Not the most enjoyable time at the moment with 3 exams coming up 2 of which I need to pass with decent grades to do Masters next year and one that doesn't really matter I just need to pass it to avoid having to take it in 4th year. However of the three exams two I find to be exceedingly dull, Biological Chemistry and Biological Data Analysis. Biological Chemistry sounded interesting and was compulsory for Biochemistry Majors so obviously I took it only to find out that the first two semester were taught by Erikson Fellows (visiting lecturers) both of which sucked! The last half was better with reasonable lecturer's from the Chem department but the stuff they were lecturing on wasn't the most interesting and by that stage I'd kind of lost interest in the subject! My grades for the first half of the course suck pretty badly which means I need to do reasonably in this exam, but I'm so completely uninterested!
The second Boring course is Biological Data Analysis, in other words statistics for Biologists this paper wasn't compulsory just "highly, highly" recommended for any one wanting to do Masters. I knew it was going to be boring and it has been. The thing is it attempts to combine 1st, 2nd and some 3rd year Statistics into a single 6 point paper, and it manages to do so reasonably well. The other problems for this paper is that through out the year you use computer stats programs to do most of the work, then in the exam you have to do it all by hand. The course also doesn't count towards any majors, making it essentially a paper you need to take that is worth NOTHING! Which kind of sucks if I hadn't needed to take it I'd have been able to take a different Biology paper and get a double Major (Biochem and Biology). Thankfully my marks through out the year for the paper have been reasonable which makes that exam a bit less important.
The one interesting exam I have is the Biochemistry core paper,with the exam being on Free Radicals effect on Heart disease and Epigenes and alternative Genetic stuff which is really interesting! Just my luck though that this is my last exam 3 days after the Biological chemistry paper still could be worse and it should give me enough time to study for it seeing I've already done abit before starting to study for the earlier exams.
This is likely to be my second to last lot of exams ever the last lot would be the ones for first year of Masters, yet I find I just don't really care even though I need to pass at least two of them reasonably well. I'm just sick of studying things I find blasted boring! Hopefully that shouldn't be so much of a problem next year as 4th year papers are alot narrower in focus and you get to choose from quite a number allowing you to focus on the areas that are of most interest to you.
Part of the problem might also be I think that even if I stuffed up in Biological Chemistry I can probably graduate and do Masters with a degree in Biology seeing I've already got 6 of the 12 points I need for a Major in Biology thanks to taking Molecular Genetics in the first Semester and seeing Biochem core is worth 6 points and is double coded as both a Biochem or Biology paper ...
I'd still be able to take the same 4th year papers but I really prefer to Graduate BSc Biochemistry rather than Biology.
Apart from that various other things need to be done. There is quite abit of Christian Union stuff that needs to be done with regards to getting organised for next year and some other planning for next year with regards to Masters and that my 21st birthdays in the middle of the holidays.
The biggest non exam thingy though is probably that I applied for a summer scholarship job with Fonterra to do a research project of some description (in my field) for them in Palmy over the summer. Last week of term they contacted me and offered me two possible projects one of which I chose and let them know. The scholarship is Government funded though so once I said yes they sent it off to who ever to get it confirmed, that was 12 days ago and I've still yet to hear a final yes or no, sure that's maybe not a longtime when dealing with one of New Zealands largest Companies as well as the government, but when you really want the job, as you need the money and more importantly the experience, as well as trying to study for exams and are waiting for the confirmation to find out when you start and too start organising accommodation in Palmy for the summer, transport there and various other things it starts to get on your nerves!
Any way that's enough on that time to try and do some study I think. :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment