.
Now in the "predictable" pre-clinical environment I wasn't really phased emotionally by much, the Aussie notion of "grin and bear it" was really the way to get through. Everything was simply just theory and more facts to understand and remember. As morbid as it might sound, I even had no issues with cadavers, as it was all part of this "learning environment" and dissections were very much academic and not at all patient-orientated.
On the wards and in clinics, it's a different ball-game altogether. Being a medical student here isn't all about the exams and the textbooks, it's about being part of the healthcare team and learning from their expertise so you can be the best that you can be. I have a great and supportive team, and being their junior is an exciting privilege, however being part of the team is only a minor aspect in comparison to what the team actually does: manage patients.
From Day 1, it was confronting. I have never seen so much suffering, so much pain, so many tears. From the pre-clin years I guess one could say I was disillusioned by what some doctors have to deal with, I didn't think some things could be "that" tough in real life. What if the patient doesn't want to undergo the advised treatment? What if the patient's treatment options are at an end and they're looking to you as to what is next? What if things are far worse than the patient had hoped for? What if a patient you have seen for weeks unexpectedly passes away?
As only a student I guess I don't have to have answers to those questions, but there's always that feeling that I should? It's tough, when reality hits that doctors have limitations from all areas whether that be from their patient's decisions, from treatment options, from financial stand-points, and the list goes on. We learnt about this, but it doesn't come close at all to seeing it in real life - patients do make decisions and do pass away and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it.
So early onto my clinical experience, it's been a roller-coaster taking this all in. Learning with how to approach different situations has been very helpful, from what I gather it's like desensitising yourself from the patient in an emotional sense. Having said that, one of my greatest fears is being one of those people who don't say "John, the fellow with <x> in Bed 14, needs some fluids" but instead say "Bed 14 needs some fluids". I'd hate to lose the personallness (is that a word?) of it all - it's my greatest fear and I have seen in it on the wards and I don't like it at all.
This beings me back to the patient passing away in front of me last week. That patient was in pain, they had multi-organ failure, mets from their primary cancer, and suspected infection. There was part of me that hoped they would pass away as they would be in a much better place, but there was also part of me that wanted them to keep fighting it all. When it happened though, when they passed away, I was just lost. I felt bad, almost wanted to cry, not sure what to do. We couldn't save them. Did I care too much? Am I just "weak" as a person? Is this just me being a novice medical student?
I guess it's all about finding that professional balance between being too affected and not being affected at all. I want to care, but I don't want to care "too much" as I think that'll hurt me and I won't be able to function to my best, if that makes sense.
Hopefully that balance comes with time.
Thanks for reading, sorry about this slightly depressing blog post (my first) and I'm betting there are some incoherent lines in there - was just typing my mood and thoughts.
Having said that, it's always a great feeling seeing one of your sicker patients get discharged cancer-free or in fine health, you don't get a feeling like that anywhere else and it's one of the best feelings I've ever had. It's even better if you took up an opportunity and did an admission on that patient, you can see them from admission to discharge and it's really rewarding to see the health system at work!
As with my reviews of the previous MBBS units, I think it's really important to get involved with the course outside of the teaching periods too. I'd highly recommend getting involved in inter-year study groups (teaching in Year 2/3, learning from Year 3/4) and getting involved in the social events such as the "Half Way Party" which was a pretty sweet night ;)
All-in-all, a very exciting unit. Being on the wards has been amazing and no amount of money would persuade me to go back to the Clayton campus for days of lectures. I've kept it general because everyone has a unique experience with how clinical years play out for them but if you have any specific questions feel free to PM me (please only PM me if you're already in the Monash MBBS, it's far too keen otherwise -_-).
Subject Code/Name: BMS2011 - Structure of the Human Body: An Evolutionary and Functional Perspective
Workload:
- 1x 1hr lecture
- 1x 2hr lecture
- 1x 3hr practical+tutorial
Assessment:
- Group research project and pseudo-oral presentation (15%)
- Lab journal (25%)
- MST (30%)
- Exam (30%)
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.
Past exams available: No, but Colin uploaded many practice questions to our Facebook group which ended up being a massive, massive help (I'll talk about this more later).
Textbook Recommendation: As with any anatomy course there is a veritable bevy of potential textbooks out there for you to peruse. However, I'd personally recommend:
- Gray's Anatomy for Students
- Thieme Atlas of Anatomy: General Anatomy and Musculoskeletal System by Schulte and Schumacher
And depending on what you choose to do your group project on, you might like to look through various, more specific, textbooks. I found Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain by Bear, Connors and Paradiso extremely helpful for my CNS-related project (students who have done BMS1052 might already have a copy of this).
Lecturer(s):
- Dr Colin McHenry (Unit co-ordinator and takes most lectures, especially MSK and evolution-based lectures)
- Dr Justin Adams (CNS, PNS and ANS-related topics, Cardiovascular System)
- Prof Darrell Evans (Limb Development)
- A/Prof Norm Eizenberg (Viscera and Visceral Systems)
- Prof Paul McMenamin (Special Sensory Organs)
- Dr Julia Young (Embryology, Reproductive Anatomy and Biology)
Year & Semester of completion: Sem 1, 2014
Rating: 4.25 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: HD
Comments:
Overview
This is a great unit, really spectacularly well-organised and executed. I admit I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with it throughout the semester, predominantly because it's immense in terms of content. Ostensibly, this is an anatomy unit, but it's also bolstered by the fact that you're not only looking at human anatomy, or anatomy solely through a clinical viewpoint; instead, this unit aims to provide a well-rounded anatomical understanding that incorporates both human anatomy as well as embryological, palaeontological and zoological anatomy and how they compare. As such, instead of devoting the whole course to clinical stuff, you look at evolutionary and environmental aspects as well. This is a really well-rounded course, but it eats up a massive amount of time and requires a good deal of effort and organisation to do well throughout the semester.
Lecture Series
Lectures are all brilliant, engaging and entertaining. Aside from the content being pretty much ubiquitously interesting, the lecturers are all engaging, funny and really passionate about anatomy. My personal favourites were Prof Norm Eizenberg and Dr Colin McHenry, who were both absolutely fantastic lecturers.
The lecture series was as follow:
- Week 1 - "Body Plans", an introduction to the evolution of body plans and the basic functions of MSK tissues.
- Week 2 - "The Skeleton in Humans and Other Animals", looking at 'building bodies' and the basic anatomical pattern of the axial skeleton and axial MSK.
- Week 3 - "The Human Vertebral Column", looking at the spinal cord and nerves. You'll also have your first Masterclass which I'll discuss in the next section.
- Week 4 - "The Head Skeleton", examining cranial MSK and associated musculoskeletal connections. In this week you'll also have an introduction to viscera and visceral systems, then a lecture on the cardiovascular system.
- Week 5 - "Thoracic Visceral Organs", which dealt with the respiratory, gastrointestinal and endocrine systems as well as the kidneys and the skin.
- Week 6 - "Abdominal Visceral Organs", which was dealt with more in the prac sessions (see below). This week's lecture series actually began to cover CNS and PNS-related material, namely the autonomic and peripheral nervous systems, NS vessels, the brain and cranial nerves.
- Week 7 - "The Brain and Special Sensory Organs", which looked at (obviously) the CNS and associated sensory organs such as the eyes/nose etc. You also have your second Masterclass.
- Week 8 - "Reproductive Biology and Anatomy" looking at the anatomical features of human and other animal reproductive techniques and behaviours. Week 8 also contained the MST.
- Week 9 - "Reproductive Anatomy", which followed on from the previous week, looking at limb development and the 'gametic animal'. The last lecture of this week was an introduction to limb MSK,
- Week 10 - "Limb Anatomy 1", continuing study of limb MSK and examining the biomechanics of these structures.
- Week 11 - "Limb Anatomy 2", which looked at human evolutionary history. This week also hosted the third Masterclass.
- Week 12 - "Revision", whereby the course was wrapped up by looking at evolutionary medicine and having the fourth Masterclass.
It should be noted that although the lectures are very entertaining and interactive, they are absolutely packed with content, all of which is assessable unless the lecturer says otherwise. I found it helpful to not write any notes during the lectures so I could focus as much as possible on what the lecturer was actually saying, but everyone has a different strategy.
Masterclasses
Colin decided to do something different this year, which was the implementation of four interactive anatomical Masterclasses tying together key concepts throughout the semester. These sessions, which took place in the 2-hour lecture slot, were great fun and really helpful in preventing the course from becoming an exercise in memorisation. The Masterclasses were essentially an 'open lecture', where there would be some presenting by lecturers but a lot of back-and-forth discussion between them and students.
The Masterclasses were as follows:
- Masterclass 1 (Week 3) - "Postcranial Axial MSK: The Human Variant"
- Masterclass 2 (Week 7) - "Evolution of the NS, CVS and Viscera in Humans"
- Masterclass 3 (Week 11) - "What's So Special About Humans?"
