LSM Major AY17/18 Sem 1

OMGOSH I TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST I'M SORRY TO THOSE WHO ARE PREPARED TO BID THIS SEM AND ARE WAITING FOR SOME MODULE REVIEW TO DECIDE WHAT TO TAKE SORZZZZZZ OK LETS START

YEAR 3 SEM 1
Modules : LSM3223, LSM3235, LSM3288, LSM4223 & GET1008
everything was 1 point wew #masterbidder

LSM3223 - Immunology 

This is a content heavy module - YESSSSS but more importantly, i think it is necessary to understand the concepts because once you understand the concepts, things will fall into place like a story (an interesting one). So you will basically learn about your immune system (no shit sherlock) both adaptive and innate like how they will work, what cells and cytokines are involved and their roles, how your immune system will react with different infectious agents and some knowledge on diseases that will affect your immune system (cancer, infectious disease and SCID). The content is heavy but interesting although some most of the lecturers may fail to make it interesting. There is NO WEBCAST and i strongly advice you to record the lectures on your own because it does help with revision and understanding. There are 3 lab sessions where the practical part is not very difficult but they will cover a lot of extra content so it will usually end at 5.30/6pm (YUXXXX). although these lab content "will be tested" i feel that most of the stuff are covered in the lecture so just study the notes well and you're pretty much safe. the CA (30% - 30mcq qns that you can score when you know the main purpose of each lecture, not so much on the nitty gritty details) will be super easy so everyone will get A or A+ which means finals (70%) will be hard(er). Finals will have 30mcq qns which are on the same level of difficulty as the CA (for my semester) followed by 4 structured qns which may be tough if you didnt study (WELL NO SURPRISE, IM TALKING ABOUT ME AGAIN). SO I DIDN'T MANAGE TO CRAM ALL THE INFO INTO MY HEAD AND ENDED UP SKIPPING CLOSE TO 4CHAPTERS WORTH OF NOTES!!!!! so i fed the bell curve once again because the chapters than i skipped happened to be tested in both the mcq and structured question so i screwed up lol. its quite a light module (i must be joking you think) but i meant light in the sense there's no assignment and you really only need to study for CA and finals. plus CA only tests the basics so its quite easy to flip through your notes, understand it well and score (cause i did it and my friend did it and my other friend did it too and we're not your first class honours bell wreckers, so yeah). This is really an interesting module and it opens doors to your 4k mods so take it!! STRONGLY RECOMMENDED FOR NERDS WHO LOVE MEDICAL RELATED STUFF. 

HOW TO DO WELL:
1. RECORD ALL LECTURE (LIKE VIDEO RECORD FOR YOUR OWN SAKE)
2. Aim to understand rather than memorise
3. Score for your CA please

Workload: 1.5/5 (actually there's no workload other than studying)
Expected Grade: A- or B+
Overall Grade: B+ (sian there goes my CAP)

LSM 3235 - Epigenetics in human health and diseases (Webcasted) 

This module seemed light at first glance anddddd.... may be light for those genetic pros but the content is quite something. Like how can a lecturer have so few slides yet so many things? i guess its the nature of the field because epigenetics is a whole new universe waiting to be discovered so everything becomes possible lol. Anyway this was 8am (kill me) so thank God for webcast (although they sometimes forget to record or the video file crashed idk). 10% tutorial attendance, 10% SDL paper, 30% CA and 50% finals. the tutorials are really useful and its free marks so just go even if its at 8am cause your grades are at stake and they do recycle the tutorial questions in the finals. the SDL paper was something else. OK I NEED TO RANT ABOUT THIS MODULE. so the module content and lectures are fine and dandy but the teaching team... LAST WARNING. so the SDL instructions were so vague and when the lecturer received too many questions, he finally did a QnA thing and from that session, most of us found out how badly we interpreted the question. like the question was something like "do a lit review about microRNA" and what the prof actually wanted was "choose a specific disease or a specific microRNA and do a lit review about it". i mean, they are obviously 2 different topics?!!! the first one would seem like you want something broader and a general overview of microRNA whereas the latter would obviously mean you want specifics. so if you didn't attend the QnA session, you would've done the assignment wrongly (and it was only clarified 1 week before submission). secondly, the teaching team posted the WRONG FINALS DATE and didn't realise it until study week (meaning just before the exam lol). ok the last one is my fault: so i missed the CA because i was sick and i requested for a makeup test and it was approved but i only got the retest in week11 when the CA was in week7 and during the entire duration, the prof didn't reply me or update me so i was left hanging thinking that my makeup test will never come. and when it came, i expected an MCQ paper because that was the format of our CA paper BUT NOOOOOOO he decided to set structured questions for me #DED. so i was unprepared for it and did badly, like my worst uni grade ever = D+. ok i should've verified it with him about the format and all so i cant say much now but just need to rant yar. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE EVERYBODY. DONT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. (#EDIT: found out that he down graded my results for the CA because it was a make up paper... died)

