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First Year (FY) BHSc/BSC 2017 Chat/Enquiry

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Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
Hey all!

Thought I would get this thread started in case there are any future Auckland med hopefuls lurking out there. I would recommend looking through some of the past threads, as there is a lot of very helpful information in them. And if anyone has any questions, fire away!
 

Kiwiology

MSO Lawyer
Hi all,

I will be doing BHSc FY in 2017. I initially tried out in 2015 but things didn't turn out for some outside reasons so I deleted my enrolment and will be coming back again. As an aside, this process is very specific to people who have extraordinary circumstances which do not directly involve their study so it's not a "get out of jail free card" if you are purely struggling academically in case anybody was wondering.

I am [much?] older than your average uni student at 30 having worked for the last almost ten years and finally had a gutsful of sitting behind a desk and corporate BS (although enough of it seems to have infiltrated the health system, thank you very much 1990s reforms!) but hopefully I can avoid it!

Most of what I'll write is probably biased by the fact I've been away from formal education for almost a decade (graduated with my first degree in 2010) so may not be specifically applicable. I can only comment on what I experienced, which was up until just after the first tests of the first semester.

1. The amount of content is very high; it was much higher than the workload in year one of my first degree. It is also much higher than what I remember from school 15 years ago. Each lecture presents an entirely new concept or set of information; unlike in school you don't spend any time reviewing what you did yesterday; the onus to do so is upon you. Your lecturer has a set amount of information to deliver in a set number of lectures and ain't nobody got time for that.

I found the lectures for CHEM and BIO to be very "content heavy". For example, one lecture might have 20 to 30 pieces of individual information you need to remember and be able to conceptualise; some more and some less obviously. This is especially true for Mel Collings' Cell Structure and Function lectures, she presents a large amount of information quite quickly and expects you to give answers to the level of detail she presents, some of which is quite specific; for example the name of an enzyme or the name of a process must be specific in order to get marks i.e. immature mRNA, mature mRNA, and tRNA are all different and you need to know the differences and where each fits.

The "flipside" of this I found really hard, people who have just come out of science at school or uni might not, but you need to know each piece of information intimately because of the method of testing. For CHEM it is draw something, circle an option or circle an option and write a three to five word justification. If you don't know R- enantiomer from S- enantiomer or why a specific molecule has the highest boiling point then you simply do not know and will get no marks. The same in BIO 107 it's mainly multi choice and short answers and if you do not know the specific details of a particular cellular process then you can't just write a paragraph of rubbish to hide it like you can (arguably) in school or essay or opinion rich papers.

2. I found the workload exhausting. I am used to getting up, going to work, working, then coming home and just forgetting everything until the next day and having my time to myself. Um, yeah, nah, bro. I was up at 6 am to be on the bus by 7 am to make it to uni by 8 am for CHEM (despite living about 15 minutes drive away!) then would leave campus at 5 pm (if I had a lab) and be stuck in traffic til 6 pm, be absolutely shattered and still need to spend the next two to three hours revising what i'd done that day, and going over stuff for the next morning. This was probably personal bad time management as I probably could have revised during the day or whatever (I can't remember my exact timetable) and for those of us who live in the Southern train line my flatmate who works for AKL Transport tells me Parnell is opening in March (at the bottom of Symonds St by the domain) so we can get off there and not have to be stuck on the bus for ages, yesss!

3. The pressure kind of is real, actually eh. This is probably a bit more personal me because I am older, have had a career, don't have time or energy or funding to go through and apply again as a graduate, and because I have worked in the health sector including with a number of doctors who sort of automatically assume or talk to you like you have gotten in to MBChB II. In saying that, there were heaps of super chill uber friendly people who I met.

4. The biggest piece of advice I have (and one I was really surprised to figure out I needed to heed myself) is to learn how you learn. If you can't retain and understand what is being taught to you, because there's so much of it and you need strong grades to apply for medicine, um, frankly, you're fu<!<ed. The information is not hard; it's not astrophysics, but there is a lot of it and it's not like you can slap together some rubbish answers and get some marks, you do need to know it and know it well. This was a huge change for me vs. school or my first degree. In school they practically told you the answers, and in my first degree it was all essays and short answer questions in exams and you didn't have so much information to learn and apply.

5. You can do it. I know people who got into MBChB II in 2015 without using any private tutoring. You just have to be able to learn well, retain information and understand it and not give up.

6. Yes, the POPLHLTH 111 first test is hellatiously hard.
 

Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
@robbieg93
You are going to stay with us next year, right? :)
We need a regular from Auckland. It's tough to go over both HSFY and OLY1 sides and I don't know much about the Auckland papers in details.

@Kiwiology
You have pretty good pointers yourself. I hope it goes well next year. Good luck!
 

Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
@robbieg93
You are going to stay with us next year, right? :)
We need a regular from Auckland. It's tough to go over both HSFY and OLY1 sides and I don't know much about the Auckland papers in details.

Absolutely :). I have found MSO super helpful for getting through this year, so want to give back! Hopefully it is a bit more popular next year haha. I will put up a post a bit later with some of my thoughts about the core papers, and will make sure I check back regularly throughout next year to help out if anyone needs it.
 

Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Absolutely :). I have found MSO super helpful for getting through this year, so want to give back! Hopefully it is a bit more popular next year haha. I will put up a post a bit later with some of my thoughts about the core papers, and will make sure I check back regularly throughout next year to help out if anyone needs it.

That's awesome! I am pretty useless when they ask any specifics of the papers so you are the crucial member to keep the Auckland thread going haha. Thank you.
 

Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
In case anyone out there is interested I thought I would post some thoughts about the core papers. This ended up being really long haha.

POPLHLTH 111: This was my least favourite core paper, though some people really enjoy it. The key concepts taught are very important and often quite interesting, but they are quite straightforward and don’t make up much content. The result of this is that you need to memorise list upon list of details for the tests, being able to differentiate between minor changes in wording, as everyone would get A+ if they focused only on the important concepts rather than the minor details. Although I enjoyed a fair bit of the content, a lot of the details we needed to learn were quite boring and didn’t feel important so this study felt really tedious.

Test 1 is traditionally a very difficult test, but in 2016 it was actually pretty reasonable with a lot of people getting high marks. I believe they have now made the mock test more representative (probably due to complaints from past students), so this actually prepared us quite well – the actual test was only slightly more difficult. It is very important for this test that you understand ALL the concepts covered in module one, and that you can apply these concepts to unfamiliar studies. Bear in mind that they might make it harder again in 2017, so don’t underestimate it! Test 2 and the exam rely a lot more on memorisation, however if you can understand and link together the concepts it will make it more bearable. These tests are easier to predict – if you understand all of the important content in the slides and don’t freak out too much, you are going to get a good grade. Also, don’t worry about the readings unless you have a lot of time on your hands – they really aren’t critical (though the lecturers might highlight some that are particularly important).

CHEM 110: I found this to be the easiest core paper, and most of my friends did as well. I found that I didn’t need to put as much time into it, which took a bit of the workload off in semester one so I could devote more time to 107. You will however want to make sure that you have a good background in high school level chemistry. I know some people who found some of the concepts in this paper very tricky to grasp. If you have struggled with chemistry in the past, it might be a good idea to sign up for the chem course they provide before semester one starts.

The labs in this paper can be quite stressful and often catch people out, but if you are careful and prepare well they aren’t too hard to get an A range mark in. One other common difficulty in this paper is the tests. The content isn’t too hard overall, but people are often caught out by the time pressure of the test. You only get one hour for 6+ pages of questions, and as a result a lot of people don’t end up finishing. It is also very easy to make silly mistakes, so when you are aiming for 90% + it can be very easy to miss out. I would recommend fully using the practice tests provided. Try these under exam conditions to work out whether time pressure will be a problem for you, and also use them to identify some of the common mistakes you make/areas you need to work on more. I was getting under 90 in the practice tests for both test 1 and 2, but ended up with 96 and 97 respectively in the actual tests because I had an awareness of the mistakes I would be likely to make and avoided them. Time pressure is less of a problem in the exam, and the content is pretty similar in difficulty, so if you do well in the tests you will probably do well in the exam with enough study.

BIOSCI 107: Most difficult core paper in semester one by miles (in my opinion anyway!). This is due to a combination of difficult tests, huge amounts of content, and labs that are easy to lose marks on. 111 and 110 have a pretty reasonable pace for lectures, but 107 jumps straight in to covering huge amounts of content. The content isn’t particularly difficult, but you really do need to devote a lot of time to studying if you want to learn it well enough to get A+. Use the past questions to test your knowledge, and beware of the 2 mark MCQs which were introduced this year. Nobody really knew what to expect with them, but they destroyed a lot of people (me included!). In the mid-term only 1.8% of the class got A+, and the average was under 60% (I think). This was the hardest test of the year in my opinion. Fortunately, the content becomes slightly easier and more interesting in the second half of the course for many people, which is reflected in slightly better performance in the exam.

For this course it is really important to understand how you learn, as there is a lot of content to cover so you need to be efficient. For me personally I pre-read the course guide/lecture slides before class so I had an understanding of the content, took notes on extra insights given by the lecturers, and then consolidated my notes in the afternoons/evenings after class. Some content just required memorisation (e.g. the different types of epithelial and connective tissue and their locations), so I just made flashcards for these and went through them on the bus on the way to and from uni. I would also strongly recommend using piazza for this paper. Other students will often be asking questions about the most difficult concepts, so these questions are very helpful as a way of testing yourself to see if you actually understand the concepts. Coming up with a clear answer in your own words is also a great way of reinforcing concepts for yourself. I used it as a way of procrastinating when I didn’t feel like committing to a proper study session, and I found it very helpful!
 
