Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

[Kikii]

About the interview at the end of first year..

Is it okay to appear a little bit shy/nervous?
Or are you supposed to be radiating with confidence?

Thanx

 

[govpop]

About the interview at the end of first year..

Is it okay to appear a little bit shy/nervous?
Or are you supposed to be radiating with confidence?

Thanx

you are supposed to appear as whatever you are like.

Edit: as long as you are not at the extreme ends of the spectrum

 

[midnight]

Just try and be genuine

 

[shmvitt]

I'm guessing the exam doesn't have as much of those horrible multi choice questions?

 

[4everAlone]

I'm guessing the exam doesn't have as much of those horrible multi choice questions?

The exam has some MCQ's and some long/short answers, MCQ's covering stuff that wasn't in test 1 or 2 and written questions on everything. But if you know the concepts the written questions aren't too much trouble

 

[Nealie]

My husband and I have done alot of grad recruitment over the years - in other professions and you see all types of candidates. Shy is fine as long is comes with a quiet confidence and clarity. Shy sux if it means you stumble over everything you say, don't interpret/answer questions correctly, trail off into silence while you're talking etc. If you're there, you're already clever enough to do the job, that's not in question. The interview is a chance to show that you can hold your own socially/with people & I guess a little under pressure. The truth is very few candidates get automatically rejected or accepted on the strength of the interview, which means for most, the scores cluster around 6-9/10. The difference between a 6 or 9 is thoughtful answers, genuiness & bit of a sense of humour. Some people naturally interview better than others because they dispel the awkward feel of an interview by being a bit relaxed & candid.

FWIW - I intend to post on here closer to interviews with the kinds of questions I got asked etc.

 

[Kikii]

Okay
Thanks govpop, midnight!
And thanks Nealie for your really detailed reply,
That was very helpful.

 

[Kikii]

1) A lot of the learning in Biomed is based on memorising/ rote-learning/ cramming lots of info?
2) But is it still really important to understand the key concepts to get good grades?
3) Is it possible for someone to get A+ if they can memorise really well (and put many hours into doing this) but don't actually have a good understanding of the information?

And lastly, I was wondering about the four courses listed below..
POPLHLTH 111
MEDSCI 142
BIOSCI 107
CHEM 110

4) Which of these courses require mostly just memorising heaps of info,
which ones require you to really think and apply your knowledge,
which require actual understanding of the topics to get a good grade etc?
5) Which course did you find easiest and why?

Thanks!

 

[govpop]

1.) yes
2and3) i can only speak for myself but I found that understanding the concepts well helped me to memorise the details. could you succeed through plain memorisation? i don't know. but even if you could you wouldn't want to. Believe it or not 2nd year builds heavily on what you learn in OLY1 (I would be floundering if I did this stuff straight out of high school). and concepts remain long after insignificant details are forgotten.
4.) by far the most memorisation= poplhlth. the others depend on your lectures. some have lots of regurgitation (first 107 lecturer) and some have lots of concepts (respiratory section in medsci). also short answer tends to be more regurgitation than mcq
5.) medsci because it was the most enjoyable for me. you think the embryo lab was cool? wait until you do dissection in medsci labs!

 

[4everAlone]

1.) yes
2and3) i can only speak for myself but I found that understanding the concepts well helped me to memorise the details. could you succeed through plain memorisation? i don't know. but even if you could you wouldn't want to. Believe it or not 2nd year builds heavily on what you learn in OLY1 (I would be floundering if I did this stuff straight out of high school). and concepts remain long after insignificant details are forgotten.
4.) by far the most memorisation= poplhlth. the others depend on your lectures. some have lots of regurgitation (first 107 lecturer) and some have lots of concepts (respiratory section in medsci). also short answer tends to be more regurgitation than mcq
5.) medsci because it was the most enjoyable for me. you think the embryo lab was cool? wait until you do dissection in medsci labs!

I second absolutely everything govpop just said!

 

[g.walker]

1.) yes
2and3) i can only speak for myself but I found that understanding the concepts well helped me to memorise the details. could you succeed through plain memorisation? i don't know. but even if you could you wouldn't want to. Believe it or not 2nd year builds heavily on what you learn in OLY1 (I would be floundering if I did this stuff straight out of high school). and concepts remain long after insignificant details are forgotten.
4.) by far the most memorisation= poplhlth. the others depend on your lectures. some have lots of regurgitation (first 107 lecturer) and some have lots of concepts (respiratory section in medsci). also short answer tends to be more regurgitation than mcq
5.) medsci because it was the most enjoyable for me. you think the embryo lab was cool? wait until you do dissection in medsci labs!

