![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 325 to 349 of 495. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on November 15, 2014, at 17:11:57
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 12, 2014, at 21:28:47
i will need to do significantly better next year to have a chance of entry to medicine. they won't make the grade cut-off public... and of course people aren't very likely to want to fess up to having the distinction of only just scraping in with the lowest possible marks... apparently someone or other got in on something between an A- and an A average (for the core 4 papers). but they could have kicked *ss at the UMAT and the interview... most people seem to think that 8 or 8.25 (so 4 A's or 3 A's and an A+) is more like it... for the non-rural non-maaori and pacific islander applicants, at any rate. it really is so very hard to say...
i'm feeling quite good about biology. because i'm really enjoying reading the textbook. to start with i was a bit grumpy it wasn't Marieb, because i enjoyed Marieb from tech. But now i really love Tortora. I think it is better than Marieb (or what I remember from Marieb) with a more clinical focus. Every time I get to a part and I think about all the medical conditions I've faintly heard of involving this or that... There is bound to be a clinical box briefly going over it. So... And I know the textbook goes into heaps more detail than we will need. Somehow... That helps me feel that what we do need to learn is more manageable.
I'm also thinking... One of the things that I think really helped me for psychology was the fact that I enjoyed learning from the textbooks. In the tests / exams you would get the odd question that seemed genuinely ambiguous. And I'd go with my gut. Then later... I'd find that the angle or focus or emphasis of the textbook was driving my gut. And my gut was right. I've looked at some past bio exams and again, there seem to be quite a few genuinely ambiguous questions. E.g., hard to say which structure that line is pointing to on the diagram. Anyway... It is common for students to complain that various of the questions are ambiguous... It is also common for students to pronounce that you don't need to buy the textbooks because they got through the year just fine without even opening theirs. Maybe if they opened them they would have resolved the ambiguous questions better than chance! Perhaps... That is my theory for now, at any rate. The histology pics on the text / exam... I think they picked them out of the non-histology parts of the textbook (beyond prescribed reading, even)...
I may not pronounce this theory too loudly.
I'm mostly feeling good about next year because the courses are much more genuinely interesting to me and I know they put a great deal of time and thought into their contents etc. That means they present the information much more clearly and the information is much more likely to be a manageable chunk. They won't be assuming that we are lazy and stupid students...
I spent about 4 hours learning the content of the first embryology lecture. That seems like a lot of time, to me. But I have never done any embryology before and there are too many xxxblast and blastxxx names to try and get straight and lots of things have 2 names and instead of making it clear when 2 names are synonymous they will introduce a structure with one name and then go on to use another and you have to go on a bit of a hunt to figure out whether they are referring to the same or different things aaaargh... anyway... I enjoyed it. And it means... I have a good chance of following along in the lecture since most of it will be familiar and I'm much more likely to remember stuff from the lecture since I have the basic structure to hang the new content onto.
It is common for people to complain that parts of biology are content heavy. But then, it is also common for people to pronounce that you don't need High School Biology because biology isn't hard, really. Anyway... One guy said he did really well in High School Biology and he thinks it really did help because it gave him more time for other courses when other people had to put in a significant number of hours learning about translation and transcription and miosis and mitosis... Campbell's Biology does go on... But there is a single chapter from Tortora which is probably more than we need to know... So... And I'm enjoying it all now, which is great.
Anyway... I think I won't do summer school because it doesn't finish until a week before things start. And I do want to be fresh... I'll just gatecrash some of the lectures... Since the lungs are pistons and all... Sigh.
I better get into health science next year. please oh please oh please. They let me into the degree 2x before because I had a Masters... I've still got my freaking Masters ffs... they better let me in!!!
Posted by alexandra_k on November 16, 2014, at 14:59:55
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 15, 2014, at 17:11:57
and the thing i've almost purposely been putting out of my mind... i need to sit the UMAT. everybody does. around about june or july.
i should have sat it this year for the practice. i really had been putting it out of my mind...
it has a 'critical reasoning' section... which has some statistics. you need to know things like 'you can't make inferences about absolute numbers or proportions when you are only given percentage information'. and sometimes background knowledge assists (e.g., questions on phototaxis and the like and inferring what is going on from where the microbes migrated to in the picture of them in their dish)... and othertimes it interferes (where subject specific knowledge or even general knowledge or even common-sense goes beyond the information on the page). i need to learn how critical reasoning / logic is going to play along... are they going to interpret language the way philosophers do? e.g., if they say 'people' do we read that as 'all people' or 'some people' or 'only some people' or 'most people' or 'not all people' and which of those do they consider equivalent etc... i need to figure... is it helpful to draw venn diagrams or diagram logic structure? (this really does seem to be more math than critical reasoning to me)
it has a theory of mind section. partly it is about knowlege of synonyms. it might say that someone is 'irritated' and then 'anger' appears on your list. so a test of english language proficiency. partly it is about incorporating information and assuming something like rationality and good intent. e.g., the fact that someone did a prenatal course is supposed to establish that she is knowledgeable and responsible and well dispositioned toward the pregnancy. how nurses are likely to feel is how one would feel if one were taking all of the above into account with perfect rationality, and so on... i think... it is more how people would feel in some slightly formal slightly literary novel than how the masses would likely feel when they are sick or hormonal or sleepy angry lonely or tired... but... whatever... it seems learnable, which is good...
