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Otago HSFY chat - archive
- Thread starter jeavey
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hey guys, I will be doing hsfy next year, 2012. i had an interesting discussion with my friend in school today, and we were genuinely surprised at the number of people who had succeeded in getting through to medicine from our school. or perhaps that should be the number of people who didn't get in. (only one person in the last 3 years). our school is a pretty good ranking school within chch btw.
so my question is, what makes you get into medicine? is it brains or works or a combination of both? does diligence win over intelligence in hsfy?
thanks!
** our school has a good ranking (sorry typo)
so my question is, what makes you get into medicine? is it brains or works or a combination of both? does diligence win over intelligence in hsfy?
thanks!
** our school has a good ranking (sorry typo)
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It won't be anything to do with your school... just the type of people who tend to go to your school and then decide to apply for medicine. Those school rankings are pretty much bulls**t anyway.
I think that to get into med at Otago, you need a fair degree of intelligence to start off with (not an amazing amount though) and beyond that the main determinant is diligence. Natural ability can help quite a bit in HSFY but it won't take you all the way. A good amount of effective study however can make up for a lot and beyond that take you all of the way. For the most part, HSFY is about memorising, rather than understanding material.
I think that to get into med at Otago, you need a fair degree of intelligence to start off with (not an amazing amount though) and beyond that the main determinant is diligence. Natural ability can help quite a bit in HSFY but it won't take you all the way. A good amount of effective study however can make up for a lot and beyond that take you all of the way. For the most part, HSFY is about memorising, rather than understanding material.
What GG said - while our schools have been an important influence in our development and certainly helped shape who we are, a better school doesn't automatically make us more intelligent or diligent than others.
GG summed it up pretty well - you need a bit of intelligence to understand the content, but that's the easy part (because the content is mostly factual and even when conceptual it's easy and doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to understand), the main thing that gets anyone into med is diligence - you can easily cover the content of more than a week's classes (in one subject) at school in one lecture, and in the exam you're expected to recall much of the 50 lectures you would've had. (Keep in mind that at the same time you've got to study for the other 3 papers, with another 50 lectures each.) There's a lot of information, for the most part it's easily understood by the vast majority of people, so highly intelligent or not, you'll need diligence to stand out from the crowd.
GG summed it up pretty well - you need a bit of intelligence to understand the content, but that's the easy part (because the content is mostly factual and even when conceptual it's easy and doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to understand), the main thing that gets anyone into med is diligence - you can easily cover the content of more than a week's classes (in one subject) at school in one lecture, and in the exam you're expected to recall much of the 50 lectures you would've had. (Keep in mind that at the same time you've got to study for the other 3 papers, with another 50 lectures each.) There's a lot of information, for the most part it's easily understood by the vast majority of people, so highly intelligent or not, you'll need diligence to stand out from the crowd.
your definition of fair degree of intelligence would probably be something like being able to conceptually understand theories,etc?
would having a routine really help? i've been told by my careers advisor just how impt it is to have a routine while doing hsfy.
also, about memorising, well ncea isn't really so much like that and that's probably why i have done fairly well. i discovered that i suck at memorising stuff, 'rote learning' maybe because of my predispositions or more possibly because i haven't really had to do it in my years of schooling. i was wondering what techniques you used to learn stuff? i know that people learn different ways but i just want to this year experiment with different kinds and find what suits me the best. also, this might be a bit personal, so you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but if you could do hsfy again, what would you do differently?
thanks
would having a routine really help? i've been told by my careers advisor just how impt it is to have a routine while doing hsfy.
also, about memorising, well ncea isn't really so much like that and that's probably why i have done fairly well. i discovered that i suck at memorising stuff, 'rote learning' maybe because of my predispositions or more possibly because i haven't really had to do it in my years of schooling. i was wondering what techniques you used to learn stuff? i know that people learn different ways but i just want to this year experiment with different kinds and find what suits me the best. also, this might be a bit personal, so you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but if you could do hsfy again, what would you do differently?
thanks
If you're capable of comfortably getting NCEA level 3 with merit (with a fair few excellence credits thrown in) then you almost certainly have the required amount of intelligence to get into medicine at Otago.
Routines are very helpful in HSFY because the thing about university is that if you fall behind it's very hard to catch up. In terms of memorisation/rote learning, you're right in that this is something you won't have had much experience with. Some people find it easier than others, but ultimately this is where the need for hard work comes in, because you won't be able to memorise the massive amount of content in HSFY without putting in the work. If you have trouble with rote learning then you might have to work a bit harder and efficiently, but ultimately it's achievable. There are lots of techniques you can use - you just have to find what works best for you. The key is to do something with the information - don't just read lecture slides and copy them out. Summarise, draw diagrams, write revision questions, etc...
If I could do HSFY again, I'd relax more! Seriously, the atmosphere/rumours of HSFY can send you into an over-worked frenzy. I'm not saying that HSFY isn't hard work (quite the opposite), but you don't want to let it consume you to the extent that your social life starts to seriously suffer.
Oh, and just a side note - it'd be good if you could use proper english when posting on this forum. No one has an issue with typos etc... but things like not using capital letters do make it difficult for people trying to read your posts (and therefore makes it less likely for someone to reply). It also makes the forum look a bit messy, and has been known to attract the attention of moderators. Just a heads up.
Routines are very helpful in HSFY because the thing about university is that if you fall behind it's very hard to catch up. In terms of memorisation/rote learning, you're right in that this is something you won't have had much experience with. Some people find it easier than others, but ultimately this is where the need for hard work comes in, because you won't be able to memorise the massive amount of content in HSFY without putting in the work. If you have trouble with rote learning then you might have to work a bit harder and efficiently, but ultimately it's achievable. There are lots of techniques you can use - you just have to find what works best for you. The key is to do something with the information - don't just read lecture slides and copy them out. Summarise, draw diagrams, write revision questions, etc...
If I could do HSFY again, I'd relax more! Seriously, the atmosphere/rumours of HSFY can send you into an over-worked frenzy. I'm not saying that HSFY isn't hard work (quite the opposite), but you don't want to let it consume you to the extent that your social life starts to seriously suffer.
Oh, and just a side note - it'd be good if you could use proper english when posting on this forum. No one has an issue with typos etc... but things like not using capital letters do make it difficult for people trying to read your posts (and therefore makes it less likely for someone to reply). It also makes the forum look a bit messy, and has been known to attract the attention of moderators. Just a heads up.
Med 2 orientation starts on Wednesday 15th of Feb. Attendance is compulsory (failure to attend can result in your offer being withdrawn).
In comparison, lectures for everyone else start on Monday 27th Feb.
Should you make it into med, you'll have to get used to shorter holidays than everyone else. 4th year med starts on January 30th, while 6th year med gets a total of 4 weeks of holiday across the whole 12 month year (and don't get public holidays off).
In comparison, lectures for everyone else start on Monday 27th Feb.
Should you make it into med, you'll have to get used to shorter holidays than everyone else. 4th year med starts on January 30th, while 6th year med gets a total of 4 weeks of holiday across the whole 12 month year (and don't get public holidays off).
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