Maths and Biology...oh dear God.. read on. And now that the break is over and you’ve found you still haven’t done that much work, this might help.
Maths (I did 1001, 1002, 1003, 1005)
1. Go through the lecture notes and textbook each week and make sure you know what’s going on - there are some extra exercises at the end of each chapter that do help to go through. The online weekly revision quizzes are also great to go through, and just SO satisfying when you understand each question!
2. Try to avoid putting your tutorial as your last class on a friday... there’s a good chance it will suffer.
3. When you get the unit outline at the beginning of semester, write all the assignment and quiz dates in your diary so you don’t forget, because you often won’t be reminded as they come up
4. As exam time rolls around, download some past papers and work through them. Maths is good to study in groups, especially if solutions haven’t been put up for exams. The morning of my Stats exam in semester 2 I remember sitting in Manning going through a past paper with my friends; they had both had 4 straight exams that week, all of our eyeballs were practically falling out, we were going delirious with an exceedingly high caffeine intake, and I vaguely remember a question about the average number of babies born some month which prompted us to deliberate how you’d split a baby three ways...though we did get some productive work happening!
Biology (I did 1001)
1. Try and get the textbook second hand. It’s huge, and expensive. Even though you may very well not touch it until stuvac (not recommended, I repeat, NOT recommended), the second-hand ones sell out FAST so call as SOON as you see an ad on the back of the toilet door. Maybe wait until you’ve flushed and washed your hands, but then call immediately.
2. Don’t slack off in the first few weeks. There are readings and lecture notes to summarise and it actually won’t take that long if you stay on track. There are weekly quizzes during lab which cut through the defensive optimism of “it’ll all be ok in the end” which you can use to get through a lot of other subjects that don’t have continuous assessments.
3. Use the resources there for you: there is a biology learning centre in Carslaw (possibly level 5, or maybe 6 or 7...) with computers, textbooks, CD roms, etc that you can use. Also, the webCT for biology is great - there are a lot of revision materials and also self-test things you can use that are really helpful. Also, I always found the lecturers very approachable and they are often willing to sit down with you one on one and explain a concept that you don’t understand (though I only really made use of this when I entered ultra-high on my stress radar, aka the last day of stuvac when I’d spent the entire rest of the study break studying other subjects just to avoid doing biology)
4. I am glad I did biology last year - a) for perspective - I quite seriously tell myself “you got through biology, you got through biology” every time I have to do anything I find hard (and it’s even begun to permeate outside of the academic spectrum, in fact I think I said it to myself several times during the spring cycle), and b) a lot of the things we learnt came in handy in other subjects, particularly in psych. We learnt about miosis, mitosis, dominant and recessive traits and all that jazz in Developmental Psych, and there was even mention of it in Mental Abilities, so it really helped to know some already. Also, I am now aware that the curly hair gene is DOMINANT!!! Who knew?!
Read the first part: Things I wish I'd done in first year, part 1 - psychology