* actually... i know how it seems... it seems like some of the 'worked through' examples a certain author used when i was reading his stuff on emotions. when higher order (hence fairly rationally controlled) emotions were used 'strategically' as a communication / manipulation strategy. not as an expression of emotional intensity but as a way of making it likely that others will act in ways you want them to. Machiavelli emotions, i think he called them. heh.
it has a math section which they reckon is about pattern recognition. next one in a sequence or arrange the 5 into a sequence and pick the middle or whatever. you are meant to use the simplest rule possible and i think there is even a higher order rule about what constitutes simplicity... addition is simpler than multiplication, for example. the sequences are weird... there are different elements and you need to follow them about. weird things can happen. one of them can cover up others. people say that this is the easiest section to improve on with study... i guess especially if you simply can't see how to do any of them initially... and then you learn some strategy rules. even knowing that each element is in fact guided by a rule (and some clues as to what those rules might be e.g., +1, +1, +1 or +1, +2, +3 or +1, -1, +1, -1 is a considerable help to me (this really is maths - right?) but simple maths... simple once you know the rule, maths...
i guess the idea is to think of it as being a lot like chemistry... lots of little skills / tricky tricks. impossible if you don't know... but really easy once you know how. and so the thing to do is to take my time getting the right answer with the practice sets. and then once i can actually get the right answer to most of them i can worry about picking up the pace. i think that is the key, really. there is considerable time pressure. but if i feel too anxious my response is to freeze / output garbage for a time. and so... i really will need to practice pacing... so i don't waste time garbage skimming (not gaining any useful information) ... it is a tricky thing... i should have taken it this year DAMMIT.
it is mostly about learning to think the way they do. the theory of mind test isn't in grasping how people are 'mostly likely' to think with respect to the 'most likely' demographic. not at all. my theory of mind has changed significantly over the past few years as i've interacted more with non-university / non-academic people. their mentality is quite different, i really do believe. and of course people say one thing... and mean / believe / do another. but none of that matters for the super-sophisticated theory of mind test. and of course the written theory of mind test has applicability back to the real world - right? i mean... the adults with autism... they can't learn the 'right' answer to the sally-anne task - right?i am lucky that this university only makes the UMAT worth 15% of their selection procedure. australian universities take the test much much MUCH more seriously... for us... you have to do one of the two 8 paper years. you have to get a B+ average across those 8 papers in order to apply. then candidates are ranked on the basis of their grades for the 4 papers that are overlapping / common to both pathways. they offer 2x as many interviews as they have available places. that is where people are saying that you need more like a 7.75 to get an interview... but admissions won't say any more because it varies from year to year... and then... candidates are ranked where GPA on the overlapping 4 is worth 60%, interview is worth 25%, UMAT is worth 15%. and places are offered...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 17, 2014, at 0:00:10
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 16, 2014, at 14:59:55
sigh.
and most people say it would be a great year... lots of really interesting classes... if only there wasn't such pressure to do well. brings out the worst in everyone, i think.
people say that they look back on it... and it wasn't much fun, yeah. especially the kids who didn't go into the year with lots of their mates from high school...
i think i do need a bit of an attitude adjustment. that isn't quite it... i need to learn how they want me to think for the UMAT. it... annoys me, rather. such tests annoy me. i've never done very well on them. people took great delight in my not doing well on them. nobody every tried to teach me how to do better on them. i'm cross because i need to put quite a bit of time into figuring out how to do them... and it seems very much a hoop thing... i mean... how will getting better at spot the middle help me at anything other than that particular task?
i am scared... this year has helped in some ways... has been necessary... but my confidence has taken a bit of a hit, too... my squat stalled today so i'm cranky about that. but i shouldn't be... because it is the best it has ever been and i've been consistently doing better than i've ever done before (front squat 45kg for triples is very reliable indeed and i couldn't get it for a single before). couldn't get my second triple today at 47.5kg... gosh... i remember when i couldn't squat the 20kg bar... i have come a long way... in a little over 5 years. ha.
enjoy the summer for sure.
:)
c'mon grades...
i will snatch 60kg before i die. i will.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 17, 2014, at 0:02:33
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 17, 2014, at 0:00:10
the emotion section... is about seeing patience and kindness and responsibleness etc etc etc everywhere... about projecting that and seeing that. i get it.
but the fact that i'm taking a test... makes me feel cranky. and short. and impatient. and so i'm likely to interpret that into the answers... which is precisely what they don't want to see.
ak!
Posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 0:38:37
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 17, 2014, at 0:02:33
had a disturbed nights sleep... worried about the UMAT, go figure.
i think...
i need to be a bit careful about the gym. figure out what helps me feel good... vs what gets me feeling achy and agitated. the cross-fit style going hard at a bunch of different things... you can get sort of addicted to the adrenalin, or something, but it is just running yourself into the ground, really.
yoga.
rediscover that. keep it as a routine for next year.
i think...
the way for me to think of the UMAT is that it is indeed teaching us a bag of tricks. they basically say as much... that they don't reccommend extensive study / preparation (it won't help). there are outfits (not authorised by them) who charge a lot of money for extra preparation help... they are explicit in saying that they don't endorse them.
but the official people provide you with one full exam with worked answers when you register. and you can purchase another. and you can purchase another - but this time the provided answers aren't worked / explained. and you can purchase another half set with unworked answers... and i think their point is... that if all that isn't enough for you to get the tricks / rules / patterns such that you can go on similarly (and quickly) then, uh, there isn't much hope for you.
they are upfront about how preparation is helpful... i guess... the idea is to make good use of the materials you can get from them... and then figure out how much time you have to spend on each question (or chunk of 4 or 5 when you have a bunch of questions about the same blurble) and keep to your plan such that you finish on time and just... do the best you can in the time that you have.
and some people just can't seem to do that... people posting that they had a bunch at the end that they didn't get to answer because they ran out of time (bad time management) or they got stuck on one (the site people say they put some in that don't count toward your overall score - probably purposely to psych you out or confound you or prime you or just testing a future tricky trick they might find predictive of ability on another tricky trick...) and some people who pay a fortune on extra help courses and still don't seem to be able to see +1 +1 +1 strategy in the appropriate time frame.
