Otago HSFY chat - archive

[Cathay]

Did you really expect flexibility from a double major honours degree?

Well, I was looking at them separately, rather than as a double major...

 

[greenglacier]

Regardless, honours degrees do somewhat limit your flexibility outside your major, as you are kind of expected to get really good at that one area. I suspect though that if you had another area you were still interested in (particularly if it were a non-science subject), a BSc(hons) would (generally speaking) still give you greater flexibility to pursue that interest than a BBioMedSc would.

 

[Deleted member 4350]

[offtopic]Me, or him? Haha[/offtopic]

[offtopic] Hebros [/offtopic]

 

[frootloop]

Now I know you will all be bored these holidays (I sure am), so I'm sure if you contributed to this thread, not only will you make future health-scis very happy, but you'll also relieve your own boredom. See? Win-win situation

 

[poutine]

PHSI191 (HSFY; Otago)

Hello MSOers!

I just have a couple of questions regarding PHSI191 during the HSFY at Otago.

Firstly, is calculus integrated into the course or is it strictly non-calculus?

Is rotational motion (incl. rotational momentum) part of the mechanics portion of the paper?

Thanks for your help!

- poutine

Please use existing threads where possible,
Thanks, Frootloop

 

[frootloop]

No calculus, I never did calc at school and it didn't hurt me.
Um, I don't remember there being rotational motion, to be fair PHSI191 is at a lower level than NCEA level 3 physics (but has a broader range of content).

 

[Cathay]

Calculus *may* be useful in certain bits to help understanding, but there are very few occasions where any calculus is mentioned at all, and none of the calculus is necessary for solving problems in exams.

Rotational motion is not included at all. There is a bit of circular motion, but no rotational motion.

 

[poutine]

Cheers @frootloop and [MENTION=9988]cathay808[/MENTION] !

 

[poutine]

I have another question... not trying to be a bother, sorry! I know we don't choose our subjects for HSFY (apart from the optional 8th) but do we get to choose the time slots we are placed in? Or are these randomly assigned? When is this done?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Cathay]

No, we get randomly allocated time slots by a computer the Friday before lectures begin, so you should receive, at some stage on that Friday afternoon, a timetable generated for you, and automatically arranged so as not to have any clashes.

 

[poutine]

Ah, ok. Easy as pie... thanks!

 

[frootloop]

No, we get randomly allocated time slots by a computer the Friday before lectures begin, so you should receive, at some stage on that Friday afternoon, a timetable generated for you, and automatically arranged so as not to have any clashes.

I'll just add to this: For *lectures* (not labs, never try and stream-jump a lab without organising this in advance with the relevant course coordinators), after about a week or two into each semester people stop going to lectures (get lazy/podcast/stream-jump/rely on friend's notes/etc), and then you can essentially (with the exception of one or more popular streams) go to whichever lecture stream you want.
(Note: I'm obviously not advocating this but to be honest, after a few weeks into the semester it does little/no harm).

 

[poutine]

Wouldn't there be some form of sign-in attendance in the stream you were allocated in though?

 

[frootloop]

Wouldn't there be some form of sign-in attendance in the stream you were allocated in though?

There are up to 500 people in some lecture streams (ie: St Davids), thus checking is difficult, and takes time out of the lecture that they don't have. Therefore, unless they actually detect a problem with too many people going to a particular stream, they don't check.
(Read: Labs are the opposite. They damn sure check in labs).

 

[Cathay]

Wouldn't there be some form of sign-in attendance in the stream you were allocated in though?

Consider this, the previous lecture finishes between 5 and 15 minutes (scheduled to be 10) ahead of each lecture starting, there are at least 300 people per threatre (St David, for instance, has 550 seats), and the lecture is meant to start on the clock and there is no stopping the flow of informtation until 45-50 minutes later when the lecturer finishes talking.

Now imagine the difficulty in getting sign-in from all 550 people in 10 minutes, without missing any latecomers, and doing this 3 times a day...

Universities aren't schools, nor parents, they do not force lectures upon people, it is up to you whether you turn up, and whether you learn.

 

[poutine]

Thanks for your responses and please excuse my ignorance. I just recalled in one of the interview question scenarios it was talking about if you would sign in a friend to a lecture, and I was just curious if signing in was common practice. The impracticalities of recording attendance in lectures now seem obvious. Cheers!

 

[frootloop]

I think they were talking about actual med lectures (some schools have compulsory attendance), where smaller class size leads to increased practicality for attendance monitoring. But yeah, in HSFY they don't give a **** whether you go or not, and when you go only becomes an issue if too many other people like that lecture stream.

 

[AmyT]

So around which date are we expecting results to come out? Thanks.

 

[Hebros]

I think around the 25th of November.

 

[greenglacier]

I'd swear this has been mentioned before, but probably around the 23rd-25th.