- Masterclass 4 (Week 12) - "The Functionally Integrated Human Animal"
As with lectures, material in these is examinable but the extent of this might vary between semesters (i.e. MC1 material was present on our MST and MC2 was listed as directly examinable for our end-of-semester exam, but MCs 3+4 weren't, although the related lecture theory was present).
Practicals
The practicals were really different to anything I've ever done before at uni. Basically, each prac session was divided into 3 parts: 1) Specimen sketching, 2) Tutorial room exercises (either a specific content-driven tutorial or a practice exam question session) and 3) "Other" exercises, which varied week to week but included group project discussion and coordination, functional anatomy tutorials, anatomical body painting, anatomical plasticine modelling and a biomedical imaging tutorial. Everything you do in a lab needs to be recorded in your 'lab journal', a major assessment task where you do all your anatomical sketching and record all tute activities and discussion. This lab journal is worth 25% of your semester mark, and to do well you are going to have to devote a large amount of time during the semester working on your lab journal (e.g. there is no way you will be able to get your anatomical sketches completely done during class time unless you are some artistic savant).
All in all, the pracs were fun and I had a brilliant tutor (Zhou, who was about to take his medical Registrar exams). The tute groups are pretty small which aids discussion, and that's a pretty important factor (imo) in understanding the material properly.
Other Assessments
The only other assessment task, aside from the 2 exams and the lab journal, was the 15% group project. Along with 2 or 3 other people, you choose a topic, develop a proper working title, then research that topic using medical (or otherwise academic) literature. Although this is called an "oral presentation", you don't actually do any first-hand presentation. Instead, you record your presented material by voice onto the powerpoint presentation that you'd ordinarily present alongside a standard presentation. I can't say I was or am a fan of this system - predominantly because it was prone to technical difficulties (especially given the advent of ~30 groups attempting to each upload ~90mb files to Moodle at approximately the same time) - but in truth it's fairly easy to organise, coordinate, delegate and get very high marks.
Make sure you and your group sorts out the organisational stuff early, because it's rather hard to 'whip' people into submitting by deadlines over a computer! Luckily my group was extremely helpful and we worked well together to get everything done on time (huzzah!).
Exams
Both the MST and the end-of-semester exam were worth 30%; I - and I think many other people - found the MST to be much, much harder than the end-of-semester exam. As with any other anatomy subject anywhere, there is a degree of memorisation required but this course was superbly constructed in that it actively aimed to minimise the rote learning required, and taught anatomy with a more integrated focus than purely focusing on the clinical and rote side of things (take that MEDxxxx students, our anatomy course is better :P). In reality for both exams, the only true memorisation was that of the 12 cranial nerves, which are easily recalled by mnemonic:
Here's a standard mnemonic
On Old Olympus's Towering Top, A Fat Vested German Viewed A Ham
(Olfactory, Optic, Occulomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Accessory, Hypoglossal)
and...
A slightly more adult one...
Oh Oh Oh To Touch And Feel Virgin Girls' Vaginas And Hymens ;)
The format of the exams was quite novel for what I've had in university thus far; the format was kind of similar to that of a VCE biology or chemistry exam, whereby there were several (40 if I recall correctly) MCQs and then a few SA questions, some of which were picture-based. In short, the MST was a pain (not entirely sure why, but possibly because many of us simply didn't have much time to study during the semester), but the end-of-semester exam was rather (dare I say it) fun.
Concluding Statements
In summary, this is a great - if extremely heavy - unit. It's far more than a memorisation-based course because it aims to examine comparative anatomy as well as clinical aspects, and provided us with a well-rounded anatomical understanding from various anatomy-related areas and viewpoints. The teaching staff are easily among the best I've ever had at uni so far, main;y because of how directly and closely involved they were in teaching and learning during the semester. For example, Dr McHenry was extremely regularly present on the Year 2 Biomed Facebook group, where he frequently helped people out with difficult concepts (and come end of semester he essentially gave us a practice exam by parts in several posts in the group haha!).
The complaints I have about this unit are few and far between, but they're present; the lab journal task takes up many hours of work both in and out of class hours per week and should be worth far more than 25%, and the requirement to give an oral presentation through a powerpoint rather than alongside a powerpoint was a bit strange and more than a little bit inconvenient.
All in all, this is a fantastic unit and really helps you develop a passion for anatomy and a great basis for further anatomical study.
Subject Code/Name: CHM3911 - Advanced physical chemistry
Workload:
3 x 1 hour lectures per week
1 x 4 hour labs per week (this goes for pretty much all weeks besides Weeks 1 and 12, at least in the semester I did it)
1 x 1 hour tutorial per week (optional).
Assessment:
Practical work: 30% (consists of 9 Lab Reports)
Various assignments/tests throughout semester (total 30%), such as:
Three Molecular Symmetry assignments (total of 8%, later assignments worth more than earlier ones)
One-hour (midsem-ish) test on Molecular Symmetry (10%)
Introductory assignment on Computational Chemistry (3%)
Online test on Computational Chemistry (3%)
Molecular Spectroscopy assignment (6%)
Final exam: 40%
Note: Prac work is a HURDLE REQUIREMENT. You need at least 50% in pracs to pass the unit.
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture. From personal experience, on rare occasions, the video is somehow missing (you still get the audio). Most lectures will be captured accurately though.
Past exams available: Yes, a couple posted on Moodle. The past exams database has some exams, but it appears this unit has undergone changes in the past, so not all of the material may be relevant. The ones on Moodle are relevant to the current course - the only thing to keep in mind is which parts of the course are being assessed on the final exam (more on this later). No solutions available.
Textbook Recommendation: As the course is reasonably diverse in terms of its content, there is no real "prescribed" textbook. Some of the more commonly mentioned suggested textbooks include "Physical chemistry" by Atkins (9th or slightly earlier editions), and "Modern spectroscopy" by Hollas (4th or slightly earlier editions). Personally, I found neither to be a compulsory buy, as the lecture notes do a reasonably good job at covering the content. However, if you enjoy learning from textbooks, or like to go more in-depth and have more explanations, then by all means consider using some of the recommended reading.
Lecturer(s):
Computational Chemistry, Thermodynamics and Kinetics: Katya Pas
Molecular Symmetry and Molecular Spectroscopy: Don McNaughton
Surface Chemistry and Colloid Chemistry: Alison Funston
Year & Semester of completion: Semester 1, 2014
Rating: 4.2 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: Unknown at this point.
Comments: This subject can form part of a chemistry major. If you wish to do Honours in chemistry, you need at least one unit from either Physical or Analytical Chemistry, and at least one unit from either Organic or Inorganic Chemistry.
This unit is divided into six major topics, and each lecturer goes through two of them:
Computational Chemistry (Katya)
Katya's section starts off with Computational Chemistry. This begins with a brief introduction to quantum mechanics (it's pretty much all qualitative, and if you have some background in Physics, this will probably be a recap of things for you). Why is this necessary? Because ultimately, there are some reactions in the lab which might be somewhat dangerous to carry out, require expensive materials/difficult preparation or are difficult to accurately gather data from. Sometimes, it's better to model things before trying them in the lab themselves (e.g. drug design). Therefore, it is better to simulate these reactions. In order to do this though, we need to have an accurate description of the molecule's structure and physical properties. And an accurate description of these requires quantum mechanics to be invoked. So that's why we do computational chemistry.
The next few lectures go through things such as potential energy surfaces (basically multi-dimensional versions of the potential energy diagrams you're used to seeing) and how they are computed, why they have the shape they do, how we interpret local minima and maxima on these diagrams, and why they are important. We then go through some of the computational chemistry methods that allow us to correctly interpret these potential energy diagrams, and hence allow us to predict molecular structure and reaction properties.
However, calculating exact properties is very computationally intensive, and in many cases, thoroughly impractical. So we also learn about the various approximations that are made (both to our "energy-calculator" Hamiltonian and our molecule, which is represented in quantum mechanics as a "wavefunction"). We learn some theoretical basis behind the methods, and their strengths and weaknesses, as well as important properties. Throughout this lecture series, there will often be comparisons of various computational chemistry methods. You will get to do these things yourself in the lab component (more on this later).
Thermodynamics and Kinetics (Katya)
Katya's section continues with Thermodynamics and Kinetics. This lecture series touches on the Fundamental Laws of Thermodynamics, an introduction to macroscopic and microscopic entropy, a recap of enthalpy and Gibbs' free energy, and how we interpret these in terms of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics. Some of this will be revision, and if you did Physics, probably all of it will be. We then briefly look at the Carnot cycle as an example of analysing entropy and enthalpy. The derivations of Gibbs' free energy and the reaction equilibrium constant are also shown.