the inter-personal ones are... good, actually. part of the trick seems to be... that one person is... dispassioned. objective. doctorly, perhaps. in some kind of stereotypical way. they KNOW you are going to identify with that one. the trick isn't to identify with them... the trick is to identify with the OTHER one. the one who is (at least partly) responding to the perception of distance / aloofness etc. the idea is to... judge their response to be something... that gets you feeling warmly disposed towards them rather than judgemental or dismissive etc. or something. anyway... nice. kind. i like-y. i tell myself. heh.
point is... there are rules. and i will get them. no need to be stressed / panicked about this. just a bit of dilligence... like my other work... i... thought science would teach me dilligence. i think that it is.
yay.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 2:56:00
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 0:38:37
B for biology. which is disappointing. It is true what they say: everything is decided from the first test. Class placings, I mean. Everyone does comparably well in labs and in the final exam so class placings are decided from the first test (unless you massively f*ck something up).
Looking again at an old copy of the first test for biology next year... Some of the diagrams are genuinely ambiguous. They have changed the line markers from a text diagram so it genuinely is unclear what structure the new markers are pointing to. Or... Perhaps there is some hierarchy of 'best answer' such that 'best answer' gets to be half wrong and half right... And one of the histology slides... Or perhaps they will go into a bit more detail about how to distinguish / perhaps that was a slide they went through in class... You really can't see from the slide whether all the cells are attached to the basal membrane or not (whether it is pseudostratified or actually stratified) but those are both available in the multiguess...
I can't tell if it is just that I am not very good at this... Or whether it really does come down so significantly to luck.
I guess with animal biology the biggest thing was that... I wasn't that into animal biology. And then they refused to make their powerpoints available etc etc...
I don't think I'm going to get a B average.
I guess I just have to see what happens...
Have I lost my mind? It really does seem... Tech, all over again...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 15:39:16
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 2:56:00
sigh. this is eating at me...
i suspect...
i'm learning that people 'play it cool'.
on the one hand you get the kids from the good schools who are all 'omfg that is SO EASY i could do that when i was 7' and so on... and of course then you get kids rolling their eyes at them / hating on them and certain other kids (who went to those same schools) realise that that isn't winning them any favors...
so they 'play it cool'. they are all, like, 'no, i didn't know how to do that before, i just worked that out now' and sometimes they get themselves 'omg you are so smart!' by doing things that way...
one thing people do is be all like 'oh no, i'm not even worried about that' (studying frantically behind the scenes). you don't want people to know you plan on working your *ss off... because then they might work their *ss off... and then they might be a serious competitor... so much better if you can somehow convince them to slack off... so you might work harder than them and win.
i wonder if some of that is coming through... so people worked harder for that exam than i gave them credit for...
my lab partners this year... were lovely people. i mean, really lovely. but really really really rather... not hardworking. i mean, really. though... i am learning... everyone basically gets around 3/4 of the available marks for labs and with each lab being only worth about 5% rounding makes individual differences in marks... come out in the wash. so, uh, why bother doing your pre-reading... why not just blink your big eyes and follow the herd. save your energy for individual study later. unless the first test is done in which case... cruise along that class for the rest of the semester...
i think this has illustrated to me... that i need to find some good friends next year. people who i can (eventually anyway) relax and be honest around. next year is going to be weird with people saying things and doing other things... and... well... everyone is going to be freaking out in their own special way. perhaps there isn't any such thing as good friends. perhaps it is more about temporary alliances.
i really don't get what happened with this class... i mean... i get why i did badly on the first test. I didn't have the textbook and i didn't really study for it. but i worked through the past years couple of exams (which i didn't think many people would do) and it was largely copy-paste.
one thing... i mean... i've done the whole railing that they just threw them down the stairs etc... but one thing might be that my drawings suck. it could be... i mean... they don't give us the diagrams they expect us to reproduce. so it is unclear what they want / what level of detail they want. i did get in trouble with labs sometimes for being too detailed mostly... maybe it is an extension of that. i don't know.
a bit nervous now... but there is nothing i can do. i am glad animal biology is over. i didn't much like it. i suppose it is mostly about that.
but then there were parts that i did like... subject matter, anyway... but they managed to put me off them... by not giving us a clear manageable chunk of content. like... there was one diagram that went up... and it was pretty complicated with detail we didn't need to know... and someone had last years exam and was like 'how would you answer this question' and... the lecturer wouldn't draw us a simple, clear example in class. then that was the one in the exam. so... they fish for answers and see what people throw up instead of testing us on whether we have learned the information they have presented to us?
i don't understand why you would want a first test (3 or 4 weeks into the semester) to decide class placings / grades for the entire class. unless... you are deciding to distribute class placings / grades on the basis of what school people went to.
i have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach... that the latter is it. that something like that is going on. that the kids from certain schools have been purposely given exposures through their school years to maximise their chances on that first test... and so... first test takes all. quickly. before you give the other kids the opportunity to catch up.
i mean, if you can't buy your kids way into this and that... well, then, what's the point in having money? why would you bother to work at all if you didn't get stuff like that for your working?
because everybody knows that the best most worthwhile work the most genuine work that profits society only happens because the people behind it get paid megabucks to do it. i mean... everybody knows that intrinsic motivation is... well... laughable, really. if you want a generation of doctors to be whining and bitching and moaning about how little they get paid... make sure you select the kids whose parents money gave them a place. for sure.
epidemiology is the same. first test decides the distribution because everyone does well at everything after that... is it that hard to come up with multiple assessments where each is graded according to a distribution? i really don't see... anyway... it largely is stats. simple stats... but stats. simple calculations. simple divisions and multiplications. with a bunch of zeroes. and some time pressure. and some stuff on reading graphs and the like...
they told me it wasn't stats. past years tests tell me different.
no good will come of my thinking like this. i do feel bitter about my grade. bitter is never good. i simply don't understand how my exam performance didn't bump me up the class placings (get me a better grade). i understood it wouldn't be heaps... but surely more than 1/4 of the class did not go through past years exams... and so i simply don't understand how my exam performance didn't get me a B+, at least.
I need to wait a couple months before i can apply for the exam script. i guess at that point i can see if someone can explain it to me. because... i really do want to understand... if i can... if there is something i can do that i'm not doing... anyway... whatever...
there is nothing i can do about it now...
except not to get lured into the distraction that is (dis)orientation week over the first few weeks of the semester. and to draw everything simply. i think that is it. i am going to go with that. draw everything simply. i'm done with lists. diagrams and label.
sniff.
Posted by Twinleaf on November 19, 2014, at 18:07:40
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 15:39:16
Hi Alex,
I have been following your posts with interest and empathy, as I travelled the same pre-med -medical school road a while ago. Then, affirmative action to help less-advantaged minority students had not yet begun, nor was it possible to study lecture or laboratory materials in advance. I feel certain the quality of the schools we had previously attended was not a factor in how we were graded.There was SO much material to learn that our time was almost entirely devoted to studying. We went to labs and lectures every day for the first two years, and clinical rotations for the next two, and studied all evening and most weekends. EVERYONE had to do it, even the ones with the highest IQs! Usually, we tried to take one weekend off a month to travel, ski, hike etc. the rest of the time, we were studying -usually an average of six hours a day -after the time we spent in lectures and labs (almost all of which we attended)
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting you, but I get the impression from time to time that, instead of studying, you sometimes look for an "angle" which will give you an academic advantage. Sometimes it seems that you perhaps get quite anxious before tests and distract yourself by tending to personal technical matters when the other students are almost surely putting in hours of study. It is, maybe, safer if you don't give it your best effort, than if you do - and don't receive an A. I think all of us have felt that way about many things at times.
I sometimes have a sort of sad feeling that you have everything you need to do very well, but that, at times, you are your own worst enemy! I can tell you one thing for sure - no-one ever made it through med school without many thousands of hours of hard and concentrated study.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 22:05:56
In reply to Re: balance » alexandra_k, posted by Twinleaf on November 19, 2014, at 18:07:40
Hi. Yeah... Sometimes I am my own worst enemy, I know.
I could be wrong... But I think posting helps. Helps me to articulate it instead of it going round and round. Then I can look back on it from a more objective position. Sometimes I see how to recast it.
I don't know. Maybe I should post less and do something different to shift my focus / get it out of my head. I don't know.
I know I often read back and cringe, rather, at the way I view things. There is a reason I try not to take it to my interpersonal relationships IRL.
Later year medical students... Say that they remember the overlapping year one as being really very stressful. Because at this stage all you know is that it is really really really really really unlikely that you will get a place. Around 1,300 students trying to get what can only be around 70 places reserved for people from first year who aren't rural or part of a targeted minority ethnic group. Only around 1/2 of the 1,300 are serious... But even then.
The students say that while they do have to work hard later, once they are in medicine... While they miss not having breaks etc... It is easier in the sense that you know the program is invested in you passing. The program has invested in you. This first year (my next year) is hard precisely because it is most likely that the program won't choose you.
I know that it is a completely pointless waste of my time and energy to get upset about various things... That it is only useful for me to worry about factors that are within my power to change. That it is only useful for me to worry about them insofar as it motivates me to do what is necessary to change them.
I know I'm grasping at straws with this whole 'trying to figure the trick' thing... It is because I'm feeling a little desperate that certain things are random or that I'm unable to grasp whatever it is that you are supposed to which means that things seem random to me even when they aren't...
I am actually fairly sure that they view it as a kindness that the distribution is decided by the first test. That way it frees up the 700 or so not particularly serious ones to go join their clubs and make the most of their social opportunities / go find their future husbands / wives... I don't think they see it as unfairly advantaging those who come in well prepared / not giving those who are less prepared much of a chance to catch up... I've just been having a conversation with the accommodation people about how it would be nice to have a quiet / silent floor option for students who are keen to do that. They don't seem to realize that some people refuel from being alone and that they might well have lots of students who collapse into stress-balls during the first batch of tests (where things are decided week 3 / 4) because they are absolutely exhausted from the social pressure to get out there! get in there! join clubs! go to concerts! go out drinking with your fellow floor mates! do every f*ck*ng social activity you can and then 5 more! during the (dis) orientation that they do through weeks one and two...
Anyway... I have decided to draw more pictures instead of focusing on lists. Because it is something that I can do... And because it is the only thing I can think of to do in response to having done crap in that Biology class. I mean, aside from 'don't take comparative animal biology if you don't want to learn about invertebrates, bugs, worms, fishes, dinosaurs, amphibians, birds, or bats'. It was either that or plant biology, you see, because I had to save the course I really wanted to do (cellular and human development and then anatomy and physiology) for next year.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2014, at 19:28:42
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 22:05:56
thanks for posting to me, by the way. i felt bad about jumping over you before. i was stressed and defensive. i know you mean well and i do appreciate your following along :)
it is probably more than 70 places that go to first years... i looked into things a bit more and they are actually very vague about their targeted rural admission scheme... it is looking a lot more like they don't actually have one... aka: there don't seem to be a specified number of places set aside for that but they will 'take it into account' for the interview. if you... i don't know... stand too far back from your interviewers perhaps lmfao.
i had a chat to one of my dear old friends last night... it put me in a lot better mood. i really have been bummed out about my biology grade...
everyone is freaking out right now because of grades coming back / admissions next year. people really have started freaking out about next year already. i really am not the only one.
i have emailed them about the average requirement... and now i can't find that webpage that had the average requirement... but i realized that the B average thing would most likely be across all your study (thus across my Masters and Honours and previous Undergrad degree) rather than just the previous year. And that, basically, the idea was more to take good students rather than picking up the science students who decided they didn't want to work so hard, or whatever. So... I feel a bit more relaxed. I am sure it will be okay. Almost certain.