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Kiwiology

MSO Lawyer
I would add the following to the above in my experience:

CHEM can either be "the dream killer" or really easy; seems to be either/or from the people I have talked to. The concepts are quite straightforward to grasp from what I have seen. You will need to memorise a reasonable number of reactions for Blocks 2, 5 and 6. For example, in Block 2 there is a total of about 30 between alkenes, alkynes and aromatic rings which is where X+Y = Z and then the four alkyl halide reaction mechanisms (SN1, SN2, E1 and E2). The saving grace I think is these are not hard, it literally takes rote memorisation with a bit of understanding sprinkled in; for example SN1 reactions produce racemic mixtures (50:50 R- and S-) and if you are adding HX or X2 to an alkyne it adds anti (syn) and if you only add 1 mole it forms an aklene, whereas two moles forms an alkane. As an aside, maybe they are the same moles that millionth fractions of is what blood glucose comes in (mmol/l) .... who knows.

The hardest part I found of the CHEM blocks I did was kinetics, labs and isomers. The lecturer we had was horrid and spoke really poor English and the calculations were like in a foreign language to me. Hopefully next year is better! Labs were awful, our lab tutor person helper guy thing was a total dickhead. He was in his early twenties and quite smug and did not have any interest in the fact I hadn't done any practical lab work for 15 years since high school and didn't really know what to do. Truth be told if I get somebody like him again I'm going to put my foot down about it to the Lead Demonstrator cos he was a jerk. Isomers, ugh ....

BIOSCI is probably the actual dream killer in first semester eh .... if you can survive Cell Structure and Function and Embryology you'll be sweet. If you can handle CHEM and can get your learning down-pat so you are effective i.e. as I said before, learn how you learn, you'll be good. The questions Mel asking for CS&F aren't like astrophysics difficult they are more about how a process works normally and/or abnormally so you must know both and use the specific, correct language. You basically have to just memorise everything and understand how it fits together and you'll be sweet. Embryology I just can't even words at .... again, I think it's just memorisation and fitting the pieces together. The pictures probably help.
 

Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
Good points above! I will add that they made chem a bit easier (in my opinion) this year. They took out some of the reactions which were pure memorisation, as they wanted to focus on reactions which could be linked together in a more conceptual way (e.g. linking together substitution reactions in a logical format rather than memorising them all individually). They also gave us a formula sheet this year, which meant no more memorising all of the components of the kinetics equations - I was grateful for this as I am terrible at memorising equations haha. I was lucky to have a really nice lab demonstrator who was very supportive when people were struggling, but as Kiwiology said, this is not always the case. Not much you can do to change it unfortunately, just prepare as well as you can and do ALL of the post-lab quizzes on best choice, as these can net you an extra 0.5% or so, which could very well be the difference between two grades.

The BIOSCI 107 mid-term was the second test we did, and the class performance was quite low in it. It is worth 36% of the overall grade, so a low grade here can quite easily rule out any chance of getting an A+ or even an A overall in the paper, while low marks in chem or poplhlth can often be salvaged. I got 84% in it which was actually a good mark relative to the cohort, but it meant I was going into the exam needing 94% to get A+, which is far from an easy feat. The labs for 107 are also pretty tough to ace as well - especially the embryology one - where you have to make a model embryo. Again, just make sure you prepare well and don't make silly mistakes on the pre-lab assignments. Key with this paper is to not underestimate it, and make sure you keep testing yourself to make sure you actually understand and know the content. With a bit of luck they will give you guys the 2016 mid-term test as practice, the 2 mark questions in this will give you an idea of the level of detail you need to know - which was more than I expected!
 
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Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Hi,

Thanks for all your contributions. It looks like next year's cohort will get a good start with all this information. Do you guys mind if I move your informative posts to elsewhere with other OLY1 course related information. This will prevent all this good stuff from getting buried after this year.

Thank you.
 

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Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Hello!

Did anyone here get an offer for Health Science and/or Biomedical Science?
 

Kiwiology

MSO Lawyer
Looks like this year there are only three lectures per week for core papers in semester 1 (Mon, Tue and Thurs, no lecture on Friday). There's still four per week for MEDSCI in semester 2. BHSc students get Friday entirely free in semester 1 (analogous to Wednesday for BSc Biomedical Science).

Not sure how that's going to work with approximately 10 fewer lectures per paper unless there's been a corresponding reduction in content.
 

Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
Looks like this year there are only three lectures per week for core papers in semester 1 (Mon, Tue and Thurs, no lecture on Friday). There's still four per week for MEDSCI in semester 2. BHSc students get Friday entirely free in semester 1 (analogous to Wednesday for BSc Biomedical Science).

