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Uni Stuff => General University Discussion and Queries => The University Journey Journal => Topic started by: Sine on September 12, 2017, 12:30:11 am

Title: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on September 12, 2017, 12:30:11 am
Sine's University Journey Journal: 2019 Edition

A little bit about myself.

VCE (2015 - 2016)
2015: Biology
2016: English, Chemistry, Specialist Maths, Maths Methods and MUEP Chemistry

Currently studying: Bachelor of Biomedicine (scholars program) @ Monash University (3rd year)
University units completed/completing:
2016 (during highschool)
CHM1011 - Chemistry I
CHM1022 - Chemistry II
2017
BMS1011 - Biomedical Chemistry
BMS1021 - Cell, Tissues and Organisms
BMS1031 - Medical Biophysics
MTH1030 - Techniques for Modelling
BMS1042 - Public Health and Preventitive Medicine
BMS1052 - Human Neurobiology
BMS1062 - Molecular Biology
MTH2010 - Multivariable Calculus
BMS2011 - Structure of the human body
BMS2021 - Human molecular cell biology
BMS2031 - Body Systems
BMS2042 - Human Genetics
BMS2052 - Microbes in Health and Disease
BMS2062 - Introduction to Bioinformatics
BCH2011 - Structure and Function of Cellular Biomolecules
BMS3031 - Molecular Mechanisms of Disease
MTH2132 - The Nature and Beauty of Mathematics
Units currently studying
-Semester Break-
So if anyone has any questions on any of those units feel free to reply to this thread.

A brief non-specific general summary of how I found my 1st year of university:
Spoiler
The easiest way to describe uni would be to compare it to vce. Most would correctly assume that your studying would be a lot more independent than highschool. This is somewhat true you will never have anyone telling you what to study, when to study it, when to complete assesments and so on but if you are willing to put your own time and effort to go and look for assistance it is more than possible. This could be either from someone at the uni who is involved with the unit you are studying (lecturers, tutors ,etc) or even someone who has completed the unit already. I found the latter to be really beneficial especially at the start of the semester.

After biomedicine:
Spoiler
I will be doing some sort of postgrad degree after I complete the bachelor of biomedicine (3 years) in 2019 but still am not quite sure on what exactly would be my best option going forward. Hopefully I can work it out within the next 2 years.  I tend to think that I will probably end up doing one of JD/DDS/MD and to a much lesser extent acturial studies.

Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: K888 on September 12, 2017, 12:55:31 am
Woo! Glad to finally get you on board with the journal, Sine ;)

How are you enjoying Biomed so far this year?
Have you had all your MSTs? How do you think they went? :)
Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: zofromuxo on September 12, 2017, 07:06:03 am
After going at it in the communal journal, Sine has now joined the other "awesome" university students and made their journal. Welcome to the "dark" side :D

Is there any difference between a Biomed degree at Monash and the degree your doing at all?
Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: Sine on September 12, 2017, 11:07:20 am
Quote from: K888 on September 12, 2017, 12:55:31 am
Woo! Glad to finally get you on board with the journal, Sine ;)

How are you enjoying Biomed so far this year?
Have you had all your MSTs? How do you think they went? :)
Biomed is really great, have had 3 of my 5 MST's, also have a end of semester test for some reason even though that unit has an exam. All of them have been quite good so far hopefully I can continue it. ;D

Quote from: zofromuxo on September 12, 2017, 07:06:03 am
After going at it in the communal journal, Sine has now joined the other "awesome" university students and made their journal. Welcome to the "dark" side :D