Besides which... I don't know... I really don't know... But it is possible that I will come out with a B for physics and the same or better for law. So... Relax Alex... I have been reading some economics of healthcare stuff and surprisingly... It is actually fairly interesting. Infuriating at times... But actually some really interesting stuff on the structure of the health system / of health systems. Looking at different aspects... It IS hard. Yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2014, at 21:06:08
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2014, at 19:28:42
got an offer for Health Science next year - before my other grades came back.
PHEW PHEW PHEW.
omfg that was so stressful
Posted by Twinleaf on November 20, 2014, at 21:55:32
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2014, at 21:06:08
WONDERFUL!
Posted by alexandra_k on November 21, 2014, at 1:40:30
In reply to Re: balance » alexandra_k, posted by Twinleaf on November 20, 2014, at 21:55:32
to first year, to be clear. to have the opportunity to compete for a transfer in place to second year along with the 1,300 or so others.
but still. i would have been pretty pissy to have gotten declined from the opportunity to try.
next year curriculum is MUCH more interesting to me. i've started on it already :)
Posted by alexandra_k on November 21, 2014, at 1:41:42
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 21, 2014, at 1:40:30
and because i accepted my place quick-smart i got the best possible lab times.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2014, at 20:31:33
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 21, 2014, at 1:41:42
actually... you know... i think something weird happened with my biology grade...
i got 5/5 for this online nonsense. and then i got 18.17/20 for labs. the only problem with that is pretty much everyone picked up those marks, so it doesn't settle a distribution (just means that some kids can be failed because if they didn't even do those components of the course...)
then i got 21.96/35 for the first test. which was a very bad grade, i thought. i was unhappy. but then, i hadn't read the book and i hadn't studied particularly much (it was before the study break), and i didn't know we were going to be asked to draw pictures...
so i went in to the exam with 45.13/60 possible marks... which is looking like an A- (75%)...
i did prepare for the exam. not massively... but reasonably... i did quite a bit... and i worked through past years... and i thought i had done quite well on the exam... not amazingly... but quite well...
was thinking I would come out with a B+ or an A-.
To have come out with a B... Means I only just passed the exam. That... That really doesn't sound right. I am certain I did a lot better than that.
Unless they scaled the living crap out of them. So the grading distribution was set by performance on the first test, since everyone picked up comparable marks for the other internally assessed components (except possibly the lowest quarter).
I still know a bunch of kids who wouldn't have done any preparation and who wouldn't have worked through past years exams and who didn't have a copy of the textbook... Did they all get C's??? WTF??? This seems super-weird to me.
I've sent a query... To inquire about whether the scaled the crap out of the exam... I don't know whether they are allowed to say anything... Only official channel is paying a lot of money for a recount. You don't even get that money back if they f*ck*d it up.
I have requested my exam script.. But that takes months (won't come back until after grades are finalised, fairly sure). I had forgotten all the closing of ranks / *ss covering you get working for the man...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2014, at 20:52:16
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2014, at 20:31:33
we don't have blind grading, you see. we are supposed to write our names clearly on every page of our exam... i'm surprised they don't get us to write our high school, too. still, that information is freely available on our student page that they can easily access with our name and student id...
and we got an email before grades came out about how so and so was nominated for a teaching award and what did we have to say about that?
(and i actually thought that i was very careful... and diplomatic... and also kind. that was what i was going for. he should get the popular vote. that is clearly what he is going for. appeal to the masses... be a bit entertaining. he is a warm and friendly guy and the people seem to like him. wonderful).
and people are hating on me already because they think i don't have proper respect for biology. they are tired of how people go on about chemistry as being the hard one. they want to be the hard one. they want to pass 2x the number of people that chemistry do... but they are pissed off that everyone doesn't respect them for being the hard one.
sigh.
tech again.
thank god... none of this matters in the bigger scheme of things.
into the program i want to be in next year. done and dusted. none of this matters... even if law lady is pissy that i don't want to be a lawyer (name and id on every page) done and dusted. at this point it is time to move on...
the crabs will do their thing...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2014, at 20:57:59
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2014, at 20:52:16
i suppose it is possible... but fairly improbable. i was sitting around the class average for my performance on the first test. and the class average is what? a B? probably. that is why i thought my exam performance would have bumped me up.
there would have been a bunch of kids who didn't prepare by working through past years exams. i would be surprised if more than 1/4 of them worked through past years exams...
and i do know neuroscience... and very abstract evolutionary stuff...
1/2 the kids can't remember to bring their rulers to labs...
this really doesn't make a great deal of sense.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 14:29:40
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2014, at 20:57:59
Sorry about that. Not such a helpful way to see it.
The thing is... On the one hand... I would be happy to just put it behind me. Thank god I don't have to play with them for the next few years. But on the other hand... I don't want to pass up a learning opportunity... If there is something to be learned...
I mean... I did really rather badly. And I need to do a lot better for next year... So... What went wrong? It is really throwing me because I didn't think I had done that badly, I thought I had done really rather well on the exam. The second chemistry test... The second physics test... I knew I had done badly on them. No surprises. I knew that I didn't know how to do x and y and z. I lost marks for x and y and z. No surprises. Doing better at chemistry and physics in future is about being able to do practice problems before hand... It is about... practice. A little bit each day... Over a longer period of time than I had to prepare.