I agree with all except for 4&5
0
I found medsci needed the most memorisation since each lecture was packed with stuff to memorise wheres pophlth (modules 1, 2 & 4) only had concepts and a few slides here and there.

As for easiest, chem was by far the easiest paper in OLY1 overall, probably coz I got an A grade in A level chemistry

 

[Kikii]

Thanks govpop, 4everAlone and g.walker!

5.) medsci because it was the most enjoyable for me. you think the embryo lab was cool? wait until you do dissection in medsci labs!

What do you dissect?

1) Out of these:
POPLHLTH 111
MEDSCI 142
BIOSCI 107
CHEM 110

Does poplhlth, medsci and chem require good understanding of concepts to do well? And most of Biosci is regurgitation of memorised material?

2) Approximately how many hours of study did you do per week in first year Biomed/Health Science?
Thinking back, was it necessary to do this much study (could you have achieved the same grades with less hours of study)?
Did you study for more hours per day in the weekend than on week days or was it pretty much the same no. of hours every day of the week?

3) Did you procrastinate a few hours per week? Still had time for hobbies and regular exercise (regular exercise = at least 30 mins per day)?

4) I'm an NCEA student and apparently NCEA does not have that much breadth. Therefore, I have never really had to memorise/ learn lots of information before so I don't know how good I would be at doing this in Biomed. To those NCEA students who did Biomed, was it quite hard to adjust to the new learning style, or not really? Did you have to study more than Cambridge students who have already learnt some of the stuff?

Thanks.

 

[g.walker]

Thanks govpop, 4everAlone and g.walker!


What do you dissect?

1) Out of these:
POPLHLTH 111
MEDSCI 142
BIOSCI 107
CHEM 110

Does poplhlth, medsci and chem require good understanding of concepts to do well? And most of Biosci is regurgitation of memorised material?

2) Approximately how many hours of study did you do per week in first year Biomed/Health Science?
Thinking back, was it necessary to do this much study (could you have achieved the same grades with less hours of study)?
Did you study for more hours per day in the weekend than on week days or was it pretty much the same no. of hours every day of the week?

3) Did you procrastinate a few hours per week? Still had time for hobbies and regular exercise (regular exercise = at least 30 mins per day)?

4) I'm an NCEA student and apparently NCEA does not have that much breadth. Therefore, I have never really had to memorise/ learn lots of information before so I don't know how good I would be at doing this in Biomed. To those NCEA students who did Biomed, was it quite hard to adjust to the new learning style, or not really? Did you have to study more than Cambridge students who have already learnt some of the stuff?

Thanks.

Kikii, everybody had a different experience than the other. Study hours is, as you can imagine, extremely variable. Everyone has a different study/grades ratio and it can get very disproportionate across the class. Dont forget that we come from different backgrounds of NCEA and Cambridge, along with a lot of med hopefuls who have switched degrees or so.

Preception of subjects is also variable although there is plenty of memorising and regurgitating to do in every single one of the biomed papers. Depending on how much of the material you covered in school, you will definately find a different amount of understanding to do. For example, there were a lot of concepts in chem110, but thankfully I had done ~85% of them in school already so it was mostly revising and memorising for me.

My best advice for you is to just go with the flow and see how things turn out. Nothing is decided yet. In the beggining of the year I honestly thought Id end up studying 4 hours per day (which is what a lot of the lecturers told us we should do at the time). I ended up procrastinating only studying before tests/exams and going to the gym 4 days a week for 1.5 hours

 

[Kikii]

Okay, thanks for the advice g.walker!

 

[Kikii]

At Auckland/Otago:

Are there so many people aiming for med that some people who would have been great doctors (as in, they have a great personality and are smart) miss out due to limited no. of med places?

 

[4everAlone]

At Auckland/Otago:

Are there so many people aiming for med that some people who would have been great doctors (as in, they have a great personality and are smart) miss out due to limited no. of med places?

I say yes

 

[greenglacier]

Definitely. That's the unfortunate reality of admissions to every med school.

 

[Kikii]

Thanks.


Do all people who get into Auckland med have a combination of either:

High GPA, High UMAT, good interview
OR
High GPA, Low UMAT, good interview ?


As in, is UMAT the only thing you can screw up in at Auckland?

 

[g.walker]

Thanks.


Do all people who get into Auckland med have a combination of either:

High GPA, High UMAT, good interview
OR
High GPA, Low UMAT, good interview ?


As in, is UMAT the only thing you can screw up in at Auckland?

Everything fromo 95th percentile to the 30-40th percentiles. to answer your question: absolutely

 

[qbob]

people with low umat scores still get into auckland if they have very high GPA's.

I had a gpa of 8.64 and 65th percentile umat