Is there any difference between a Biomed degree at Monash and the degree your doing at all?
some differences but that much, we all do the same units and are in the same cohort however with my course you are allowed to overload from year 1 and finish within 2 years if you have done biomed units in year 12. Although I don't know anyone who is doing this. Additionally there are more events and opporunities for netforwing for those in my stream.
Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: Sine on September 12, 2017, 11:14:19 am
12/09/2017
-BMS1062 MST tomorrow, which is on half a semesters worth of content. hence only been studying that for the past few days. (10%)
-BMS1052 got a 2ND MST next week for some reason LOL (10%)
-Got a maths assignment (MTH2010) due on Friday
-also hoping unit coordinators actually release some marks for once
Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: Sine on September 13, 2017, 09:14:01 am
Seriously, who puts a MST at 8am?!?!?
-just finished that, was pretty light tbh but there are always those questions which would go multiple ways.
-Need to prep of an oral presentation tomorrow (15%)
-Still got a neuro mst next however it's only on one topic so hopefully won't be too much content.
Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: zofromuxo on September 13, 2017, 07:22:30 pm
Quote from: Sine on September 13, 2017, 09:14:01 am
Seriously, who puts a MST at 8am?!?!?
-just finished that, was pretty light tbh but there are always those questions which would go multiple ways.
-Need to prep of an oral presentation tomorrow (15%)
-Still got a neuro mst next however it's only on one topic so hopefully won't be too much content.
I feel the exact same for any class at 8am or earlier... It drives me bonkers.
I guess the person in charge of timetabling need to realize that university students like "partying and getting drunk" :P.
Title: Re: Sine of the Times
Post by: Sine on September 14, 2017, 06:36:57 pm
Quote from: zofromuxo on September 13, 2017, 07:22:30 pm
I feel the exact same for any class at 8am or earlier... It drives me bonkers.
I guess the person in charge of timetabling need to realize that university students like "partying and getting drunk" :P.
ahah yeah (there are classes earlier than 8am?)......although I don't drink :D

14/09/17
-had a group oral presentation which went well, luckily I got a great group (heard so many disastrious stories)
Title: Re: Sine
Post by: Sine on September 18, 2017, 01:19:56 pm
18/09/17

-got a prac in 40mins 3% for 7marks ahaha
-2nd neuro MST on wednesday ; not sure who decided to hve two msts
-also why is the midsem break after week 9?
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on October 05, 2017, 04:24:41 pm
-basically finishing all in semester assesment this week (outside of my elective which never takes too much time: MTH2010) which is nice for exam revision. (last semester had assesment right up till the last day of semester)
-I have a Neuro prac writeup worth 10% although this is a group assignment so shouldn't be too much. (doing it with people I trust so should be fine :D)
-2nd Mid semester test (or end of semester test LOL) worth 5% of BMS1042
-Twitter assignment (5%) shouldn't be too bad hoping to knock it down in <15minutes. Basically tweeting about public health + some short answer questions.

Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on November 14, 2017, 05:12:18 pm
Year 1 done.

Anyway my journal was at the bottom of the list and required an update  :P
Overall this semester has been a slight step up from sem 1 and requried a lot more effort but the subjects were definitely more enjoyable imo. Kinda my first proper "break" in a year (was travelling overseas between semesters) so hopefully finally get some proper rest.
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: AngelWings on November 14, 2017, 05:21:29 pm
Quote from: Sine on November 14, 2017, 05:12:18 pm
Year 1 done.

Ah, congrats on one year complete! I'm sure you earnt your rest.   
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on February 25, 2018, 10:03:11 pm
Updated my opening post to be relevant to 2018 and it can be found here.

Also a sneaky bump because I'll be using the thread since uni is starting tomorrow :)
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on March 06, 2018, 08:20:15 pm
Week 1
No nice transition into uni this time, straight into content, quiz's and group work. Whilst this semester the workload has felt a lot more per unit than in the past the content has been extremely intresting so that kinda negates the extra content we have to deal with.

BMS2011
The unit name is so long so i'll save you the time and just say it is basically an anatomy unit. We did pieces of anatomy here and there last year so the start has been somewhat nice. The two hour lecture was really fun (LOL) with great analogies and stories by the lecturer, but he ended up not finishing all the content so that was somwhat annoying. I had a pre-prac quiz which went towards our grade which was only 8 mis long which was extremly weird. Gladly it only ended up just being 5 basic questions.

BMS2021
Human molecular cell biology - basically biochemistry and the pathways in the body. We had a biochem unit in first year so the first week was based on revision but with a lot of new content as well. The hardest part would be trying to determine what you actually need to know and what is just their as an example to understand the concept. The first workshop was in the new building at monash which they call "learning in the round" it's a really nice room (apparently it's really hard for unit coordinators to get this room LOL) with a lot of new acessories and such.