Only twice before in my life have I felt so... Confused about things. For a course at tech. 'Methods of Training'. It felt like they threw the exams down the stairs. Actually, no, a little more strategic. It felt like they purposely picked a few kids who would get to do well at it to give them a confidence boost / to give them some kudos or something like that. Because there wasn't a clear content for the course, you see. Or a marking guide, most probably. The other course was 'introduction to teaching and the curriculum' where everybody got an A-. because.... everyone is worth just as much as everyone else, didn't you know? (That is the future of teaching in this country, right there).
So...
I did have this... Kerfuffle? with the first year co-ordinator at the start of the year... About having access to powerpoint notes BEFORE class. And I was told that they had just changed their policy on with holding them... So they would be available before lecture.
And talking about the laboratory thing... And she suggested that maybe I just wasn't any good at laboratory (because of how I did badly on my chemistry labs). And I was calm about that... And said that maybe I wasn't any good at laboratory... But that that wasn't the problem (even if true) the problem was more that I was being prevented from learning in chemistry laboratory because the environment wasn't conducive to my functioning given certain things about it resulting in my having sensory meltdown...
And then she somehow got it into her head that I thought she was an idiot... Because in responding to her above objection (to my having laboratory accommodations) I said 'oh, the 'maybe you are just stupid objection'. and at that point she got it into her head that I was calling her stupid. And she was like 'WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!!!' and I was like 'I was naming your objection' (you know, like how you label the logical fallacy, the ecological fallacy and so on and so forth) and she couldn't hear what I was saying..
Because... Uh... Because... Well, because she struggled a lot in her studies. If she did studies. One can only suppose...
I don't know what is up where they think that it is good for kids to have teachers who struggle. You know... If you want to help struggling kids... Kids who struggle in biology... Then give them teachers who struggle in biology. Give them teachers who can't get their transcription and translation straight... Teachers who can't distinguish their cromatin from their chromosome from their chromatid. That will help the kids most-est. Then when they get to university... Give them the lecturers just like that, too...
When the world doesn't make any sense... You can't help other people see sense in it... I feel like that sometimes (very rarely, thankfully). There are some questions... GOOD questions... That distinguish. That are fair. That question where the answer is to be found on the 4th powerpoint of lecture 9. Second point on a slide with 4 points and one simple diagram. Obscure... But there. Or a synthetic question... Logical deduction. That works, too.
But if you can't be taught to see what is going on in the above... If nobody points out to you 'there is the answer, that was how you were expected to know that'. Then I suppose things seem... Random. You think that the teacher just pulls questions out of their *ss and it isn't stuff that is taught. And you inflict those sorts of questions onto your students. And your tests don't discriminate those who learned the content that you taught them (haha) from those who didn't... Those who put in the time from those who didn't. Those who have the ability to learn information that might be required (in a job, too) and those who don't...
And if you didn't spend however many years actually studying your *ss off from textbooks and powerpoint slided... Then you don't get much of an idea of how much content is reasonable... Or of how to present that content as simply as you can in order to extract the most content out of your students at the end of the day...
Instead you employ little tricks... Like asking the exact same questions for several exams in a row so that the unknowing observer / external moderator thinks that you had a high level content for the course... But really... You just gave them not much to memorise / taught to the exam rather than the exam being a random sample of their greater knowledge.
I can just imagine... People sitting somewhere... THinking that somehow I got 'taught a lesson'. What did I get taught? Useful stuff on how to study better? Or that 'I can't be good at everything'. I suspect... The latter. I suspect there is supposed to be some kind of lesson for me like that... You have to share your moment of glory (getting good grades) it isn't fair to hog the limelight. Because it is about that, you see. The Kudos. Like wanting to use the women's bar ONLY because someone else really wants to use it therefore it must be valuable...
I did make it clear at the start... About how I was having trouble following lectures because people were whispering all the way through them... Instead of telling people 'only rule in my classroom is that you don't disturb others learning - shut up or get out' they were all 'come to class come to class come to class'. People come to class hacking up phlem over all the other students... but that's okay at least they came to class so the lecturer gets to feel popular... That's what it's about - right?
And so we have diagrams in this book that aren't labelled... And we are supposed to label them from the lecture... Which isn't recorded... So you cant' really listen to the lecture because you are trying to put the labels on your diagram. Because you get one shot in putting the labels on the diagram because otherwise why would people come to class? And if people don't come to class then the lecturer doesn't get to feel popular.
So... Just getting the content that you needed to learn was a f*ck*ng mission. I mean... Give a person the diagram... Go through it.. I'd say 5 minutes... Over 4 days... And you'd have it down. But no, we must devote a good chunk of class time to it. And then if we weren't sure if that was the right label since where the line is pointing to is ambiguous... Or whatever... The diagram isn't a 'standard diagram'. It isn't in our text or whatever.
Anyway.... I was assured that lecture notes would go up (to save me from this nonsense). Only they didn't. And lecture recordings didn't go up either. I think... They don't want people to see their contents.. Because they might feel somewhat embarrassed.
It is just... Extremes... One guy who writes a textbook of a lab manual. Very nicely done, actually. But then his powerpoint notes are really crucial for carving out a manageable chunk. For focusing on what aspects he considers important. He wont' provide that.
It just seems random... As random as things would seem if I floated along from class to class doing NO WORK outside of class AT ALL. I think... that is how it is supposed to seem. I mean.. People are all equal, didn't you know? And what, you think you are better than other people (deserve better grades) for working harder? for working smarter? Confound those things and then what's she got? Lets teach her a lesson...
?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 15:10:05
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 14:29:40
I know that I will be given increasingly fewer powerpoints over the years in something like medicine...