After this, we look a bit more at phase equilibria. Remember those temperature-pressure diagrams for water, which showed the triple point and critical point? We look at them again here, in the context of the Phase Rule, which is a shortcut way to determine how many variables you can change to keep the same phases as you currently have. We also look at phase equilibria for mixtures of substances, in particular liquid-vapour phase equilibria. This is the theoretical basis for separation techniques such as fractional distillation, and now we can see why such techniques are effective (or not). Finally, we look at supersaturated solutions - how entropy changes with phase, and come across the Kauzmann Paradox, which appears to consider a situation where the Third Law of Thermodynamics is broken. It's never been observed (so Physics isn't broken), but we don't actually know why that is so!
Finally, we look at classical nucleation theory, which explains the kinetics (or time-scale formation) of crystals from supersaturated solution. This is then linked to the Arrhenius equation, and shows a great parallel between crystallisation reactions and regular chemical reactions. There's still a bit of QM thrown in at the end, with quantum 'tunnelling' effects showing up in real-life reactions.
Molecular Symmetry (Don)
Don's section starts off with Molecular Symmetry. This is basically an introduction to the various kinds of symmetry molecules can have (which we call 'symmetry elements'). Once everyone is capable of looking at a molecule and determining what kinds of symmetry it has, we then look at classifying molecules by their key symmetry elements (these molecular classifications are called 'point groups'). Also, we notice that we can do symmetry analysis of rotations, translations and vibrations of a molecule, and to things such as molecular orbitals, dipole moment vectors, and polarisability tensors. So why do we do all this stuff? Well, it turns out that with a bit more work, molecular symmetry actually can help us in identifying the structure of a molecule we might not be able to determine by other means. We can use molecular symmetry to predict the appearance (or non-appearance) of an IR or Raman spectrum, and what we should see if the spectra exist. There is actually some mathematical basis behind all of this, as the study of symmetry comes down to mathematical group theory - but you don't need to worry about any of that here. For the mathematically minded, there's also some matrix algebra involved - see if you can spot where it occurs!
Molecular Spectroscopy (Don)
Don's section then continues with Molecular Spectroscopy. Here, we consider three kinds of spectroscopy - microwave (or rotational), IR (or vibrational), and UV-Vis (or electronic). The theoretical basis of all three methods is considered. For example, where you may recall from CHM2922 that the "ball-and-spring" approximation is used to come up with the energy levels observed in IR spectroscopy, we also have the "rigid rotor" model for microwave spectroscopy to predict energy levels. For each kind of spectroscopy, we basically consider the following questions:
1. Which kinds of molecules will appear on this spectrum?
2. Why are the spectral lines separated in the way they are?
3. Why are the heights of the lines the way they are?
4. How does changing the chemical compound being studied affect the spectrum?
5. What other information can we get from analysing the spectrum?
Understanding this, in conjunction with molecular symmetry, really provides a sound basis for understanding spectroscopy of relatively simple molecules.
Surface Chemistry (Alison)
Alison's section starts off with Surface Chemistry. In a way, this area of chemistry gets partly neglected during VCE and earlier Chemistry units. But, if you recall from your high-school days some strange things about "surface tension/surface energy", "spreading/wetting", "contact angle" or "surfactants", then this is what the lecture series is about. It goes into the reason behind surface tension, and why properties of surface molecules are often different to non-surface molecules (which we call the "bulk"). Much of this section (and the subsequent section) is really based on intermolecular forces, so it's a good idea to revise those so you have a good foundation for the section. However, surface tension is also based on energetics. This means that there is some maths involved in working out various surface-tension related properties, and in calculating surface tension itself. There are derivations of the formulas you will eventually use, which require some knowledge of maths/physics (for example, steps in derivations include knowing that Pressure = Force / Area, or that Change in Energy = Work = Force x Distance). These derivations are usually not examinable, however. After learning about surface tension and how to measure it, we consider the role that surfactants play in reducing surface tension, and the formation of micelles at higher surfactant concentrations. Applications of this section include in detergents, oil drilling and flotation. We also learn about how surface chemistry affects the pressure in objects such as bubbles and droplets.
Then, we learn about spreading/wetting on surfaces, and what factors determine whether one substance will spread over another. The applications of this include water-resistant and water-proof fabrics, and glues/adhesives. After this, we learn about adsorption, which is the adhering of one substance onto the surface of another. Once again, we consider the energetics of adsorption and its reverse process, desorption, and look at how the amount of adsorption varies with how much stuff you put in (which is represented graphically by "adsorption isotherms"). We look at several models of adsorption, and their assumptions, the difference between physical and chemical adsorption, and what happens if your surface has lots of little pores on it.
Colloid Chemistry (Alison)
Alison's section concludes with Colloid Chemistry. Basically, a colloid is when you have a system of particles suspended in a (different) bulk medium, except the particles are usually much larger than your average molecule. We learn about why these are actually thermodynamically unstable, and what makes them last for so long. We learn about how we can make colloids, how we can ensure that they don't come together to form large clumps and effectively precipitate out of solution, and how we can break them apart again. We learn about the models that aim to predict the immediate environment around a colloid particle, based on electrostatics and van der Waal's forces (giving rise to an overall potential). Finally, we see applications and examples in emulsions and foams.
Personally, I found this unit to be a reasonably fun unit, once I actually started listening and learning from the lectures. This is probably because I enjoy the idea of Physics (if not the mind-crushingly difficult maths), and I've always liked learning about orbitals and bonding. I must admit that Surface and Colloid Chemistry was not the most fun topic I learnt in high-school chemistry, but if I treated it as a fusion of chemistry and some maths, the learning wasn't too bad at all. Computational Chemistry was a bit dry on its own - but it's nice to apply what you've learnt from the lectures in the labs. I had quite a love/hate relationship with Molecular Symmetry, because I absolutely cannot rotate things in my head, which made each bit of work I had to do on it incredibly painstaking. With each success, however, there came a lot of satisfaction. I also liked Thermodynamics and Kinetics particularly for its derivations and its brief description of the fundamental thermodynamics laws (well, I guess that means I like Physics).
The lecturers were all great at explaining concepts and answering questions. In particular, I liked how Katya interspersed questions throughout her lectures to give them a more interactive feel. Alison also gave little demonstrations during her lectures and asked us to predict what might happen beforehand. Don also went through some worked examples in his lectures. All of this made the overall learning experience better, in my opinion.
I didn't attend any of the tutes (they were held at pretty inconvenient times for me), but in them, you appear to go through questions from a tute sheet related to the lecture material. The tute sheets (and sometimes the answers) are put up on Moodle as well, and they're often a good revision tool for the exam.
Now, for some comments regarding the assessments:
Labs
Workload-wise, the labs aren't actually too different to those found in CHM2922. You'll have to either write up a full lab report or fill in an extended proforma for each prac that you do. I found that I had to spend at least 5 hours on each full lab report and at least 3 hours on each proforma in order to get a decent mark - so make sure you allocate a reasonable amount of time to get these done. Particularly if you're doing other units with experiments and lab reports in them, the overall amount of work each week can really start getting to you. The lab staff are usually more than happy to consider requests for extension if things really do get too busy.
The lab demonstrators themselves are all very competent and helpful - there's nothing really more to say.
Regarding lab work, there are usually two kinds of labs. Computational chemistry labs are done individually and usually see you in the computer lab, using the computational chemistry program GAUSSIAN09 in conjunction with the Monash Campus Cluster (basically a big supercomputer for all kinds of Monash students to run programs on) in order to complete the lab work for the day. Then, you analyse your readouts from the computational chemistry files in order to help you fill out the lab proforma for that experiment. This kind of lab can be very frustrating at times - because omission of a single space in what you type can cause the subsequent results files you get to either record numerous errors, or not give you what you want at all. One thing that I would suggest is to download the copy of GAUSSIAN09 that gets placed on the Moodle page, and save it to your Monash account and your laptop/computer. This means that you can work on the computational chemistry assignments from any computer in Monash or at home, and really increases the time you get to work on those experiments.
Another thing is that at the start of the semester, you'll probably feel like you're basically blindly copying down instructions from your lab manuals with no idea why anything is going on. However, as you learn the principles of Computational Chemistry, things will start to make a bit more sense. So, my advice here is to persevere, and try not to get too violent when stuff goes wrong - your demonstrator is there to help. :)
"Wet" labs are more like your standard lab where you get/make some sort of chemical compounds, perform some chemistry on them, analyse them, and then analyse the results later. One good thing about these is that the experimental procedure is nowhere near as demanding as more synthetic-based labs. Usually, the most you'll have to do is make up a series of solutions of different concentrations, perform a pH titration, run a series of IR/UV-Vis spectra, take some measurements from a scale, or some simple chemistry like exposing a sample to light radiation, or using a centrifuge to separate components of a solution. That being said, while it is not as intense, it can still be fairly time-consuming, particularly if your experiment has multiple parts in it. Having a good partner really makes work easier and also more enjoyable. You'll still have to write up your own individual lab reports, but discussing things with your lab partner tends to benefit both of you.