BMS2031
Body Systems - started of with the circulatory system, although we studied it last year they went straight into new concepts and just assumed we remembered everything. At this point the lectures seem to be really well put together and the tutorials feel like a lot of thought has been put into them and the content is really engaging. We had our tutorial in the "new building" at monash but not in the coveted "learning in the round" our tute group basically had directed activities which we had to answer or complete within the timeframe which wasn't too bad. Unlike other years the tutorials are examinable so basically in the place of another lecture but is great since you can interact with the unit coordinator readily.
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on July 07, 2019, 09:57:54 am
Hi really love your university journey journal. Any updates so far?
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on July 09, 2019, 02:23:33 pm
Quote from: gameboy99 on July 07, 2019, 09:57:54 am
Hi really love your university journey journal. Any updates so far?
Hey, thank you for your interest in my journal! :)

I'll be updating it very soon, hopefully, I will be able to summarise how I found the first half of the year to be(I will try to go into detail).

In semester 2 I will definitely be better and try to update the journal more frequently (I'm thinking weekly after each week of uni).

~Sine
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on July 15, 2019, 07:16:30 pm
Quote from: Sine on July 09, 2019, 02:23:33 pm
Hey, thank you for your interest in my journal! :)

I'll be updating it very soon, hopefully, I will be able to summarise how I found the first half of the year to be(I will try to go into detail).

In semester 2 I will definitely be better and try to update the journal more frequently (I'm thinking weekly after each week of uni).

~Sine

That sounds great... can't wait!  :D
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on July 15, 2019, 08:59:19 pm
Hopefully, I can use this thread for my experiences in semester 2 at university and also open it up to any questions from anyone reading.
If anyone has any questions (that aren’t too personal) in regards to anything – be it VCE, university etc please post in this thread rather than using the personal message feature so everyone can benefit.

So, in my first semester this year I completed BMS3031 which is a third year “capstone” biomed unit called Molecular Mechanisms of Disease. It was probably one of the most difficult subject (and content heavy subject) I have taken to date. This semester the vast majority of my study time was probably put into this subject with my other two subjects just kind of fitting around what I needed to do for this one. It covered many topics from cancer, infection/immunity, neurodegeneration and even DOHaD amongst a few others. Note that the topics covered in this unit changes year by year to stay up to date with any discoveries in the past year. This was a “double subject” so it meant it was worth 12 credit points and was double the workload – e.g. double the number of lectures of a normal unit and all of this alongside both a workshop and tutorial. Apparently, there was meant to be another 2-hour seminar, but they removed that this year.
Just a note that I might reuse some information from here when I make a review for the subject in the future.
Weekly the lectures were in 2-hour session blocks with a 10-minute break usually in the middle. They were quite content heavy but that is to be expected with a biomed unit. The best part of the lecture series for me was that many of the lectures were linked so it helped with understanding and learning of the concepts. 

Workshops were also placed throughout the semester we had 6 THEORY workshops on different topics – from memory each topic got a workshop except for the last one which was neurodegeneration. You could think of a workshop as the equivalent of another lecture or two depending on how much content was covered. However, I felt learning the workshop content was aided very well by structured questions to go through and also the ability to work with our friends and make new friends. Often at the end of the workshop the unit coordinator would randomly select a group to present the answers from the workshop – the coordinator or lecturer present at the time would correct any mistakes which was helpful for those students and all the audience to make a note of. Also, workshops had quite a bit of overlap between some lectures (not all of them though – some was completely differnet content). Usually at the end of each workshop there would be a quiz which was worth a small percentage of the unit grade. For this first workshop we also had a quiz at the very start of the workshop but they removed that for the following 5 workshops.

In this timeslot throughout the semester we also had some “Professional Development” and Careers workshops which I think are the same ones you can take through connect. For some students this stuff could be pretty useful if you haven’t had much experience in work or needed help finding work and getting prepared for a career after graduation.