HOW TO DO WELL:

1. Attend tutorials and understand what is going on
2. just study lol, the content of this module is confusing but memorising can save you
3. Try your best for the SDL (10% makes a difference)
4. CA is 30% so you need to do well (so i died la, D+)

Workload: 2/5 (8am effort and SDL)
Expected Grade: B-
Overall Grade: B+ (Hallelujah Praise God YAZZZZ)


LSM3288 - UROPS (SEPARATE POST)

Workload: 9/5
Expected Grade: A-
Overall Grade: A

LSM4223 - Advances in antimicrobial strategies

This mod was what made me decide on my FYP project. I fell in love with the lab sessions. i think any medical + microbio lover would, so i recommend this module to them. It's quite tough for a microbio mod cause its 4K so probably need to up its game. There are 4 lab reports to be submitted within a short frame of time so that was tough and each lab report required quite a lot of content and reading up to understand WHAT ON EARTH YOU HAVE TO INCLUDE IN THE REPORT (I have soft copies of mine if you want, i got A, A, A and B for BURDEN). The reports take up 30% of your final grade so please do well. You will if you hit the things they look out for (but lvl4k so the teaching team a bit more strict yarrr). Also, a super good thing about this mod is that most of the TAs are really good so you will truly learn stuff and enjoy the lab session (at least for me and the people around me). There is a group assignment worth 20% (10 for group report and 10 for group presentation). i think this component is rather important in sieving the "better" from the good so just do other's work if you have #NOTRUST and the time of course. i didn't have the time cause UROPS or else i would've totally edited stuff in the report. also, even though its a science mod, the presentation must be well prepared or you'll be embarrassed cause the profs doing the QnA maybe SAVAGE AND RUTHLESS, making you feel lousy at the end of the day so JIAYOU! for finals, there are past year papers so do have a look (at all the years). The questions vary quite a bit but there are certain ones that remain constant so it limits what you need to study. So you have to do 5/8 qns if i remember correctly and there are around 7 topics. So i just chose 5topics to study and it worked out for me. THANKFUL THAT THERE IS NO MIDTERM BUTTTTTT i rather have midterm 20% than the stupid group project honestly... so unhelpful and unnecessary really

LAB REPORTS HERE (included my TA comments)

HOW TO DO WELL :
1. Score for lab report
2. Spot questions for finals and just focus on those to save memory space (a lot of the antibiotics thing is usually tested - that's the first 2 lectures and i liked the lecturer cause he's clear and nice) 
3. lol teamwork i guess

Workload: 3.5/5 (lab report and group work kill me please)
Expected Grade: A
Overall Grade: A- (must be the B and the group presentation, its ok IDC ANYMORE)

GET1008 - Public Speaking and critical reasoning 

This module is NOT a free A, i repeat, this module is NOT a free A. daz right, you have to work your butt off for the A. So you think you're a good speaker? this module ain't for good speakers LOL ironically, they grade your speeches mainly on your content rather than your delivery - so there's this fixed structure that you have to adhere to when writing your speech outline and it has to be submitted before you deliver the speech and from this outline, approximately 70% of your marks will come from there for that speech so if you're great at organising content and following instructions, this is the module for you. I think the module will help boost your confidence when you speak and help you learn to be a better speaker / presenter at the end of the day but i think my mistake was taking it together with my urops and 4k mod because it made my entire semester so much heavier. So you have to constantly put in effort preparing for your speeches and there's still a final quiz, weekly quiz and reflective assignment to do (at the end of the sem)... CRY. ok but i would say the tutorials were interesting cause you hear other's speeches and as you write strange topics, you learn new things. BUT the lectures are a waste of time really. and you need to get the textbook to study for the final quiz cause the lecture notes alone wont suffice. so yeah, work your butt to get the A.

HOW TO DO WELL:
1. Rather than being creative, make sure your content is on point (so more like a good essay than a good speech)
2. Read the feedback properly and make changes... TO THE OUTLINE not so much the delivery (although if you can do both, its the best case scenario)
3. Take it if you have free time or need the skill upgrade, otherwise, give it a miss

Workload: 4/5
Expected Grade: A-
Overall Grade: B+ (grrrrrrrr)

OVERALL CAP FOR SEMESTER:
LSM3223: B+
LSM3235: B+
LSM3288: A
LSM4223: A-
GET1008: B+ (S/U)

CAP: 4.39 (saved by the SU)