Symmetry assignments
The symmetry assignments are designed to reinforce and apply what you have learnt in lectures, by having you perform symmetry analyses on various simple molecules. This kind of assessment starts straight after your first lecture (when you've learnt all the basic symmetry elements and then have to identify them in other molecules), and continues after you learn more (the second assignment has you assigning point groups, and the third one has you finding irreducible representations to ultimately work out the predicted IR and Raman spectra of molecules). If you're not too good at rotating things in your head, this might take a while, but the skills learnt are well worth it, as they are applied again in the 'midsem' test. One thing I did find handy was to look at 3-D structures of the molecules themselves (particularly ones that you can freely manipulate). Also, there's always this
point group database if ever you are stuck. If you put some effort into them, it's usually enough to get a decent mark. Some people find this easier than others, but as you go through and practice, you tend to come up with your own little tricks or procedures for making things easier for yourself.
Symmetry 'Midsem' Test
The Symmetry 'Midsem' Test is a 50 minute test held during one of the lectures. It basically goes through all the symmetry material, which has hopefully been drummed into you by the assignments. While the molecules present on the test might be different, the tasks rarely change - so if you know the procedures to follow, it's just a matter of identifying and implementing them correctly. Early in the semester, Don puts a file on Moodle of some molecules that you can practice your skills on - usually one of these will be on the test paper in some form, so if you can do most of the 'medium' level molecules on there, you should be fine for that part. The main thing to be aware of, however, is time pressure. I knew how to do all the questions on the midsem - I just couldn't get them all down quickly enough, panicked, and made a mistake that ended up costing a bunch of marks. So, it's really important to get some practice, and to really know what your planned procedures are before the test.
Introductory Computational Chemistry assignment
This assignment is basically meant to help you become used to the basic kinds of procedures you will do in your subsequent computational chemistry labs. How this works is that in Week 2, instead of having a normal chem lab, you'll have a tutorial lab where you're introduced to the Monash Campus Cluster and Gaussian09 and how to do really simple things with the program interface. You'll then work through the instructions on a PDF which tells you what to do in order to get the actual assignment done and fill in the associated proforma. The intention is that when you then do your subsequent computational chemistry labs, what you're doing will be less familiar. That being said, it still took me quite a while to understand what I needed to be doing in those labs. Your demonstrators are really a big source of help on this.
Online Computational Chemistry Test
This online test is more of a theory test on the Computational Chemistry material. You get 1 hour to complete some questions (most are multiple choice or matching-type questions). There isn't really much more to say here - as long as you have your lecture notes in front of you and have a basic grasp of what is going on, you should get a decent mark.
Molecular Spectroscopy Assignment
This assignment comes in two parts: The first part is a standard (untimed) online test with a few questions/calculations relating to what you learnt in lectures. You'll then use the numbers from one of the questions (thankfully not numbers that you've calculated, so don't worry about everything being mucked up) in order to make an Excel-based plot of a rovibrational spectrum, and to answer more questions. It's probably a good idea to leave at least a couple of hours to do the second part.
Final exam
This year, there was none of Don's material on the final exam, which thankfully made it easier to revise for. Revising a number of diverse topics comes with its own challenges. Most people found some pain in the revision process, and I can't say I found many people who liked it that much. One of the really good things though, was that one a day close to the final exam, lots of people from the cohort came to uni and basically went through the past exams together! If you can get this going with your cohort, it's a really, REALLY good way for everyone to benefit and help each other learn. The two past exams we were given on Moodle were reasonable guides to what would appear on the final exam, but there were a few other questions in there too (which I assume must have come from the tute material). The exam itself wasn't too bad - most of the questions weren't overly difficult, but there was a fair bit of time pressure, which really caused me to rush at the end. There were a number of questions where you had to draw diagrams/graphs to help with explaining (as well as other questions where drawing a diagram may have helped too). The material is crammable, but you really should try to avoid this, as it just compounds the pain. Particularly in Alison's sections, KNOW HOW TO CONVERT UNITS. For some reason, surface chemists tend to express their quantities in all kinds of units. So know when you have to adjust the units of things, and what units your answer is expected to take! (Yep, dimensional analysis can really point you i nthe right direction for some of the calculation-based questions there.
In conclusion, if you enjoy Physics but dislike the associated maths that comes with it, you have a decent chance of enjoying this unit. If you always liked orbitals, or thermodynamics/kinetics/equilibria, you'll find some interesting stuff here. If you don't really enjoy these things, or don't like having lots of equations in Chemistry, or don't like doing maths that much, then this unit might not be the best fit for you - there's always Medicinal, Inorganic, and Environmental Chemistry units that you might find more enjoyable.
Subject Code/Name: ENG1010 - Process Systems Analysis
Workload:
- Two 1-hour lectures
- One 2-hour tutorial
- One 2-hour comp lab
Assessment:
- Hand Calculation test - 10%
- HYSYS test - 10%
- Case Studies (group) x3 - 5%, 7%, 10%
- Practical project (group) - 8%
- Exam - 50%
Recorded Lectures: Yes
Past exams available: Yes, heaps, all with solutions. Also heaps of past hand-calculation tests with solutions too.
Textbook Recommendation:
Not needed at all. You're given very comprehensive course notes that cover everything, in addition to the lecture slides that are used during lectures.
Lecturer(s):
A/Professor Cordelia Selomulya
Year & Semester of completion: 2014 - Semester 1
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: HD
Comments:
This unit is pretty well run. Everything you need is provided for you in moodle with frequent updates, and an active discussion forum. There's even a video showing you how to get to the right lab for your practical project, for all the lost jaffys (or clueless second year com students).
Unit Content
The unit is split into 5 main topics, however the general jist of the unit is "what goes in must come out". These topics are:
- Dimensions - Basically an introduction to units
- Mass balances - Looks at the concentration and flow rates of streams of solutions. Things like desalination of water via reverse osmosis or evaporation; or looking at how the concentration of urea in the bloods stream changes from dialysis. Involves a few linear simultaneous equations to solve, but not too tricky once you’ve done a couple
- Mass balances with chemical reactions - You have a feed stream, a reaction occurs, then you have a product stream. You look at how the composition changes. Continuous stirred-tank reactors (CSTRs) are introduced. If you can handle stoichiometry from VCE chem, then you can handle most of this topic before you actually learn any of the stuff at uni. CSTRs may take a little work though.
- Energy Balances - A much larger topic than the previous ones. You look at enthalpy changes first, then move into mechanical energy balances. Things like Bernoulli's equation and the pump head required for a given flow rate.
- Heat Transfer - Thing like convection and conduction, overall heat transfer coefficients, heat flux through a wall, and finding the required length of a heat exchange to achieve a certain degree of heating/cooling.
My favourite topics were mass balances with chemical reactions (I like stoich haha) and heat transfer. Mechanical energy balance I found to be pretty boring, number-plugging into formulae. Think VCE physics. But once I got into some of the more long-winded questions, and you had to actually think about what each of the variables represents and how they would change I began to like it more. Just hope you don’t get one of these on the exam – they can be very long. I used I think 5 pages of workings to do the exam question we had on this. If you didn't like chem in VCE then don't worry, I'd say it more closely follows on from VCE physics. There's not much high level maths. A few simultaneous equations, and the occasional need to the quadratic formula.
Tutes/Labs
The hand tutorial classes weren’t particularly helpful. Most weeks you just work through the problem sets, but full solutions are uploaded at the end of the week so no dramas if you miss them. They were however, a good chance to work on your case studies with your group.
The HYSYS computer labs weren’t too bad. The program can be incredibly fiddly and hard to use at first, but once you get used to it then it’s not too bad at all. These are more helpful than the tutes though, as you can get help for the HYSYS components of the case study (and you need to know how to use HYSYS for one of the tests.)
Lectures
Lectures weren’t particularly helpful either. Also could be a bit boring. They mostly teach the content through examples anyway, so you can learn all that you need from the comprehensive course notes that are uploaded to moodle. However in the last week the lectures are just running through past exams, which can be very helpful for working out how you have to structure your short answer questions for the exam.
Assessments
The 3 case studies that you have to do are all pretty similar. You basically look into the production process of a given substance. They can be pretty time consuming, so having a group is pretty helpful. I actually enjoyed them a bit, as some of the analytical questions required a fair amount of problem solving. There was the odd easy question though. Some were qualitative to, looking into the process a bit, and sustainability measures. There’s also HYSYS computer simulation question. To score well in these, make sure you read the required case study format PDF on moodle.
