Otago HSFY chat - archive

[Bamboozle]

I personally still found the epi exit tests kinda confusing, on hindsight, it really would pay to do the pre-readings.

 

[Cathay]

Heh, they really do mean it when they say they expect us to spend 2 hours before every lecture and tute doing prereadings.

 

[aaa24]

Its stupid to be honest, if they really expect me to remember everything from reading 2 hours worth of blocks of text, they have another thing coming.

 

[sid_kudav]

Had my epi tute at 1pm today, was pretty boring.

Didn't know the exit test was 2%, questions were kinda strange tbh, would be easy if you know your stuff though.

 

[frootloop]

Its stupid to be honest, if they really expect me to remember everything from reading 2 hours worth of blocks of text, they have another thing coming.

Hate to tell you, but it's your grade, they don't benefit in the slightest from you doing the readings, you do

 

[sid_kudav]

Hate to tell you, but it's your grade, they don't benefit in the slightest from you doing the readings, you do

Do you do the readings?, Does it help?. Contemplating buying the book or just heading to the science librabry before my heals lecture.

 

[frootloop]

Do you do the readings?, Does it help?. Contemplating buying the book or just heading to the science librabry before my heals lecture.

Yeah I don't normally have much faith in the textbooks, but this one is worth having. You know how the lectures seem to have no content? Yeah, it's because most of the course is in the book. Bit annoying really, almost makes the lectures kind of a waste of time...
(ETA: This is my opinion, and it is only an opinion. I know there are quite a few lurkers reading this thread, and yes, yes you should still go to your lectures )

 

[Pineapple]

i dont like how epi lectures are very vague, i dont think she is teaching us properly at all, relying too much on us doing readings rather than teaching the content.

 

[papermoth]

Hey Doodle,

Were you in the first tut? I was... I vow to keepth my mouth shut from this day forth =\ Gosh, I come up with the oddest things.

 

[Doodle]

Hey Doodle,

Were you in the first tut? I was... I vow to keepth my mouth shut from this day forth =\ Gosh, I come up with the oddest things.

Haha why do you ask? But yes I was... I know ae? God... I came up with something that was just blatantly WRONG. Sigh. I guess it's motivation to actually do the prep work to not risk complete embarrassment .

But hey at least statistically speaking we're meant to do better being in the first epi tute! haha

Papermoth you're in my BIOC lab too right? Haha even though I have absolutely no idea who you are!

 

[Pineapple]

Hey good luck for UMAT everyone!! hope it goes well.

 

[Cathay]

Let me echo what Pineapple said. Best of luck to all those sitting UMAT.

 

[Jordan]

i dont like how epi lectures are very vague, i dont think she is teaching us properly at all, relying too much on us doing readings rather than teaching the content.

I know I'm not HSFY but this is kind of what uni is like. It's self directed - lectures are supposed to function as a jumping off point whereupon you learn from a variety of resources rather than providing you with the bulk of the information you need to know. It's a shame they're a bit vague but I imagine you'd get a great deal more out of them if you complete your readings before the lecture. You guys have left high school now, time for the big girl panties.

 

[Cathay]

Heh, ash, this "big girl party" business is all well and good in the context of learning the stuff, or even getting a decent grade. But, in the context of HSFY, where because admission to med uses raw percentages rather than GPA, the real goal is to get as close to 100% as possible, and 6 out of the 7 papers simply spoon-feed us (rote learn the crap out of all the lectures and you'll be close to 100%) information, you can see why a paper that's more like the uni in general isn't going to go down too well.

 

[miss_universe]

I know I'm not HSFY but this is kind of what uni is like. It's self directed - lectures are supposed to function as a jumping off point whereupon you learn from a variety of resources rather than providing you with the bulk of the information you need to know. It's a shame they're a bit vague but I imagine you'd get a great deal more out of them if you complete your readings before the lecture. You guys have left high school now, time for the big girl panties.

I agree with this, and if you need to get to 100%, then well its tough but that is how it is like for every course, not just HSFY. Everyone whines about the same thing but in the end it is down to how you approach the course, not what you expect from it.

 

[Havox]

6 out of the 7 papers simply spoon-feed us (rote learn the crap out of all the lectures and you'll be close to 100%) information, you can see why a paper that's more like the uni in general isn't going to go down too well.

Have a cry.

 

[frootloop]

Have a cry.

Don't mind if I do (not about epidemiology). I just failed teh umatz. And I failed *hard*, heellooo post-grad.
ETA: Btw Hav, I don't think Cath was 'having a cry', just explaining why HSFY'ers seem to (by and large, can't say I'm one of them, I personally like epi) dislike the way epidemiology is taught in comparison to our other classes.

 

[Cathay]

Don't mind if I do (not about epidemiology). I just failed teh umatz. And I failed *hard*, heellooo post-grad.

>.> negative much... I doubt anyone would walk out of UMAT thinking they didn't fail... Except maybe GG, who eats UMAT for breakfast, and asks for seconds.

Also, after the first HEAL tute I got an idea of what they want us to do. They want us to know the key ideas, and with as much detail as we want (if we wanted bonus marks). So it's essentially what ash and muse are saying wrt self-directed learning. This is radically different from the spoon-feeding, and as much as Pineapple will dislike it, I actually quite like it now - they want us to be able to notice the details in the graph and think accordingly to come to our conclusion, and if anything, I would enjoy that more than I do bulk rote-learning.

On a side note, Carly (the HEAL teaching fellow who is the tutor for a stream parallel to mine which merged with us because there were 8 of us in total today) said that right now the stuff IS vague, but soon we'll start dropping heavy bombs on study designs and the methods of epidemiology, and THAT's when we finally see what this course is about, and start to make sense of all this information we have been taught thus far.

 

[frootloop]

Wait, why don't they teach us their methods first, and *then* start talking about age-standardisation, racial bias, etc? Rather than 'you don't know what any of this means yet, but it is rather interesting, so have fun!'. But meh, HEAL is surprisingly interesting, and I think not having to bulk rote-learn (and actually think *shocked face*) makes for a nice change.

 

[Cathay]

Wait, why don't they teach us their methods first, and *then* start talking about age-standardisation, racial bias, etc? Rather than 'you don't know what any of this means yet, but it is rather interesting, so have fun!'.

Because they want us to have those things in mind and have "aha!" moments later so we start thinking and making sense of it for ourselves rather than them telling us "now we do this because..."

A bit like in HUBS when they talked about vascular resistance being inversely proportional to radius to the power of 4, which reminded me of Poiseuille's equation from physics.