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UoO Summer School Chat/Enquiry

Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Hi everyone,

Welcome to MSO.

This thread is for those taking Summer School paper(s) at Otago University in 2019. You can ask any questions and chat/banter with fellow students who bravely gave up on their holiday in the name of further education (or to get good grades, we know how it is).

Good luck!
 
Has anyone done FORB and BIOA together for summer school? What was the workload like through the weeks and were A+'s managable or were the tests quite hard and cut down on the marks too much?

Thanks :)
 

Verdigris

baby doctor
Silliest Member 2019
My friend did FORB and BIOA together. If you do choose to do them together, remember not to neglect FORB for BIOA - BIOA is pretty content-heavy, so it can be easy to think that FORB is not such a big deal, but if you don't put in the work for FORB, you won't get the A+. If you are feeling super fresh and ready to charge into some hard work, then it's possible to do it. Don't underestimate the power of the summer sun - it leeches away at your concentration :p Also keep in mind that there is zero recharge time between summer school and first semester.
Basically, yes you can do it if you really want to, but it's not gonna be a good time at all.
 

Verdigris

baby doctor
Silliest Member 2019
It's a pain that we only have 3 days between the end of SS exams and the start of sem 1 but oh well I guess ...
Yeah, I'd say unless you had some easy papers lined up for semester 1, that lack of a break is really a killer. Literally, you get a weekend to study for your exams (the weekend everyone is arriving in Dunedin), your exams are close to back-to-back in O week (when the rest of Dunedin doesn't know what sleep or considerate voice and music volumes are), and THEN you get a big fat weekend before you get tossed in the deep end with 300-level papers :)

That being said, I know multiple people who've done it, gotten two A+s, and then gone on to be fine in sem1, just be careful of burnout. You also need to be doing UCAT prep, after all.
 

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Fili

Dentist 🦷
Moderator
Yeah, I'd say unless you had some easy papers lined up for semester 1, that lack of a break is really a killer. Literally, you get a weekend to study for your exams (the weekend everyone is arriving in Dunedin), your exams are close to back-to-back in O week (when the rest of Dunedin doesn't know what sleep or considerate voice and music volumes are), and THEN you get a big fat weekend before you get tossed in the deep end with 300-level papers :)

That being said, I know multiple people who've done it, gotten two A+s, and then gone on to be fine in sem1, just be careful of burnout. You also need to be doing UCAT prep, after all.


Yeah I'm a bit worried about that as well since I'm doing 3 300s in sem 1 and a 200 level paper incase I want to do Honours + yes UCAT prep in between too ... We'll see what happens in 3 weeks in SS then ahaha
 

The_Lopen

Otago MBChB II
I did the two and I would recommend it, it won't be as hard and as much workload as you would get in a full semester but you also won't be able to take full advantage of the hot weather. The biggest downside would be that you have no break between summer school and semester 1, and I felt burnt out faster. I had friends that only did 1 that started to regret it because they only did 7 papers in the year and wished they had the other to fall back on. I did it so idI have 8 papers in third year with 5 300 levels for hons, doing 3 papers a semester.

Although idk when summer school starts so idk if this reply will be helpful
 

Fili

Dentist 🦷
Moderator
I did the two and I would recommend it, it won't be as hard and as much workload as you would get in a full semester but you also won't be able to take full advantage of the hot weather. The biggest downside would be that you have no break between summer school and semester 1, and I felt burnt out faster. I had friends that only did 1 that started to regret it because they only did 7 papers in the year and wished they had the other to fall back on. I did it so idI have 8 papers in third year with 5 300 levels for hons, doing 3 papers a semester.

Although idk when summer school starts so idk if this reply will be helpful

Ty for the input and yeah summer school just started yesterday and I'm doing both papers. Currently, I'm still re-thinking my semester papers since I'd rather go all in and only do 4 300s instead of 5 300s to do honours and do another year + the Otago marking scheme would have changed in 2020 and I would be at a massive disadvantage.
 

The_Lopen

Otago MBChB II
I did 2 two 300 and one 200 in S1 and three 300 in S2.


The S2 workload was far less, but that may have been the paper selection. But I don't think doing five 300s is that bad
 

jukebox85

Member
hey my friend failed chem 191 and will be doing summer school for it. he wants to apply for med through grad entry so hypothetically if he gets an A+ in it, can that be counted towards his grad entry score?
 

Gemma

Member
Ty for the input and yeah summer school just started yesterday and I'm doing both papers. Currently, I'm still re-thinking my semester papers since I'd rather go all in and only do 4 300s instead of 5 300s to do honours and do another year + the Otago marking scheme would have changed in 2020 and I would be at a massive disadvantage.
How did you end up finding 2 papers in summer school? Is it possible to get A+'s in both as long as you put in the work??
 

Fili

Dentist 🦷
Moderator
How did you end up finding 2 papers in summer school? Is it possible to get A+'s in both as long as you put in the work??

If you put in the work yes. I didn't put in as much effort in the internals for one of the two papers I did so I didn't do as well as I wanted to for one of them. If you put in the work, it's do-able.
 

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