The practical project again is a group assessment. You submit a loose plan, then go into one of the labs and do the project (ours was cooling beer), and then have to submit the full report a few hours later. MAKE SURE YOU PLAN EVERYTHING. Seriously, this includes how you will perform all the calculations, how you will structure your discussion and analysis. Everything. Otherwise it would be very difficult to get your report completed in time. My group finished the practical component at 1pm, and most of us worked non stop until the due time of 7pm. Submitted with 30 seconds left. Intense stuff, which could have been avoided with a bit more preparation. That being said, I did enjoy it, and probably prefer this type of assessment as opposed to the case studies. Simply because of the time limit you don’t spend as long working on them.
The tests aren’t particularly challenging if you’ve kept up to date with the problem sets. For the hand calculation one, it is very similar to the past tests of which heaps are uploaded. So make sure you can work through them and then you should be all good. Also make sure to write out all your assumptions for the short answer questions. For the HYSYS test, there aren’t any past papers, but if you’ve gone to all of the computer labs and could work through those problems then it should be a breeze.
The exam is very similar to the hand calculation test. Lots of papers given out, and the same format of multiple choice and a few short answers. Again, make sure to write out all your assumptions for the SA.
Overall I liked this unit a lot. I liked the way the assessments were structured, and enjoyed the case studies. Would have given it a 5 if the lectures were a bit more entertaining, and a little more breadth in the content. Although, not many other people liked it as much as me, with others thinking it being the worst of all the first year eng units. I haven’t done them, so can’t really comment on that.
Subject Code/Name: MON2002 - Improving Health Futures in a Global World
Workload: 1x 3-hr lecture/tutorial/discussion per week
Assessment:
- 2,000-word literature review - 40%
- Group oral presentation - 20%
- 2,000-word case evaluation - 40%
- 80% tutorial attendance hurdle - 0%
Recorded Lectures: Nope. You wouldn't need them to be recorded anyway.
Past exams available: No exam!
Textbook Recommendation: No textbooks required.
Lecturer(s): Mr. (Soon to be Dr.) Brad Crammond
Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2014
Rating: 4 out of 5
Comments:
Overview
This is a "Depth" unit, part of the Monash Passport "Enhance Program" set of units. I'm not going to elaborate much on this, but please have a read of what the Monash Passport program is about here.
This is a really interesting and very unconventionally structured unit. The unit is co-run at the Monash Caulfield campus and Oxfam in Carlton, and tutes were roughly divided between these two places. The aim of MON2002 was to look primarily at developing countries and communities and the health-based, social, economic, political and cultural problems they face. The unit provides an education of and a historical background on global development and how they relate to contemporary and major historical health problems and the many factors that contribute to them. Understandably, a lot of classes were spent getting distracted by discussing la maladie du jour - Ebola.
Unit location:
As mentioned above, the unit is partly run at Monash Caulfield and partly at the Oxfam offices in Carlton (pretty much opposite the UoM Law building, which I must admit is a pretty cool building *grumbles*).
(http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/33067707.jpg)
The very impressive UoM law building...
(http://i.imgur.com/bXUTxmb.png)
...and the slightly less impressive Oxfam Australia offices. 10/10 bathrooms though.
Full disclosure: I went into the unit with a fairly poor opinion of Oxfam as an organisation; although they do a lot of good in the developing world I was, and am still, critical of the political skew they often lend towards their activities and opinions. However, in the interests of not being a douchebag, I didn't make a big deal of it because at the end of the day your opinions - positive, negative or anything in between - of Oxfam aren't relevant to the unit. What you might want to be aware of is that this unit is run jointly between Monash and Oxfam, so you pretty much aren't going to be seeing any material critical of Oxfam.
Classes
Classes are fairly informal - to an extent - which was a wonderful departure from the standard lecture/lab or lecture/tute combinations which are prevalent in biomed and science.
There is only one class per week, a 3-hour 'lectorial'/discussion session-type thing. Broadly speaking, the session is broken up into a 1-hour lecture from either Brad or a guest lecturer, then a ~2 hour discussion on a case study relevant to the global development topic covered that week. Inevitably the lecture and discussion sections were broken up by a coffee break, which was welcome.
Lecture topics
- Week 1 - Intro to Global Development
- Week 2 - Millennium Development Goals and the Human Development Approach
- Week 3 - Poverty and Food Security
- Week 4 - Corruption as a Barrier to Development
- Week 5 - Humanitarian Effects of Nuclear Weapons
- Week 6 - Health of Women and Children
- Week 7 - Climate Change
- Week 8 - Natural Disasters and Civil Conflict
- Week 9 - Disability in Development
- Week 10 - Labour Rights
- Week 11 - Indigenous Peoples
All of these were really interesting, engaging and great for discussion. Because this unit doesn't really belong to any degree, the class consisted of a few biomed students, some health science students and one or two arts/law students. The diversity of opinions, experiences and paradigms on global development made for some intense but fascinating discussions, and Brad was really good in that he was more like a peer than as a teacher during discussions (albeit a peer who's responsible for your grades, lol).
Assessment:
Like so many other aspects of this unit, the assessments in MON2002 were unlike anything else I've experienced in biomed or science which was a generally welcome change.
A big benefit of this unit to me was that there are only 3 pieces of assessment in the entire course:
- A 2,000 word literature review based on one of the case studies covered up to that point in the course, using external sources to build your review. I wrote mine on the social, political and economic impacts of the Global Financial Crisis on developing countries.
- A 20ish-minute group oral. This is also based on a case study that was covered during semester, and your group needs to develop approaches to solving the problems described in that case study.
- A 2,000 word "case note", which is basically a policy document where you outline an intervention to rectify problems linked to one of the case studies. I wrote mine on approaches to limiting the effects of climate change in KwaZulu-Natal.
All these assessments were relatively straightforward (barring the group oral, where true to form I went way, way over time), and 2,000 words really isn't a stretch to write in a fairly short period of time - or it really shouldn't be in second year of university :P.
Personally I prefer having more assessments, worth less, throughout semester as opposed to the system in place here. However, it was good to have sparse assessments for a unit for once, which meant I could devote more time to some of my more time-intensive units this semester.
Exam? NO EXAM, get on my level. This may or may not have been a major factor in me picking the unit in the first place. That said, it certainly didn't disappoint in any way.
Overall, this is a fantastic unit on topics that aren't really available to students outside of the Bachelor of Health Science. It was refreshing to learn about health issues outside of the biomed/science spectrum where the presumption is often based on the presence of existing health infrastructure and abundant resources, which is often not the case in developing countries. This unit was coordinated well (it helped that the class size was initially very small, and halved after the first week), and the discussions were very engaging and in-depth. There are also some great pubs in Carlton, make sure to check those out after class during the Oxfam weeks :P
Subject Code/Name: ATS2648 - Contemporary Japan
Workload (Weekly):
1 x 1 hour Lecture
1 x 1 hour Tutorial
Assessment:
15% Participation (Throughout the semester)
3 x 5% Quizzes
1 x 30% Short Essay or Annotated Translation
1 x 40% Exam
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.
Past exams available: No, but some sample questions were provided.
Textbook Recommendation: No textbook purchase required; all essential readings are available on Moodle
Lecturer(s): Dr Jeremy Breaden
Year & Semester of completion: 2017, Semester 1
Rating: 4/5
Your Mark/Grade: HD
Comments:
This unit is a cornerstone unit for the Japanese Studies major. Overall, it was a pretty chill and laid back unit.
Lectures
The majority of the lecture content can be found in the prescribed readings, but there are cases where Dr Breaden adds some extra content into the lecture. As this additional content may end up in the quiz, if you are unable to attend the lecture on the day of the quiz, you should at least skim the lecture slides, since he does note down his key points in them.
Tutorials & Participation Marks
The tutorials were on the same day as the lecture. I had my tutorials right after the lecture, which made it annoying when Dr Breaden introduced new content in the lecture that we needed to know for the quizzes that took place in the tutorials. However, the tutorials themselves were engaging and involved a lot interaction and exchange of ideas amongst peers. It should also be noted that although attending tutorials is one of the criteria assessed for participation marks, active participation in tutorial discussions and Moodle forum will be make up the bulk of your participation marks.
Quizzes
The quizzes for the particular week assess the prescribed readings for that particular week and the lecture content prior to the tutorial. The marking is pretty lenient and the only way for you to get no marks for any given question is for you to write something that is totally unrelated to the content assessed.
Annotated Translation & Short Essay
The annotated translation required that students used proficient level Japanese and since I was only studying Japanese Intermediate I at the time, I was left with the option of the short essay. This essay could be based on one of the essay topics provided or if you had another topic you wanted to write about, you could e-mail Dr Breaden for approval. The other flexible thing about this assessment task was that there was no prescribed referencing style, so as long as you referenced any one style consistently, you would be fine.
Exam
The exam was closed book and consisted of 5 extended response questions and 5 short answer questions. Each extended response question consisted of two options and the topics related to these options were provided to us prior to the exam, so you could pretty much select which topics you wanted to cover and just study for them. For the short-answer questions you simply had to provide a comprehensive definition for 5 of the terms listed.