I mean... Philosophers don't typically use powerpoints. I used to be an English major ffs...
But when you have a lot of factoids to cram... You need clear presentation of those factoids so that you can put your energy and attention to getting them into your brain instead of scrambling about trying to find the information that it is that you are supposed to learn... Especially when you are just starting out... I understand that content gets trickier once you get to graduate school... But I simply don't see why people want to try and teach first year like it is graduate school. There is so much... 'Standard content' to cram in there...
We don't have STEP exams... But it seems that we do have a major exam near the end... That must be passed... And you sit that exam every year. But they don't expect you to pass it until the end. But you are encouraged to see where you sit amongst people in your year. Anyway... That is what it is about. The teaching... Setting up your clinical skills (so hopefully you can be somewhat impressive on your placements and get a job in that area one day) and getting you passing that exam.
And some lecturers are more or less scrambled than others. But there is clear textbook content that must be learned. And a few different texts that cover the same / similar content, even. So you have room to find whichever works for you. People say that some lecturers.. Their powerpoint notes are good enough. FOr other lecturers... You need to get a good text because the powerpoints are non-existent or too bare bones or whatever.
But still... The crucial thing... Is still that the lecturers (I'm presuming) are the ones who did well... Who have an understanding of what doing well requires...
Less random. I think that is my point...
I think... Biology (first year level, anyway) is a big money earner for... Biology. I suppose. So they have this building... Where the lecturers are kept... So you can't even get to them for office hours as an undergrad because you don't have building access. That's where things have got to... Then you have a first year co-ordinator in a HUGE office... with all these books... That look unread probably for obvious reason. And she's the 'face' who does all the aministration beurocracy stuff that most people don't want a bar of. You go crying to her when you didn't get to your lab because your cat peed on your prelab that morning etc etc etc... And the Tuakana extra help tutorial people... Who give out free pizza... So that Maaori and Pacific Island students come to class... I mean... My friend from last semester went to the extra help chemistry ones... She said they were really helpful... She said that she 'didn't learn that way' when it came to drawing as preparation for drawing a face centered cubic packing cell... I don't know what they do when it comes to study... But they are there... Equity etc...
Anyway... Everyone wants to be a marine biologist...
They did talk about introducing a lottery for medical school entry. There was resistance to that. Nobody likes to think that there is a lottery component. Even those who don't get in...
Anyway... Wouldn't it be fun to swim with the dolphins all day? And you don't have to write essays in biology... Or do many equations...
Anyway...
I'll take a look at my exam script when it comes back to me... And then move on.
Since they aren't interested in using tests (for example) as learning opportunities (to explain to people where they went wrong to help them improve)... As you would do if there were ryme and / or reason and you wanted to ensure that motivated people were given opportunity...
...
Wouldn't you?
?
Or you could not distribute answers... I mean, most people won't even bother to collect their tests... Nobody will query their grade / want answers explained to them...
Then you can re-use the questions the following year.
That's a better system - right?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 15:38:26
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 15:10:05
it is the lack of model answers / explanation. that's what's hard.
i mean...
the UMAT people... provide model answers. and explanations. so you learn how to reason the way they do. chemistry does that, too. and physics. at least a little bit of the time. reasons through whatever it is that they are teaching you do do... and so... if you are being tested on lecture notes / powerpoint slides / textbook readings / lecture presentations... they should be able to draw your attention to where it occurred on the lecture notes / powerpoint slides / textbook readings / lecture presentations...
so you can go - 'oh. i see i should have learned that. but i didn't. fair question. i will be more careful in my study next time'.
i think i should just move on.
i did quite well at tech... i mean, i know that the distribution is different there because you get more kids who don't study / can't read etc... though, actually, i'm starting to see that that isn't necessarily true... but objectively... with respect to getting the answers that should have been got. and ditto psychology over the years. so... i suppose i should just put this behind me.
think of it as the last vestige of tech, or whatever. i suppose it is, really. i suppose they do think of the class that way.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 18:41:39
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 15:38:26
spew spew spew. i feel better now.
they weren't scaled... so... i'll take a look at the exam... see where i lost those marks.
i suspect it largely is because i wasn't that into the subject matter. i suppose i forget how much study i do for courses when i'm more interested. i mean... thinking about how many hours i've spent on biology for next year already... how well i can recall the lab manual for the class next year and i haven't even had those lectures yet... remembering back to lectures from animal biology... not to much.
and i probably am massively underestimating the fact that some of those kids really really really really really really really DO want to be marine biologists. to swim with dolphins, yeah, but some of them are also interested in plankton and... stuff... those weird mammals that have 3 vaginas...
i went to a pilates class. and it was good. and i feel... positive... and happy...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 20:01:48
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 18:41:39
so, apparently people who aren't depressed have an over-inflated view of themself. i wonder if people who succeed academically have an over-inflated view of themself, too? if that is part of the story as to why some people don't wallow in a little pit of (realistic) despair at various points in their life?
?
?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 25, 2014, at 13:18:27
In reply to Re: balance, posted by alexandra_k on November 23, 2014, at 20:01:48
Someone recommended it, and I know I've enjoyed some of their videos that I've found searching from Google, but I never looked into the site properly before...
They have a LOT of content. Cell biology and physics and chemistry and organic chemistry... I really enjoy Sal's videos a lot... He anticipates questions that I have along the way and I like how he repeats himself to consolidate content along the way... And he tends to read my mind when he is like 'here are some things people often find confusing' or 'here is something that people don't often get' or whatever... The other people are pretty great, too. There is an anatomy and physiology section and the chick doing the videos on bones draws and writes AMAZINGLY fast. I mean... blindingly fast. I've never seen anything like it... Maybe she is speeding up those sections of her videos? Anyway, whatever, super cool.