As I said – alongside these workshops we also had tutorials. This ran for 2 hours in classes of about 20-25 students with 3 tutors. Each week we would be doing something different – for instance, one we week when went into detail of a case study for a patient taking warfarin and the medication not working and trying to explain why it wasn’t working and what we could do to help her - since our preceding lecture series was on pharmacology. We also had a week where we looked at certain ethical issues surroudning the scenario where a scientist had faked their data. Analysing the consequences of this and what we can do to prevent it and maintain trust within the community. Generally, these types of weeks the assessment was only 1-2% and submitted in-class or for the more difficult tasks 48 hours post class.
The MST for this unit occurred in week 7 during one of the lecture slots. However, this test “only” covered the first 3 weeks of contents (precision/personalsied medicine and pharmacology). So, it was on all the lectures and the two theory workshops. Overall, I found the MST to be a good difficulty - definitely some questions you had to put a lot of thought into but also one’s where you could easily answer in a matter of seconds.

The big in-semester assessments were MATs – Major Assessment Tasks – there were three of them and they were each worth 10% each.  Probably the most controversial part of the unit – very mixed feelings about these tasks. Personally, once I got used to how it ran and what was expected after the first MAT I thought the second and third were quite manageable.
The first two MATs were done in groups randomly chosen. The topic of the first one was certain drugs that act as therapeutics for certain diseases (cancer, schizophrenia, AIDS, Rheumatoid Arthritis). A lot of this dependent on how good your group was imo. The second topic was the career, findings, future of a lab head at Monash University. So, you would research a certain researcher’s career and also delve into their findings. Finally, the last MAT was on Biomedical News and Views article. It is basically something a little bit simpler than a literature review but more complex than a good media article. Definitely more aligned with the science side of it rather than media reporting though. The aim of is was to convey a certain finding (in the past two years) in a context and language that someone who didn’t have a background in the specific area of study would understand. Although you could assume basic scientific knowledge. E.g. Analysing a new cancer thearpy so that a physicist could understand it.

The exam was an e-Exam, so each student was assigned a computer at the exam venue. The exam was 190 minutes in length with no reading time. The experience was probably a bit better than I expected, it helped that they gave us blank sheets of paper if we wanted to write anything down – which I found helpful. But, I think not many people used it. Each section of the exam was written by a differnet lecturer or multiple lecturers, so it was split up into 6 different sections. (The two topics from the MST was not covered here).

Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on July 19, 2019, 08:49:32 am
Wow great insight into first semester of third year! Wondering if you could also provide your experience of 2nd year second semester as that is what I'll be facing next??  :)
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on July 23, 2019, 01:28:57 pm
Quote from: gameboy99 on July 19, 2019, 08:49:32 am
Wow great insight into first semester of third year! Wondering if you could also provide your experience of 2nd year second semester as that is what I'll be facing next??  :)
Sure will do!
what units are you taking this semester?
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on July 23, 2019, 07:01:55 pm
Quote from: Sine on July 23, 2019, 01:28:57 pm
Sure will do!
what units are you taking this semester?

I'm doing BMS2042, BMS2052, BMS2062 and DEV2022.  :)
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on August 02, 2019, 06:37:02 pm
Quote from: gameboy99 on July 23, 2019, 07:01:55 pm
I'm doing BMS2042, BMS2052, BMS2062 and DEV2022.  :)
Hey! I definitely haven't forgotten about this - will post in the next few days :)

DEV2022 is the only one I haven't done, however, some of my friends are doing it this semester and some did it last year.
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on August 04, 2019, 05:07:40 pm
Quote from: Sine on August 02, 2019, 06:37:02 pm
Hey! I definitely haven't forgotten about this - will post in the next few days :)

DEV2022 is the only one I haven't done, however, some of my friends are doing it this semester and some did it last year.

Sounds good. Thanks once again for the amazing insight.  :D
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on August 05, 2019, 06:00:44 pm
Here is my BMS2042 review that I did last year - I feel i'll probably just repeat the same stuff here and below is how I found 2062.