Subject Code/Name: LAW2112 - Property A
Workload (Weekly):
2 x 1.5 hour Lectures
1 x 1 hour Tutorial
Assessment:
10% Tutorial Attendance and Participation
1 x 30% Class Test
1 x 60% Exam
Recorded Lectures: No.
Past exams available: Yes, 3 were made available to us.
Textbook Recommendation (Prescribed Texts):
- Bradbrook, Moore, Grattan and Griggs, Australian Real Property Law (Thomson Reuters): I would not recommend this book, since it only goes through the principles of Property Law and Ms Schachna goes through the principles in a lot of detail. This book just ended up as being an over expensive paperweight...
OR
- Edgeworth, Rossiter, O'Connor, and Goodwin, Sackville & Neave Property Law in Australia (LexisNexis Butterworths): This book goes through the principles of Property Law and also includes a lot of the cases that are in the reading guide.
Lecturer(s): Ms Elyse Schachna
Year & Semester of completion: 2017, Semester 2
Rating: 4.5/5
Your Mark/Grade: TBA
Comments:
This is a core unit for the LLB. Overall, the unit was pretty interesting and kept me engaged. It should be noted that this review is only really applicable to Property A in semester 2.
Lectures & Exam
Ms Schachna goes through the content at a pretty good pace. You can pretty much understand most of the Property A principles and case precedents just by attending the lectures. However, she doesn't go through the statutory provisions as much in class, so it is advisable that you remember to read them yourself.
There's a lot of content revision in the form of her non-assessed Kahoot! revision quizzes and sometimes through problem questions. I found the Kahoot! quizzes fun and pretty helpful for identifying my problem areas. In relation to exam revision lectures, it should be noted that she will not upload the revision slides for them, so I recommend you attend, as she goes through a lot of problem questions that are highly likely to be in the exam.
Tutorials
The tutorials are based on past exam papers, so I suggest doing them before attending your tutorials.
Tutorial Attendance and Participation
Tutorial attendance is worth 5 marks, so just attend them, after all, it's a free 5 marks. The participation marks come from active engagement in general discussion (2 marks) and discussion of the tutorial question you were assigned to in week 1 (3 marks). Moral of the story is attending and actively participating in your tutorials will earn you an easy 10% of your final score.
Class Test
The class test is in-class, online test that is open book. As long as you have your framework for the topics ready, you should be fine.
Subject Code/Name: ATS2144 - Japanese intermediate 2
Workload (Weekly):
1 x 1 hour Lecture
1 x 2 hour Seminar
1 x 1 hour Tutorial
Assessment:
5 x 1% Vocabulary Quizzes
3 x 4% Mini Tests
1 x 15% Mid-Semester Test
1 x 15% Project
1 x 13% Oral Assessment
1 x 40% Exam
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture.
Past exams available: No, but we were provided a revision document.
Textbook Recommendation (Prescribed ):
Genki II Textbook: This textbook essentially provides the basis for the content that will be covered in your seminars, lectures and tutorials.
Genki II Workbook: The homework for this unit consists of chapters of the workbook. 75% of the chapters prescribed need to be completed to meet one of the hurdle requirements for the unit.
Lecturer(s): Dr Satoshi Nambu
Year & Semester of completion: 2017, Semester 2
Rating: 3/5
Your Mark/Grade: TBA
Comments:
This unit is a language unit for the Japanese Studies major. If you started Japanese in university, you may find this unit a bit challenging.
Lectures
The bulk of the lecture materials can be found in the Genki II textbook, but Dr Nambu did go over a few ambiguous points in more detail in the lectures.
Tutorials & Seminars
The tutorial and seminar mostly consist of speaking exercises derived from the textbooks and revision of grammar points. Sometimes, during the seminars, we also had some writing activities. There was very little opportunity to practice conversational Japanese other than in the Visitor Session where, where Japanese exchange students visited us. The only real way to get conversational practice would be to join Monash Japanese Club's Kaiwa sessions, make Japanese friends or join the Monash-Waseda English-Japanese SKYPE Partner Program. To be honest, I found myself conversing to my partner in English during most of the exchange, so it wasn't particularly handy for me, but I attribute that to my inexperience with the Japanese language.
Vocabulary Tests & Mini Tests
The vocabulary quizzes take place in the tutorials and as in all the previous Japanese language units, the vocabulary you need to study can be found in vocabulary lists in the textbook. The quiz itself consists of some multiple-choice, who/what am I and matching questions, but there are times where you have to write the keigo version of particular verbs.
Mini tests take place in the seminar class. In these tests, you will be required to endure two listening activities, match kanji to english definitions, perform two way hiragana-kanji transformation and complete some grammar conjugations. It should be noted that the kanji words needed to be learned for the kanji-related sections can be found in the Reading and Writing section near the end of the textbook.
Mid-Semester Test
The Mid-Semester focused primarily on the grammar patterns and particles relating to particular verbs, but there was a culture related question. It should be noted that there was a writing section, where we were required to write in the appropriate keigo and I would say that the writing section was the most time-consuming section, so please do the easier stuff before touching the writing section.
Project & Oral Assessment
The project was an in-class comparison essay about one of the prescribed subtopics comparing Australian and Japanese university students to be written in class. We were required to gather information by interviewing Japanese university students for this essay. Since the visitor session was just a few weeks before the assessment task, I ended up just using my time during the visitor session gathering information for my piece. As the topics are provided prior to the actual assessment, I suggest writing the piece before the D-day and actually memorising it if you want a really good mark.
The oral assessment is similar to the general conversation and detailed study concept you encounter when you study a VCE language, except the twist is that there is also a 1 minute reading part, where according to Dr Nambu, you will be penalised for not completing the reading exercise. It should be noted that the reading exercise will be derived from the Reading and Writing section of the textbook (Lessons 19-23), so you can actually prepare for it.
For those who don't know what I mean by the general conversation and detailed study concept, it is when you present your project topic and also have a conversation with the examiner, which takes 5 minutes. The only advice I can give in regards to the project section is to know your essay well. Other than that, all you can really do for the general conversation section is to find a Japanese practice/speaking buddy.
Exam
The exam consisted of grammar sections, a culture section and a reading comprehension section, which should be pretty doable as long as you have revised the semester's content.
Subject Code/Name: BIO1022 - Life on Earth
** @peoplefromthefuture This year is the covid/online learning year
Workload:
One 1h workshop per week (zoom)
One 1h revision seminar per week (zoom)
Five labs throughout semester (1.5h lab seminar + 2h lab zoom in smaller group)
Assessment:
20% weekly quizzes on content and workshop (2% each quiz)
30% Lab assessments (8% + 5% + 7% + 5% + 5%) ->Mostly multiple choice quizzes on lab content, also one included a scientific drawing and one group zoom power point presentation.
50% multiple choice exam (120 questions in 130mins)
Recorded Lectures: Yes
Past exams available: Sample exam you could do a number of times and get different practice questions
Textbook Recommendation: They provide the textbook online in the prelearning content
Lecturer(s):
Dr. Thomas Hiscox
A/Prof. Alistair Evans
A/Prof. Anne Peters
Dr. Matt Piper
Prof. Craig White
Prof. Ros Gleadow
Dr. Kelly Merrin
Dr. Callum Vidor
Dr. Ben Seyer
Year & Semester of completion: 2020 -all completely online using zoom (live workshops/seminars), panopto (to watch recorded lectures), moodle (the website that has all learning content and everything else for your unit)
Rating: 5 out of 5!!! Best unit seriously. Although I already loved bio, I think anyone who felt meh about bio would also love this unit because of the staff and organisation. The first year bio team stand out a lot compared to the other units. This unit adapted extremely well to online-learning and very quick to adjust things that weren't working or in response to feedback (also talking about BIO1011).
Your Mark/Grade: 92
Comments:
-The lecturers and TAs were all awesome. I was very motivated to attend live zoom workshops because not only is learning good, but all the staff were so relaxed and banter-y, I can honestly say I have laughed out loud (maybe I laugh easily though) while watching majority of bio zooms because of the comments in the chat from other students or the lecturers. Even though I didn't contribute to the chat much, there was definitely a sense of community in this unit, and I found the content all very engaging. (Big difference to the units where the lecturers pre-recorded themselves talking with a powerpoint). The bio workshops had 100+ people so no one really turned on cameras or spoke, just commented in chat. (Idk if any of this is too relevant if everything is back in person from now on).
- In terms of the group lab, I (and others I spoke to) found their groups worked well together.
- The weekly quizzes due each following Wednesday were so helpful because this was the only unit I didn't fall behind in because I knew I had to learn the weekly content before the quiz was due.
-If you didn't do year 12 bio you might find the week of immunity difficult, because I felt like they covered the same amount of content but in a much shorter time frame than VCE. So maybe learn a few basic VCE bio immunity things before that week so it's not as overwhelming. If you did do VCE bio I feel like maybe half of the weeks you'll feel pretty comfortable with the content that is similar and just adding some extra depth, other weeks are completely new though like that week on worms.