The maths has this little 'ding' noise that it makes. YEAH! And it adjusts the content depending on whether I get them right or wrong... And there are videos to teach me how when I don't know. Which was the main problem I was having with IXL...
I think... Little videos like this... Are better than textbooks. When you are just starting out, anyway. I was getting a bit bogged down in the textbook with meiosis and mitosis etc... The videos were great for getting the outline of the entire process. Details can be filled in later.
I think I will practice maths from there... IXL... Required a LOT to get mastery on particular skills... And... I was getting worried that they presented certain problems all together in a clump... So you learned how to do that particular style of problem... But you didn't get practice at picking out what strategy you needed to use from a bunch of them. Because they kept the different styles of problems clumped together. And, for me, half the battle (in real life tests and exams) is identifying the type of problem it is in the first place (so what I actually need to do to solve it).
Anyway...
It is summer. I have 3 months of freedom where I can do whatever I want. I need to enjoy it. The biggest battle for me next year... Is to not implode. Basically. Tis as simple as that. Well, it isn't... But it is necessary even if not sufficient. Focus on... Enjoying the journey. This was what I wanted... To be learning science... And I am. So. So there.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 26, 2014, at 16:44:18
In reply to Re: kahn academy, posted by alexandra_k on November 25, 2014, at 13:18:27
Summer is getting a bit much for me, with its completely unstructured time, already. Because I don't have a bunch of friends, I suppose. Because... I don't want to smoke pot or cigarettes... Spend my time trying to get hold of other drugs... Drink... And I suppose the truth of it is that I don't really know how to interact with people otherwise. Don't really know how to interact with people whose lives aren't organized around such things. Other people are thicker skinned... They have this whole jostly thing they do of seeing what they can get away with / how far they can push people, or whatever. I'm too thin skinned for that. And I don't see why you would want to be friends with people like that. People who would try and exploit others etc if they can get away with it...
Of course I realise that there is more going on behind it than that. That it is a way of learning who is able to (reasonably) defend themself, who is likely to fly off the handle, and so on... But I find all of that so terribly stressful... Too much. I'd rather be by myself.
I get lonely around this time of year. Because around this time of year everyone else is socially focused, I guess. It is summer... And I always feel vulnerable at this time of year... Feel exposed with all the light and with needing to wear less layers of clothing... And people going on about having fun and hanging out... And I don't have any friends to hang out with, basically. And I feel like I don't know how to hang out with people anymore. If I ever did. Without smoking / drinking.
That's pretty terrible, huh.
Sometimes... I think that I only really got dx'd with the Asperger's thing to help get me out of where I was living before (so I can live more independently). That that was what it was about, really. I definately need to be living more independently... But think that that was all it was about, really.
Othertimes... I think that maybe there is more to it. That I'm... Not really expected to ever have a proper job, or whatever. I think that maybe.. Maybe I am incapable of it, really.
I keep thinking 'I didn't really know what it meant to start over'... How before people expressed... Something a little like horror... Definite surprise about my wanting to start over... But now I'm thinking that they probably don't know what it means, either. Because it is impossible to know, really.
It involves a lot of feeling dumb. Really out of ones depth. And I guess something that people have been trying to say to me... Usually people go to university to do something that they already know they are reasonably good at. Though of course that isn't true with things like sociology and psychology and I guess you take your chances with trying out subjects like those, a little bit... But Science / Maths is quite different... And perhaps the very verbal subjects (like law) are a bit, too. Feels... Like there is something more like a very definite and somewhat fixed body of knowledge that they are trying to get down you... And I really started out not knowing any of it... I mean... I remember being surprised to learn about phase changes vs chemical changes around March... Thinking of the difference between melting and mixing... It had never occurred to me before... And nobody had taught me...
I suppose putting things that way, I have come rather a long way. But, on the other hand, a long way to go.
To f*ck knows where.
I think the largest part of what is hard... Is not knowing whether I'm seriously delusional about med... Or quite what. I really don't know. I think that is the hardest. But then... Suppose I got a place. Then the hardest thing would be wondering whether I could do it or not. ONly... At least I would know that govt people / admissions people believed I could. Because they wouldn't have invested in me, otherwise. Right now... Where things are at now... I can't tell if people have any kind of faith in me at all... Or whether where I am now... Really does just represent a kind of... Giving up of hope.
I guess... They wouldn't have let me get a student loan to study more if they had totally given up... There is that. I do worry a bit that my grades aren't good enough... But I guess B's are okay... Especially for my first year doing science, ever. Still don't know about physics or law... Can take up to 20 days after the final day in the exam period to get grades back, they reckon... I had forgotten just how much time they tend to take... Anyway...
I will go to summer school for something to do... An organising principle. I need to write myself out little goals of things I want to learn. So I can take pride in crossing them off... And because things like the UMAT seem to lurk as a murky haze that I'm vaguely terrified of... Need to carve them up. Make them manageable.
I'll be okay. It will only get easier. If I don't get into med I can always do Bio-Med or Physiology (depending on how my physics goes). Or... I could go back to psychology and try for clinical neuropsychology. Competitive, still... And back to the brain, again, (where I really wasn't entirely sure I wanted to go...), but I guess there is that...
Posted by alexandra_k on November 26, 2014, at 17:02:50
In reply to Re:, posted by alexandra_k on November 26, 2014, at 16:44:18
maybe i'll see what my wellington friends are up to over christmas... see if i can go down there for a week, or something. or they might be coming up here to hang out with one of their families... i might be able to see if i can tag along...
i'll have to put up with getting a lot of a hard time about looking like a hobo... and about not having much money to spend...
but i guess they don't mean anything nasty by it... i guess.
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