[update] UniMelb interview complete!

The interviews for UniMelb and a few other unis are now complete. I wonder why GEMSAS require us to wait until 9-16 November for offers though. Ah well, that's how the system is. Now we just wait.

I thought that I went reasonably well; a lot better than USyd. Of course though, I can't be 100% sure. 100% of the questions I was asked were repeated from previous years at UniMelb though, and I was more prepared, confident and taking this interview more seriously than USyd's one in general, as I really do want to go to UniMelb. It was also good that the interviews were less long than USyd because I don't talk much, and there was no scenario overload unlike USyd.

Since all the questions were repeats though, I wonder how many people have practiced the exact same questions before just like I did. Ah well. I feel I did reasonably well, but I wonder if the interviewers felt I was too rehearsed and deducted marks because of that. I felt that five minutes was a good time though; I finished quite a few just before or on the mark. Not much surplus time waiting unlike USyd.

Anyway. Now it's up to catching up with assignments again, and catching back up with course work. Thankfully I only have three subjects. It's back to uni for a final four weeks on Monday.

[update] Midsemester break! (2011 semester 2)

Today is the start of the midsemester break for semester 2, 2011. In UniMelb, this break is two weeks long.

Anyway, this means that there are no more university classes until the interviews. The interviews are on the second week of the break. I've prepared some more during the semester, but I can always do more. My skills still are not the best, although I think they have improved a bit. Also, Unimelb's interviews are a bit different to USyd's ones. They have more variety, instead of just scenarios.

I'm not sure which situation was better though. With USyd, my GAMSAT score was 83 and they apparently made GAMSAT 50% and interview 50% (although they used raw percentages to rank instead of some z-score calc, so in fact the interview explained more variance of the rank list score than GAMSAT scores under the USyd method, unlike if they used z-scores). With Unimelb, I'm not sure what they use to rank in terms of z-scores, percentages or adding up ranks on rank lists, but broadly it's 1/3 GPA, 1/3 GAMSAT (but equal weighted) and 1/3 interview.

Anyway, on face value, I have an above average GPA and GAMSAT, but my GPA isn't 7 (it is about 6.8) and my GAMSAT mark is brought down significantly due to the Melbourne's GAMSAT equal weighting instead of weighting S3 doubly (down to 77 from 83). It would seem that it's common for scores to go down after using Melbourne's GAMSAT weighting, because most people applying to med school (and especially Melbourne because of the prerequisites) have a science background. However, they probably won't go down as much as mine usually. In any case, I feel my rank before the interview is lower with Melb's entry criteria compared to USyd, although it is still very good for Melb, and the interview isn't weighted as much for Melb. So I'm not that sure which one I'd need a lower interview score to get into an unbonded place.

Ah well. The best option is just to keep working on interview skills and do as well as I can on the day. And the aim shouldn't just to scrape in an unbonded place either, it should be to get a place in my preferred clinical zone. Anyway, it seems like my interview is in about one and a half to two weeks. Closing in...

Definitions and Context page added

Today I decided to add a huge list of definitions of abbreviations I may use in my blog, both on the side of the blog, and on an additional page (which may be easier to read). Within the definitions, I've also aimed to provide context for a lot of what I'm talking about, which can be a bit confusing without knowing background material; especially if you don't read my blog start to finish.

Now maybe I should get ready for a surge of hits through search engines...


In other news, it seems like my 5% prac writeup submission date is extended until after the midsem break, so I won't have to worry too much if I don't want to until after the interview.

EDIT: Now I've also created a few other pages too. The "about me and this blog" has a bit more detail than my standard introduction at the top of the homepage. The other pages are mainly for convenience if you don't like scrolling down on my homepage and reading a small section to the side.

소녀시대 (Girls' Generation) in K-Pop festival in Sydney; 12 November

I've known for a while that there will be a K-Pop festival in Australia on 12 November this year. Nice to see the website with SNSD's "Run Devil Run" as the promotional song in the video. Apart from Girls' Generation, there's also a lot of other groups there performing.