-Unit was very well organised
not directly related to unit content
-ALSO, one of the best things was this extra zoom each week they did that was optional called 'bevvies with bio' where they got guest speakers who is working in the field of bio to come and talk about stuff!! They were so inspiring and valuable!! Many were doing research but also they got others who were working in other random bio jobs. Not only was it cool to hear about their jobs/research, but I really liked hearing about their pathways to get where they were, especially because none of them had 'linear' paths. Although I'm not considering a career in bio the also just gave a window into what life and jobs are like. After each session I felt like doing a PhD/travelling to Antarctica/learning to fly a plane/etc hehe.
how the unit was set up
-'discovery' (reading textbook pages + watching short videos from lecturers) This is where you write notes on everything and pretty much learn and get a good idea of everything
-'apply' (workshop) The lecturer focuses on one aspect of the content and relates it to the world a bit more, and they aim for people to participate a little more through chat, eg cutting up fruit to identify different parts, looking at skulls ad identifying differences etc
-'discuss' (discussion forums to ask questions) i didn't do this or use them much
-'reflect' (revision seminar) they have a poll at end of each week where people indicate the parts they struggled most with and using this data they create a presentation to cover these points again and people can ask questions and for things to be clarified. (I occasionally skipped this/had it on while doing something else if I felt confident with the content because it doesn't introduce anything new
-then the quiz! 20 (questions)
Subject Code/Name: BMS2011 - Structure of the human body: An evolutionary and functional perspective
Workload:
2 x 1 hour recorded lectures
1 x 1 hour livestream lab
1 x 1.5 hour in person lab every 2nd week
Assessment:
30% total from 3 lab tests (divided into 8% test 1, 12% test 2 and 10% test 3)
20% poster group project on the anatomy of human evolution
20% midsem
30% final exam
Recorded Lectures: Yes, with screen capture
Past exams available: No. Practice questions from past final exams provided, but some weren’t relevant to the current course content
Textbook Recommendation:
Gray’s Anatomy for Students (4th edition)
However, I also used Sobotta’s Atlas of Anatomy (15th edition) and Anatomy- a Photographic Atlas (8th edition) to help me prepare for schematic and prosection labelling questions
Lecturer(s):
Luca Fiorenza
Olga Panagiotopoulou
Julia Young
Sonja McKeown
Kim Catania
Anne Peters
Craig Smith
Year & Semester of completion: 2021 Sem 1
Rating: 0 out of 5
Your Mark/Grade: 90 HD
Comments:
Overall impression and lecture content: This unit was the worst unit I have taken in biomed so far (even making BMS2031 ie biophysics look like it’s well run in comparison). There was so much content to memorise (luckily they decided that we only need to know half the unit for the final exam), but apart from the difficulty, its organisation was EXTREMELY poor (you’ll see why as I roast this unit piece by piece below). To be fair, maybe it’s just that the unit coordinators haven’t adjusted the unit to the rona age very well, but to put it nicely, there’s a ton of improvements that could be made. In terms of lectures, I'll briefly give my impression of the lecturers here.
Luca (unit coordinator) takes lectures on the muscular system, the axial musculoskeletal system, hominin evolution, skin pigmentation, appendicular (ie lower and upper limb anatomy), cranial evolution, dental anatomy and origins of bipedalism. His lecture slides have almost zero information on them (you have no idea what point he’s trying to make with his slides alone) and you’ll have to listen for the information he wants to deliver very carefully (even so, it’s barely comprehensible because he doesn’t explain things in the most intuitive way and Youtube had to save me when I had trouble understanding his content). In Luca’s defence, he did offer us a lot of really useful online resources on the evolution stuff that he did not explain very well, so you’d be fine if you went through those. My social skills aren’t the sharpest after 1 year of quarantine isolation, but I’m getting the vibe that he might be annoyed at the questions we ask him on the forums and only answer them begrudgingly (again, I’m stressing it’s just my suspicions, speculations and general impression).
Olga (2nd unit coordinator) lectures you for the skeletal system, head and neck anatomy, respiratory system, cardiovascular system, digestive system and urinary system. Her lectures were the best in the unit, her slides have a healthy mix of text and images, and force you to listen to them by not giving everything away. She stands out from all other lecturers because she’s very clear on what’s assessable and what’s not, so it takes a lot of guesswork out of studying for the final exam when it comes to SWOTVAC, freeing up time to study for some other difficult BMS2011 concepts or other units. Her explanations were always great when you tune in to listen, her lectures were the only ones I didn’t require Khan Academy or Crash Course to help me consolidate. She has this quirk where she starts every lecture AND Moodle announcement post with “Dear students…” so it comes as no surprise she cares about our progress and understanding of her lecture content and she’s on the forums all the time answering people’s questions very quickly and in a lot of detail.
Anne only has 1 lecture on animal diversity and taxonomy, this is pretty much revision of high school bio and helps you understand how to read a phylogenetic tree (which will come in handy in Luca’s lectures).
Sonja has 2 neuroanatomy lectures in week 7. These examine embryonic brain development as well as the anatomy of the adult nervous system (both CNS and PNS). You’re introduced to the cranial nerves and their functions so make up (or look up) your most inappropriate mnemonics to memorise them (one is listed in the spoiled section under the heading Labs: in-person), they’re very important to know for this unit’s assessments. Sonja was really nice on the forums as well, being very quick to answer student questions especially during SWOTVAC.
Kim’s only lecture is on the anatomy and physiology of the special senses except for touch (ie sight, smell, taste and hearing). A lot of it will overlap with the neurobio you covered in Sonja’s lectures, as well as the sensation lectures in BMS1052. Like Sonja, Kim is very approachable on the forums for questions on her lecture content.
Julia takes 2 reproduction lectures in week 11 covering the developmental origins of the gonads to anatomical adaptations for effective reproduction, as well as the anatomy of the mature male and female reproductive organs. Her lectures were witty, humorous and very easily understood. There was quite a lot of overlap between her lectures and the BMS2031 reproductive lectures, so you can kind of kill 2 birds with one stone if you run out of study time.
Craig takes you only for 1 embryology lecture in week 12, which is a revision of BMS1021 dev bio and overlaps heavily with his lectures from BMS2021.
Lab quizzes: These were VERY difficult (except for lab test 1) despite being open book. You’re given 30 minutes for 20 marks and some questions involved labelling multiple parts of a dead body (prosections). Every single muscle looks the same when you’re under this immense time pressure, however I would much prefer these to be open book than closed book which they were in previous years apparently. Especially in tests 2 and 3, you won’t have much time to Google the answers or look them up in your lecture notes, from my poor results in those, I think a lesson would be “never fall behind on BMS2011 lectures”, because the lecture content, while not explicitly assessed in these tests, helps you understand the labs tremendously.
As I just alluded to, the lab tests only assessed the content covered in the labs. Test 1 was on the general and axial musculoskeletal systems. Test 2 was on the appendicular musculoskeletal system, cranio-dental anatomy, neuroanatomy and special senses. Test 3 was on thoracic viscera (ie cardiovascular + respiratory systems), abdominal viscera (ie digestive system) and the urogenital systems. When I was in one of my BMS2031 labs (I haven’t taken lab test 2 at that point but have completed test 1 and the midsem), Julia (who is also the chief examiner of BMS2011) told me that since the cohort average grades for test 1 and the midsem were so high, Luca and Olga decided to make subsequent assessments insanely difficult. Indeed, my scores reflect this pretty accurately, I scored 92.5%, 80.4% and 78.4% on the 3 lab tests respectively (the cohort average for these were 84%, 73% and 66% respectively). It really didn’t help that everything else in my other units were due on the last day of the semester which was the same day as test 3.
Labs (livestream): We have an 1-hour Zoom session with an anatomy TA every week (except week 6 which was midsem week and week 12) where we go through certain pages of our lab manual, label those schematics (ie cartoon depictions of human anatomy), answer relevant questions in the lab manual and play around with a computer anatomy model called Biodigital Human. I felt so lost during these sessions because to understand these livestream labs, they presume that you have watched and throughly understood that week’s lectures. Of course, I’m always at least 2 weeks behind in anatomy lectures, so a lot of things didn’t make sense to me and I couldn’t answer a lot of the questions our TA, Hyab, threw at us. Luckily she’s very supportive, taught us many useful mnemonics and even went above and beyond to help us nail labelling questions when the orientation of the prosection or schematic isn’t what you’re used to ie anatomical position.
