Questions bout Arts & Science degree... (1 Viewer)

[MooshyMoosh]

Hey everyone, I'm going to study B.Arts and Science next year, and just wanted to know a few things about the degree; Is it hard doing double degrees? What are the bridging courses like for the sciences and maths? How is the timetable set up to for this course?

I know it's a bit early to be asking these questions, but as I have pretty much half a year off before uni starts for me, I have nothing else to do, so I might as well start preparing for uni-again ...

Oh, one more question- How much do the bridging courses cost? I've seen the pamphlet on the unsw website, but it didn't tell me the cost. Any help is appreciated

 

[Linear]

B. Science/Arts isn't too hard, at least for me. I think difficulty is really subjective though and also depends on which courses you choose to do.

I haven't done any of the bridging courses but from what I heard from my brother they were very intensive. I think it's meant to be the entire HSC subject taught in 2 weeks. My brother went to UTS though, so I'm not sure how different it is. I don't know about the cost at UNSW either. The biology course I'm doing at the moment assumes no prior knowledge of HSC-level biology so the bridging courses may not be that necessary.

The timetable is one of the things I like best. You get to choose whatever courses you want to do then enroll in whatever times are available for those courses. So you get to plan your own timetable.

 

[MooshyMoosh]

Thanx Linear. The whole hsc course in two weeks??? Don't think I'll survive, but I'm gonna hav to do them anyway, cos I only did gen.maths in yr 12 and chem. I wanna do physics as well just in case. What I'm mainly worried bout is the price. I know for one thing that bridging courses at uts are round $600 each!! I hope unsw ain't that expensive... :mad1:

 

[missanonymous7]

I did the chem bridging course, and it was pretty intense. I think doing more than one bridging course at a time would drive most people absolutely insane. It cost $300 all up, and basically it covered what I think amounts to all the important parts of prelim chemistry.

I found it pretty tough! However in retrospect, I could have worked harder, but because I was still in holiday mode ( ), and because chemistry was really difficult to get my head around, I didn't do nearly as much work as I was supposed to. Despite the intensity though, I'm so glad I did it, otherwise I would have absolutely failed first year chem at uni. It also introduced the basics of university life to me, and I got to know the campus a little, meet a couple of people, and get used to the whole idea of lectures, tutorials and labs. This means that by the time you get to the first week of semester, when everyone else is looking confusedly at campus maps and feeling nervous about starting uni, you have almost nothing to worry about

Bridging courses go for a whole month, and you go in to uni 3 days a week, for about four hours a day (if I recall correctly). There's an exam at the end, but it's no big deal if you fail, since it doesn't go on your record or anything, and at least you've still got the knowledge you need.

If you've only done general maths, there isn't a bridging course as such (UNSW only has them for extension maths) - instead they have a 'maths skills program' or something like that, which runs during semester rather than before it, and is more expensive (I think it's like $600? Not sure). I didn't bother with this, despite only doing general. It depends what science you want to go into I think.

If nothing else, I recommend doing a bridging course just to introduce you to uni life. It definitely made starting first semester much easier!

More info: http://www.unsw.edu.au/futureStudents/nonAward/sad/bridgeprog.html

 

[MooshyMoosh]

Thanx heaps missanonymous7. I'm thinking of majoring in toxicology, if not immunology. Would that require a lot of mathwork? I honestly don't want to do MSP because then it would take me longer to finish the degree ...

 

[missanonymous7]

Well, from what I can see here, a toxicology major requires MATH1031, and you definitely need HSC mathematics knowledge for that. For immunology you don't have to do 1031. For both, you do need to do statistics (which I'm currently doing), but so far I haven't come across anything that requires a significant mathematics background (eg, there's no calculus - just lots of formulae!)...but who knows, maybe later on in the course I'll be wishing I knew a bit more maths

 

[MooshyMoosh]

Oh, so you don't have to study both MATH1031 and MATH1041? It would be such a relief if we didn't have to

Edit: Called the maths department bout my little query, they told me to try and teach myself the hsc mathematics course to save myself $600 and extending the time to finish my degree... Out of the frying pan and into... another frying pan?? Lol

 

[Lydia_88]

i started out with science/arts, i thought 'hey, a double degree is flexible..' but until the second semester of last year, i decided that it wasn't worth sticking to it (mainly coz i failed a few subs and that i was stuck in a major that i hated)....apparently it would have taken me 5 years to complete my double degree, to shorten it i decided to go for a single degree (i'm in my final year now!)

i guess it depends on what subjects (i WAS majoring in Pharmacology, turns out i hated it and now i switched to safety, made my life a little easier...and to avoid upper year labs! and i majored in Japanese studies [i really liked this more than my science major back then] )....