• Welcome to MSO!
    We are an online community for current and prospective medical, dental and allied health students and early career professionals from Australia and New Zealand.

    Please read: About MSO | Annual Welcome and Important Information | MSO Rules

    Quick Links To Forums
    Tests/Interviews: UCAT | GAMSAT | Interviews
    Entrance Discussion: Graduate Medicine | Undergraduate Medicine | Dentistry

  • Register with us

    Please consider registering on MSO. Benefits of registering are:
    • Able to post and participate in the forum
    • After 10 posts: Private Message Other Users
    • After 25 posts: Access to the Chatbox
    • After 100 posts: Custom user titles and Ad-free experience

    If you would like to get involved with MSO or have ideas, suggestions, comments, criticisms or other feedback please Contact Us

Otago HSFY chat - archive

Status
Not open for further replies.
Majohnna said:
What are the essential items that you guys could not have done without at halls of residence? not things like a laptop, but unexpected things like flip flops to wear in showers so don't get...
Click to expand...

Just off the top of my head from the stuff my brother (he's in an Australian College so might be different) said early on were

  • a coffee plunger and of course cups, teaspoons etc
  • he also had a small tray to sit his coffee making paraphenalia on so spillage didn't get onto his desk or bookshelves and his own teatowels so he had a clean one for drying his stuff when he needed to
  • a small chopping board and two sharp knives - a paring knife for fruit/cheese etc and a larger one for smallgoods that he liked to keep on hand for nights when he couldn't stomach college meals. The ones in the share kitcheneetes were blunt and often did disappearing acts anyway
  • Labelled containers (microwave safe) for personal food items if you use a shared fridge
  • one of the small clothes drying racks (the sort that you can just clip over a door or in his case clip on the wardrode or the top of his bookshelf) for drying delicate items that couldn't be tossed in the dryer
  • coathangers
  • powerboard (in his case they had to have safety switches and each outlet on the board had to be individually switched although most students didn't care if they met standard or not)
  • snap lock bags in various sizes (they are just useful for a multitude of things including keeping stationery items tidy in your drawers, sealing foodstuffs, keeping change in etc)
  • not sure if you have them in NZ but here we can get huge "green" shopping bags from major toy outlets for around $2 that are really useful for carrying your laundry to the washing machines because they are strong and easier to lug around than a laundry basket (which you might also need)
  • clothes pegs
Hope that is helpful even if all it does is allow others to come in and say you won't need these at the particular college you are staying at. :)
 
one more question, I am full of them!
NCEA has Achievement Standards, which lists all the things that should be covered by the school and will be in the exam and nothing else can be examined, does University have such a thing? Like it says what will be covered and in the exams so people don't waste their time studying something that is irrelevant.
Then again, I don't know why this would be of any relevance, because I assume that there are only one or two lecturers for each paper -so everyone would be taught approximately the same stuff and if everyone does bad in the exam then it will be scaled. But are all lecturers of the same quality?;)
 
Majohnna said:
one more question, I am full of them!
NCEA has Achievement Standards, which lists all the things that should be covered by the school and will be in the exam and nothing else can be examined, does University have such a thing? Like it says what will be covered and in the exams so people don't waste their time studying something that is irrelevant.
Then again, I don't know why this would be of any relevance, because I assume that there are only one or two lecturers for each paper -so everyone would be taught approximately the same stuff and if everyone does bad in the exam then it will be scaled. But are all lecturers of the same quality?;)
Click to expand...
Regarding your textbook question: it doesn't matter if it's out by one edition. They are essentially the same. Yeah, wait till you go down to Otago. Buy my textbooks! I'll give you a way better deal ;)

Your papers will have a booklet that gives you "objectives" of what you should be able to answer. NCEA is very vague in terms of what you need to know. But in HSFY whatever is covered in the lecture could be examined. Don't bother studying up things that aren't covered in lectures. The lecturers write their own questions, unlike NCEA where you have some people write questions for the whole country, so listen to what the lecturers say!

No, you won't have one or two lecturers. More like 5/6. Even more, esp. epi. Some lecturers just come in to give one lecture and then they bugger off. Are your teachers at high school all the same quality? Same applies to uni :p
 
The objectives, of which there are like maybe 3-5 per lecture, are a good guide for the basic stuff that you need to know really well. Then on top of that you add on the everything else in the lecture slides and also stuff that the lecturer themselves say. You wouldn't need to learn completely unreasonable things though like dates of an experiment or the name of some really obscure drug that was just used as an example, but you'd still need to come close to learning everything in the slides if you want a really good mark.

There are multiple classes per day, but at each class normally there is the same lecturer who teaches with the same slides and says pretty much the same thing, so yeah everyone is taught the same stuff. There was only a couple of instances I remember when there were different lecturers for different classes, like in chemistry with organic chem, and a couple of biochem lectures, but which class you were in wouldn't've made any difference.
 
Last edited:
International Student but NZ citizen/need info on HSFY

I live in the states and I am in the process of completing my first year of college here. My plan as of now is too head down to NZ, study in the HSFY and than apply to physio.

I am sure the answer is somewhere around either the Otago or Auckland website but I have been unable to find it. What are the entry requirements into either of the two schools and how do I apply?

Also I would prefer to do my pre-med year in Auckland because that is where my family is. How do the programs differ between the two schools and is one better than the other?

Thanks, and if this question has been answered just reply with a link to the thread.
 
skyglow1 said:
Oh dear I'm in the same position. Please let us know when you get the reply....really anxious here too lol.
Click to expand...

My reply from Martha:
Sorry I can't advise on fees as it is not my area. Please get in touch with the Fees Office in regard to your query.