Labs (in-person): Every 2nd week or so (there were only 4 in-person labs due to rona restrictions), we go into the basement of the biomed LTB and examine some actual dead bodies. They were on axial MSK, appendicular MSK, neuroanatomy and thoracic + abdominal viscera (combined in 1 lab). One of the in-person labs (neuroanatomy) got moved to a Zoom session because both Luca and Olga were sick at that time (one of the unit coordinators must be present to conduct in-person labs), so it really disadvantaged the stream that had their labs on that week. Before the lab, it’s highly recommended that you complete a prelab Moodle quiz, while it’s optional and not assessed, it really helps you understand the concepts covered in the labs. A major drawback is that the lab sessions were only 90 minutes, you only spend 20 minutes at each station which was nowhere near enough time to go through everything on your lab manual. Given that all lab content is assessable on the lab tests, incomplete lab manuals often translated to poor marks, so make sure you Google the answers if you didn’t have time to go through everything in the lab. We had a really nice TA (Rohan) who looked like the Green brothers from Crash Course on Youtube (complete with the glasses) who taught us some wicked mnemonics, I don’t know what’s wrong with us, but we all seem to learn best with questionable mnemonics:
Spoiler
Some lovers try positions that they can’t handle (scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate which were the 8 carpal bones)
Spoiler
On occasions Oliver tries to a*ally finger various guys, v*gi*as are history (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory, hypoglossal which was the order of the 12 cranial nerves)
Olga was super helpful as well despite my lack of knowledge being painfully obvious from all those missed lectures. Once when Olga asked me something in the lab and I was like “I’m sorry I don’t know, but could it be X?” with my best educated guess, she was like “Not quite [insert explanation], BTW you don’t need to apologise because you’re here to learn. You wouldn’t need to be here if you knew everything so it’s perfectly OK to not know what you’re doing”. This is the teaching style that separates average teachers from great teachers, I aim to be equally encouraging as Olga to my students if I ever become a teacher (my dream career at the moment is getting into medicine, practice medicine for 5-10 years after graduating med school, then go back and teach med school, but if that doesn’t work out, being a high school teacher will require much of the same qualities as well).
Midsem: Tests knowledge of the week 1-5 lectures (ie no lab content). It was open book like the lab tests, but it was super easy in comparison (no dead body labelling). You can literally look up everything on Google. Some answers to questions (especially from Luca’s lectures) can’t be found on the lecture slides, so you may need to spend extra time Googling or searching through your notes. However, you’re given 70 minutes for 40 multis which is more than enough time to finish, check your answers and find answers to any difficult questions. I had a very unpleasant experience with the teaching team on the midsem. A few days before the midsem, I’ve found a practice midsem for the 2012 version of BMS2011 on the internet. Given that I’m aware of the BMS2011 midsem’s notoriety from this thread on ATAR Notes, I wasn’t about to let a practice exam go to waste. I went through the 50 questions, found some that were pretty challenging and asked them on the forums. I got told off by the unit coordinators who informed me that posting past exams on forums isn’t allowed, that I shouldn’t do that again and as such they won’t help me with those questions. There was another priceless expression of this units’ poor organisation, when the midsem marks were released, it turned out that I somehow scored 101.32% on it (probably keeping even the strictest Asian parents happy) because while they entered our marks correctly (I got 19.25), they accidentally made the denominator out of 19 instead of 20. They eventually changed it back but everyone who got above 19/20 (and hence “got” >100%) had a good laugh about it. The cohort average was 87%.
Group project: We were assigned a topic about human anatomy in the week 3 online lab and this was due on Friday of week 10 at 5PM. Our topic was to create an A1-sized poster (you can’t change the canvas size) evaluating the identity of the hominin Homo floresiensis aka the Hobbit which was discovered on Flores, Indonesia in 2004, comparing and contrasting various models in scientific literature that attempt to explain its origin. In essence, this was a literature review but in poster form, we ended up using 10 different references. Hands down this is the worst part of this already terrible unit. We received no guidance from the teaching team on this poster whatsoever and the rubric was extremely subjective and poorly written. To add insult to injury, all the fonts had to be bigger than a certain size and we’re given almost no freedom on the poster as we’re not allowed to change the template which was horribly designed. However, I found a hack that allowed us to fit everything onto the page (by decreasing line spacing, the unit coordinators never prohibited this even though they didn’t allow small fonts). The worst part comes from the backstabbing group members (only 1 backstabber for this project luckily). Similar to the BMS2021 group project, the team evaluation was worth 15% of the group project, ie 3% of your overall unit grade and the poster component was worth 85%. I only received 76% on the Feedback Fruits review because of one backstabber. Thankfully, we scored 76/85 for the poster section, giving me an 87.4% overall on the group project which I guess is still acceptable. They said (and even gave me a 2/5 in the fostering teamwork criterion when I don’t think anyone else in the group gave someone else less than a 3/5):
Spoiler
“Some decisions seemed to be made based on own thought which drove the poster's direction into what was envisioned by a single member rather than the whole team. Please seek to work with the team and ask for suggestions or feedback on ideas rather than implement them.”
“The lack of a 'team' feeling was very present. It would benefit greatly if you could work to identify what everyone does best and go off that rather than complete most tasks on your own. There is more at stake here than just marks and I am sure it would benefit you if you learn of the humanity behind working with a team on any set task.”
The above 2 passive aggressive reviews were written by the same person for me in the anonymous review system Feedback Fruits. Yes, there ARE some things in life more important grades, perhaps not being a backstabber is one of them. And being one means you have ABSOLUTELY NO moral high ground over me to lecture me, judge me and labelling me as lacking humanity or empathy. I mean, bruh, I never saw you complaining about a lack of team spirit or how the project was done by one person when I was busy pulling all those all nighters finishing the project, rectifying some cases of plagiarism that could’ve gotten us all of us kicked out of uni if not corrected (had put a lot of copied pasted stuff into my own words and referencing them properly) when you’re doing God knows what. You’re probably just trashing me on the review platform with such a pretentious lecture so that my grades go down and I look like I’m a sociopath just so you get into med more easily (sorry for the rant, back on topic). Edit: I do get where you're coming from and my rant may have been interpreted as an inability to receive constructive criticism, but I had teammates who gave me all 3s (which was lower than how that person rated me as a whole) and wrote really detailed and critical suggestions for me in my other group project for BMS2021 and I was ok with that. Heck, I believed this person does have a point in some ways, it just comes off to me that they're playing mind games and being passive aggressive, one shouldn't dismiss the message just because the messenger didn't convey it well
The other group members gave me very fair and honest reviews (mostly 4 out of 5), I gave everyone high reviews too because I don’t believe anyone should be penalised on easy peer review marks for such a terrible assessment task (yet some snake seems to think it’s OK). I suffered in the teamwork criteria because again, I had bad experiences from high school group projects and tried to steal other people’s parts to do them myself, but I feel it’s reasonable if it’s honest and not playing mind games to make me look bad in front of the lecturers. However, in future projects I will definitely trust my teammates more and delegate tasks so that I don’t steal everything and do everything myself because I do recognise the importance of teamwork and I want to respect the feedback I receive from my other good teammates. It doesn’t matter if I become a doctor or a teacher, in any profession I’ll end up doing teamwork of some description. I’m not entirely faultless in the project either, due to the various other labs, I’ve put off doing the project (same as everyone else in my group) until 2 weeks before it was due.
The only good that came out of the group project is that you can interpret it as a blessing in disguise if you want. It exposes you to how crappy certain people can be, which helps you lower expectations when you’re dealing with Karens no matter what profession you end up in.
End of semester exam: Closed book, 130 minutes for 60 multis (including some with drop down options) assessing lecture knowledge from weeks 6-12. This exam was way easier than everyone initially expected, especially given that it was closed book, otherwise many of us would’ve failed. There were like 2 hard questions from Luca’s lectures that went into a lot of detail about the theory covered in his lectures (which I wrongfully assumed to just be context, please assume everything is examinable unless specifically indicated otherwise), but it is what it is, you can only give it a lucky guess and hope for the best. Protip: in dropdown questions, if you know all but 2 of the options (say you only know 1 out of 3), for the 2 you don’t know put the same answer for both so that you’re guaranteed 2/3 in the example I’ve given instead of risking mixing them up and only scoring 1/3. All those extra 1/3 and 1/4 marks you pick up this way will boost your unit score when every single mark counts in biomed (as we say, HDs get MDs). This was the only exam I felt I aced this semester (and it’s the most objective one). Edit: now that results are out, I can safely say that there was minimal scaling (maybe only be 1 mark out of 60). Which is surprising because one’d expect quite a lot of scaling for the hardest unit in biomed as I heard it’s the unit with the most fails in previous years from my TAs.
Edit: Luca just made an announcement on the average grades on the exam, it was 69% (no cap). This is pretty surprising because this implies that the final exam was harder than practical theme test 2 (73%), which was certainly not the case for me. They also commented that the grade was consistent with past years' BMS2011 exam scores when conducted on campus with invigilation, so I think they figured out a way to stop the WAMflation from cheating which is very good news, it means you no longer have to push yourself so hard to beat the cheat