Not sure how that's going to work with approximately 10 fewer lectures per paper unless there's been a corresponding reduction in content.

Hmm, yeah I really struggle to see how they would pull that one off without removing content. I suppose those papers did have some days with no lecture which might be a thing of the past now. Maybe they will be forgoing the review lectures as well. Or maybe they will just talk faster (best of luck if this is the case ;))
 
Is there anyone in here who has done Health Science and can tell me more about their opinion/some facts about the non-core papers of Health science at Auckland? And anyone who has done Biomedical science, can they tell me their opinion/some facts about the non core papers for biomed? Thanks!
 

Stuart

Administrator
Emeritus Staff
Is there anyone in here who has done Health Science and can tell me more about their opinion/some facts about the non-core papers of Health science at Auckland? And anyone who has done Biomedical science, can they tell me their opinion/some facts about the non core papers for biomed? Thanks!

Hi,

What kind of facts are you after?
 
@Stuart Maybe that's the wrong word. I dunno, just what are the non core papers like in Auckland for biomed and health science. If there are labs what are they like. what's the content like? the difficulty of the papers etc
 

Kiwiology

MSO Lawyer
Hmm, yeah I really struggle to see how they would pull that one off without removing content. I suppose those papers did have some days with no lecture which might be a thing of the past now. Maybe they will be forgoing the review lectures as well. Or maybe they will just talk faster (best of luck if this is the case)

In practical reality, even if they had lectures on Good Friday, ANZAC day, Easter Monday and Queen's Birthday or cut out the review lectures for those papers which have them (Chem and Bio AFAIK) that would still be 5 or 6 lectures per paper that are not included. That is, for example, an entire module of kinetics or spectroscopy, or say blood & immune or one of the excitable tissue sections. It'll be very interesting to see what the reduction means for us.

Is there anyone in here who has done Health Science and can tell me more about their opinion/some facts about the non-core papers of Health science at Auckland? And anyone who has done Biomedical science, can they tell me their opinion/some facts about the non-core papers for biomed? Thanks!

You can read the paper outlines online if you want more information about what they cover. BHSc non-core papers cover English rich subjects and require writing assignments (and formulating an opinion possibly) and supporting it with evidence from academic sources. They have a number of lectures and a tutorial each week. Rote memorising will get you some of the way but you still need to be comfortable with writing and research. BSc (Biomedical Science) non-core papers are science papers; they have labs and don't require you to write assignments and do academic research. It depends what your style is.

Personally, having an English-rich previous degree and being comfortable with this I have chosen the BHSc. If you are straight from school and like the idea of doing lab work and science-style tests rather than writing assignments, formulating an argument and doing academic research then do the BSc (Biomedical Science). On the other hand, the BHSc non-core papers give you a great overview of the healthcare system and current poignant topics of relevance to everybody working within it. Medicine, or any other clinical program or career, doesn't exist in isolation from the system so what it teaches you, in my opinion, is very relevant and useful and I'd much rather somebody did that than learning all the steps of glycolysis for example. That however, may not be your thing.

If you have not enrolled already do this now or you may be sorely disappointed by what options are available in terms of scheduling and what general education courses are left. I almost missed out on the gen-ed I really wanted to do, stuffed around for a couple days and ended up getting one of the very last seats. Phew!
 

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katwoman

Member
Hello all. I've heard rumours from many med and ex-med students that the lectures for premed courses and medicine are all posted/available online (not just as slides). Is this still true?
 

Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
Hello all. I've heard rumours from many med and ex-med students that the lectures for premed courses and medicine are all posted/available online (not just as slides). Is this still true?

Yes, the lectures in pre-med are all recorded - the majority will have the audio from the lecture alongside the slides which are also posted online. Some lecturers switch between slides and the document camera (which they use when they are writing extra notes during the lecture). There are exceptions however - the Module One lectures in Population Health, and all of the MEDSCI 142 lectures are recorded as audio only.

I haven't started 2nd year yet, but I have heard that most of the medicine lectures are recorded. However, some of the lectures may contain confidential information about patients so these are not recorded - in these cases adequate notes are provided for the tests. Perhaps some 3rd year (or beyond) students could confirm this?
 

katwoman

Member
Yes, the lectures in pre-med are all recorded - the majority will have the audio from the lecture alongside the slides which are also posted online. Some lecturers switch between slides and the document camera (which they use when they are writing extra notes during the lecture). There are exceptions however - the Module One lectures in Population Health, and all of the MEDSCI 142 lectures are recorded as audio only.

Perfect, thank you. It's a huge relief to have that confirmed. I'm a mature student doing Health Sci this year and am somewhat restricted in my availability so that's good to hear.
 
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