And then fees office:

Thank you for your email. You will see printed on the back of the January invoice yet to be sent a paragraph stating all students paying by loan must have applied before the due date. The rest should sort its-self out however in the same paragraph is information if you do run into any problems. I have attached invoice back with the information to this email.

So all should be well :)

PS: I always thought 'itself' was one word :S
 
Someone please say NCEA isnt completely useless towards HSFY :eek:
Your lucky you escaped the system McNerdy...Its more like spot the high school that has CIE aaarrrggghh their exams look more straightforward and each answer has a mark value, at least you know where you stand in terms of marking....k im done ranting :lol:
 
Maiden_NewZealand said:
Someone please say NCEA isnt completely useless towards HSFY :eek:
Your lucky you escaped the system McNerdy...Its more like spot the high school that has CIE aaarrrggghh their exams look more straightforward and each answer has a mark value, at least you know where you stand in terms of marking....k im done ranting :lol:
Click to expand...

Oh I'm familiar with NCEA, I tutored various levels of science and maths in it when I was an undergrad. It certainly seemed to encourage students to do the bare minimum. Students come out with all sorts of deficiencies, like writing 'your' instead of 'you're' :p. Certainly the students I tutuored needed a kick up the backside more than a tutor. But I took the money anyway...

I my experience of undergrad uni (4 years) and postgrad (2.5 years) as well as an internship working on clinical research with a lecturer (1 year), I've come to realise that lecturers have little or no (most likely the later) training in the art of teaching. The ones who naturally 'have it' are ok-good and the rest (majority) are rubbish. Don't expect consistent examination of material within or across papers.
You will have to raise your game transitioning from school to uni if you want to do well. Period.
BTW if you ask questions in lectures people generally get annoyed if the answer has just been explained previously. There's no such thing as a stupid question if you need the answer, but there is such a thing as an annoying one. Although answering questions that the lecturer throws out does help to move things along, you'll be seen as a know-it-all. So my advice is to pay attention to the lectures, keep your head down and work hard. And don't talk about irrelevant stuff in lectures either, it ****es people off around you.
If HSFY at otago is anything like what Auckland was like in 2001, NCEA will be next to useless for getting top marks in most papers, except physics and organic chemistry.
Yours truely,
Grumpy Ol'man McNerdy
 
McNerdy said:
Oh I'm familiar with NCEA, I tutored various levels of science and maths in it when I was an undergrad. It certainly seemed to encourage students to do the bare minimum. Students come out with all sorts of deficiencies, like writing 'your' instead of 'you're' :p. Certainly the students I tutuored needed a kick up the backside more than a tutor. But I took the money anyway...

If HSFY at otago is anything like what Auckland was like in 2001, NCEA will be next to useless for getting top marks in most papers, except physics and organic chemistry.
Yours truely,
Grumpy Ol'man McNerdy
Click to expand...
Hey McNerdy, just wondering how you got into tutoring? How do you attract students, like how did you self-pimp yourself?

Come on, doing NCEA doesn't mean you're not going to get top marks at uni. I did it and I'm in med :P. You can't put the blame completely on what your high school system was.
 
Last edited:
Arutha said:
Hey McNerdy, just wondering how you got into tutoring? How do you attract students, like how did you self-pimp yourself?

Come on, doing NCEA doesn't mean you're not going to get top marks at uni. I did it and I'm in med :P. You can't put the blame completely on what your high school system was. "A bad workman always blames his tools."
Click to expand...

Ummm... I can't even remember how I advertised to be honest. Some of the students were family friends or once removed sort of deals.
Just put a spot in the paper or with SJS perhaps?

I did bursary and it wasn't much better for the "HSFY". First year is a clean slate, just pull your socks up and do the work.
 
Arutha said:
Hey McNerdy, just wondering how you got into tutoring? How do you attract students, like how did you self-pimp yourself?

Come on, doing NCEA doesn't mean you're not going to get top marks at uni. I did it and I'm in med :P. You can't put the blame completely on what your high school system was. "A bad workman always blames his tools."
Click to expand...

Arutha what were your grades like in NCEA? Did you get excellences in everything? I'm still holding on to the hope that you got through whilst doing ncea and another student from studyit who got in as well think it was deadperson...your not plastic cheese by any chance? I saw a while back that you go on studyit too.

I do correspondence too McNerdy, so would that help in terms of self directed study?
 
McNerdy said:
First year is a clean slate, just pull your socks up and do the work.
Click to expand...
Agreed!

Maiden_NewZealand said:
Arutha what were your grades like in NCEA? Did you get excellences in everything? I'm still holding on to the hope that you got through whilst doing ncea and another student from studyit who got in as well think it was deadperson...your not plastic cheese by any chance? I saw a while back that you go on studyit too.

I do correspondence too McNerdy, so would that help in terms of self directed study?
Click to expand...
Grades were okay, a few excellences here and there.
 
Last edited:
Yeah doing NCEA doesn't mean that you're automatically doomed, it just means you'll have to work harder than your CIE counterparts in most papers. It also means that you need to shift quickly to a new mindset where memorising facts is more important and where marking schemes are way more precise. I found exams like scholarship english incredibly difficult because I was so used to being stuck in the memorisation mindset, while I felt way more at home with the HSFY exams.

Hmm Arutha I was also thinking about whereabouts to actually do the tutoring. I saw people using those study rooms you can book in the libraries, but I'm not sure how easy it is to get a hold of those rooms.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

M
What does 'General Registration' look like in Australia for PGY1/2?
Replies
2
Views
891
MMD
M
Back
Top