Unfortunately, this is right during the exam period, and it's not in Melbourne (it's in Sydney), so I've decided not to attend. If one of those factors was different, especially if it was during the holidays, I would have liked to have gone.

Ah well. I hope one day Girls' Generation visits Melbourne. And hopefully not during the exam period too. I've also got quite a bit of stuff for them to sign if they ever have a signing event nearby.

That's what you get for not living in the biggest city in Australia I suppose... the largest "market share" for a one-off event in Australia would usually be in Sydney... Ah well, overall I feel that Melbourne is a good place.

[update] midsem result relased (sem 2, 2011)

I got my midsem result for that multiple choice test. The result was around what I expected. In some coincidence, it was one mark more than 80% on the test, just like my result for the two pharmacology subject midsems last semester.

While it was pretty solid, I would have liked to have done better. In any case, it seems like I'm keeping up OK. I wonder how the class did though; if the class did well, they might have an hard exam to compensate. It did feel easier than the pharmacology theory sub last semester where the class average was just 50% to me, because the time constraints were not as much, but I can't always trust my intuition. If I had to judge things myself, I would think that specialist maths in VCE was much easier than English, and that the GAMSAT section 3 was much easier than first year biology exams...

Anyway. I'm relieved to have done reasonably well. Meanwhile, the interviews are creeping closer and closer...

Braindead

Lately my brain seems "dead" perhaps more regularly than usual towards the end of the day. Or maybe I'm just noticing it more lately. In any case, it's not something that is very desirable. Maybe because I like being able to think.

I've also noticed recently that whenever I had to do a math computation with numbers, I've been quite slow. It's not often that I need to, but I feel like I'm not as fast as I used to be anymore.

Looking deeper, I realize that right now all my subjects are biology-related, where I just try to memorize everything important on the slides. Yes, I know that you're not supposed to "just memorize" stuff even for biology, but I've felt that memorization was probably the "rate-limiting" step in learning most biosciences. But for the past semesters before this one, I've always either had a math subject or an economics subject to do, which has worked my analytical abilities somewhat. Some semesters had physics subjects too, and one semester (first year, semester 2) had a physics, stats and an economics subject in it; it was my best semester (apart from summer semester with only "linear algebra") as far as grades went (although of course it should be mentioned that first year level subjects are usually easier than second or third year level ones).

Anyway, I've decided it is probably a good time to play around with the DS "training" games again (I haven't touched them for quite a while), like "math training" or "brain training". I'm not 100% sure that they work to significantly improve function outside the games (I feel that they probably do but some news articles criticize them although I haven't read the actual journal articles), but training definitely won't do harm.

[update] Midsemester test done (semester 2, 2011)

I've completed my midsemester test today. I already know I got some wrong. I think I did reasonably OK, but it was not a very comfortable test, although it doesn't feel too dissimilar to a lot of bioscience tests I've done in the past in terms of how hard it felt during the test. I hope the results come soon, especially because it was all multiple choice so it shouldn't take too long to mark.

Anyway, it looks like for that subject with the test, there is no more assessment before the midsemester break (when interviews are held). For one other subject, there seems to be a "workshop question" assessment of 2.5% (almost nothing) and for the other one (biomed core) there are 2 assignments worth 5% each; a group assignment and a prac report.


I mention before that I handed in my clinical school preferences already. Initially I put down a GAMSAT ID number on the form where it said "GMAC ID" but I wondered if I put down last year's one instead of this year's, so then I emailed them once to confirm this year's one in case I wrote it down wrong. But then it seems like the GMAC ID is separate, and refers to the so called "transaction ID" in the GMAC application confirmation email... so... I emailed them again. I haven't received a reply yet, but I guess they're probably sifting through a lot of email with the interview offer release.

EDIT: it seems like some people have been told that GAMSAT ID was supposed to be put in the place where it said GMAC ID... so maybe I did the right thing after all...