Alrighty, last year I completed BMS2062 – Introduction to bioinformatics. The title sounds like a lot of use of computers and what not. There definitely is a big focus on however I found them to teach us very and you don’t have to be great at IT to do well. The thoery component is like any other biomed unit – although a little bit more about databases/searches and using software to look at protien structure so a bit of it will have overlap with your practical parts. However, you still go into some biological concepts like neurodegeneration, mRNA, protein folding/misfolding etc

The practical component they have done well to create worksheets with really clear steps in each practical so that basically anyone who is careful get this stuff done quite well. I think the most difficult part would be actually synthesizing the important information from the data you find in databases.  I should note that as you go further in the unit – more and more will be assumed of you – so it is important that you understand each practical worksheet. I think I had overall 10 practical worksheets worth 2% each. The weighting for this component of the unit I felt was not that great since some weeks you had to put a lot of time into it to get full marks. However, some weeks you could do it within the time of the 2 hour class so it may have balanced out. For us worksheets were due 48 hours after the end of our practical, the main reason for this was so that we could get feedback quickly. My tutor was quite good and usually marked everythign within 4-5 days. Also, most tutors are very open to students asking questions and helping but like always this is tutor dependent.

For my year instead of a mid-semester test (which was there in 2017) we had 5 small theory tests. I think in 2017 with the MST the cohort did quite badly  - maybe because they had MSTs for all the core units that year  - idk really. Anyway the small theory test two of them worth 2% and three of them worth 3% - roughly  10 questions with some questions being double pointers (if application). Generally, the questions are quite doable if you have revised the corresponding lectures. However, sometimes there are some application questions at the end. I found them great since you could just derive the answer on the spot but for students who heavily rely on rote learning it wasn’t too great. So, I believe for this unit there is a large importance for actual understanding of concepts and being able to answer questions which you may have not considered or thought about before.

There are also two major assessment tasks (MAT) worth 10% and 15%. One of them was due in the middle of the semester and the second one due at the end of the semester. For these tasks all students were allocated to one of 4 different genetic disease conditiosn. I got phenylketonuria and that was the topic that we used for both assessments. This was quite nice since we were able to use a lot of the information from our first one in the second one and also didn’t have to start over and learn a whole new condition. The first task was to create a brochure on the disease with the target audience being families/people with this condition. That meant that we couldn’t really use the normal biomed language and had to bring it down to a standard of a lay person. You could assume year 10 science knowledge. Which doesn’t help much for the things that you need to discuss. Like mutations/protein folding/cofactors/clinical aspect. You also had to include a few diagrams that were self-made, this theme of creating visuals for an audience becomes quite important in third year as well. For my topic one of my diagrams was a family tree displaying how one could get phenylketonuria (both parents needed to be carriers) and then outline the chance of the child having the condition. Another image I did was a simple explanation of how genetic code mutations = gene mutations = amino acid mutations and showed the most common mutaiton there which was splicing IIRC. MAT2 was on similar concepts of MAT1 although some extensions – since MAT1 focused on the actual gene a lot more and MAT2 was more on the protein. Also, MAT2 was a website – we had to use google websites so it wasn’t too bad to make, even if you aren’t too create. The practical workshops prepare you well for both assessment tasks since one of them is dedicated to building a page of a website and also another one is using PowerPoint to create self-made images in the context of biology.

The end of semester exam was a paper based exam worth 40% of your total mark for the unit. From memory there was 50 multiple choice questions. 30 of which were worth 1 mark and 20 of them work 2 marks. I don’t think there was too much of a difference between the questions though. The 2 markers were probably more leaning towards extended multiple choice where there was a specific scenario and you had to derive information from that – which wasn’t necessarily what you might have learnt/studied so it is great if you like application of knowledge.
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on April 04, 2020, 09:41:36 am
Hi Sine,
I have loved the way you have taken everyone throughout your university journey.
Any updates?  :)
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: Sine on April 14, 2020, 12:51:58 pm
Quote from: gameboy99 on April 04, 2020, 09:41:36 am
Hi Sine,
I have loved the way you have taken everyone throughout your university journey.
Any updates?  :)
Hey, sorry for the late response.
I will still be writing a few university subject reviews (MTH2132, BCH2011, BMS3031, PHA2022, STA1010, BMS3052) from what I did last year which should hopefully be a good summary of so there will definitely be a few updates soon.
Title: Re: "Sine"
Post by: gameboy99 on April 14, 2020, 01:44:18 pm
Awesome, can't wait :D
Appreciate your time and effort to write these reviews!