After spending a few days researching the education degrees available (aka productive procrastination for the CASPER), there has been a small change in plans. I realised that I could actually do 2 years of BSci and then do a 1.5-year MTeach, which qualifies me as a teacher in 3.5 years as opposed to 4 years with the double degree. So pretty much I’m sitting this CASPER as a practice run for a few year’s time.

I spent some time deliberating over which units I’m going to do. I need good reasons to do each one since I’m going to have to spend $1000 on each one. This is an incomplete list

  1. CHM3930 (med chem, absolutely essential if I want to become a “street pharmacist” if I become unemployed)

  2. CHM3911 (physical chem cuz I don’t want to suck at teaching VCE unit 3 chem)

  3. CHM3922 (organic, pretty self explanatory. Same reasons for med chem, I might not qualify as a Walter if my yields are still 20-30% like in 1022/2911 though)

  4. CHM3941 (who can say no to pretty colours of inorganic complexes but I hope to never see organometallics again)

  5. BCH2011 (probably a bludge)

  6. MTH1020 (uni spesh, need this to teach maths)

  7. MTH1030 (equivalent of uni extension, need this to teach maths)

  8. MTH2010 (calculus unit, again required for the minor)

  9. MTH2222 (probability unit that I think may help teaching it, also need this for maths minor)

  10. SCI1000 (scientific communication unit that’s compulsory and no one wants to do)

Awesome plan! I've heard the accelerated MTeach is quite intense though, because you go from learning the theory to running your own lessons in a short amount of time. Imo, that's the exciting part!

According to the lecturer that runs SCI1000, 77% of people failed last the subject last semester and 33% passed. It doesn't add up. But good thing it's a pass / fail subject.

    lm21074 77% of people failed? Shouldn't the unit get into trouble for this then? Also I feel sorry for those who failed, they have to cough up another $1000 to retake the unit, but since it's stonks for the uni this way they might not change it or remove it. A part of me wish that this requirement is gone by the time I take it similar to the SCI2010 situation

        5 days later

        Billzene

        Billzene so it turns out they failed the assessment tasks, not the actual unit. The additional assessment is really just polishing up your work to meet the competencies to pass. Hopefully you don't have to do the subject!

            a month later
            8 days later

            Allocate is open and I think my timetable next year will be a disaster. First of all, there’s a clash with my CHM3930 midsem with a MTH1020 lecture that can’t be moved around, I’ll probably have to submit a clash request to resolve that. The worst thing is that I will have 2 chem midsems on the same day (CHM3911 and CHM3941), which low key reminds me of doing bio and FM exam 1 on the same day in year 11.

            In terms of goals, I might be a bit too ambitious but I’m looking to achieve 80+ in both maths units I’m taking this year (MTH1020 + 1030). This is cuz HDs enable me to take the advanced versions of MTH2010 and MTH2021 in the year after.

            For the 6 chem units I’m taking (CHM3930, 3941, 3911, 3180, 3922, 3952), I’m aiming to top the cohort in all of them, which will probably require mid 90s grades since there’s a lot of cracked people in chem. Realistically though, I probably won’t get it for 3911 or 3952 since they’re involve more maths than the others. Maybe not 3941 either since it’s known to have super difficult final exams. But in my experience, chem units’ final grades are scaled up by a lot, so you’re always pleasantly surprised by your marks on results day

            14 days later

            Offered 90 units of credit, including all units for a physiology minor (BIO1011, BIO1022, PHY2011, PHY2042). Essentially I can choose to graduate in 1 year but be stuck with bio as a teaching method, or I can graduate in 2 while I pick up a maths minor for a maths teaching method. Leaning towards the latter. Now my course plan is as follows:

            Year 1 sem 1:
            CHM3911 (3rd year physical chem)
            CHM3930 (medicinal chem Street pharmacist I)
            CHM3941 (3rd year inorganic chem)
            MTH1020 (Monash spesh)

            Year 1 sem 2:
            CHM3922 (3rd year organic chem Street pharmacist II)
            CHM3952 (3rd year analytical chem)
            CHM2942 (biological chem)
            MTH1030 (core 1st year maths unit, apparently 50% calculus and 50% linalg)

            Year 2 sem 1:
            MTH2010 (2nd year calculus)
            MTH2021 (linalg, Further maths matrices module on crack)
            SCI1000 (compulsory scientific communication unit)

            Year 2 sem 2:
            CHM3180 (materials chem)
            CHM2962 (food chem)

            Alternative plan if I want to speedrun my undergrad (whilst not doing any maths units)

            Sem 1: CHM3911, CHM3930, CHM3941, MTH1020
            Sem 2: CHM3922, SCI1000, PHY3072, CHM2962

            Summer sem A: NUT1011

            Despite the fact that I can save an additional year of study with this plan, I’m not a fan of teaching bio aka obsessing over polypeptide vs polypeptide chain. Then again, VCE maths is trash, might actually consider moving north to NSW to teach HSC maths. The alternative would be teaching IB chem + maths, their exams are uni level from what I can see (IB chem legit looks harder than CHM1011 + 1022 at Monash)

            lm21074
            I’m almost certainly choosing the 2 year option. It gives me more time to get my Ps before I have to do placements (still on 60 hours/120), it would be very awkward to have my mum drop me off at my placement. Additionally, I can teach maths with the 2 year plan.

            The 1 year option is attractive too, mainly because I get to save $2000 on tuition as well as gain a whole year’s worth of salary. Although I’m not sure if I can actually apply for a MTeach at the end of 2023 if I’m doing a summer unit to fill up the credit points, I wouldn’t have the results finalised by the time postgrad starts

              butterfly13579 this question belongs to the VTAC question thread not my journal but yes you can be offered a place in both Dec and Jan rounds. Just put everything you want to be offered in the Jan round higher than the preference you’ve received an offer for

              • ZAZ likes this.
                7 days later

                With all the December offer round drama going on, I have some updates of my own. Finally sorted out credit transfers, now I have 2 years worth of credit points under my belt. This means I can graduate at the end of next year if all goes well just in time for 2024 MTeach admissions. The tradeoff is that all numerical marks have been wiped so I have to farm WAM and GPA from scratch, and I won't be able to fit in a maths minor + chem extended major. Right now my area of study nominations are chem major + physiology minor (already credited from biomed core units). My course map looks like this now:

                2023 S1: CHM3911, CHM3930, CHM3941, MTH1020

                2023 S2: CHM3922, CHM2942 (biological chem), CHM2962 (food chem), SCI1000

                In terms of goals, I still want unit prizes in all my chem units, although I probably won't get it for 3911 (physical) due to my mathematical skill issue and probably not 3941 either (cuz the final exam has a killer reputation). I now want 90+ for MTH1020 cuz apparently the exam allows you to bring in a cheat sheet. And obviously a pass for the science communication unit, it doesn't do numerical grades, it's just pass/fail

                2 months later

                O week is about to begin, I've got the perfect timetable with all classes in the afternoon (shoutout to Andrea (the med chem unit coordinator), she spent so much time communicating to the Allocate+ team on my behalf to remove a clash with the midsem).

                I did receive a Feb round offer on the 14th for B. Education/BSc, but I decided not to enrol in it since it would take too long and cost too much compared to finishing my last year of a BSc single and doing the Master's in accelerated mode in another 1.5 years. But the very fact that I passed CASPER means I kept my plans on becoming the leading "street pharmacist" in my neighbourhood while being a high school teacher well hidden

                Potentially problematic units: SCI1000 (I heard this unit has really strict marking schemes, although that was probably since it was in the first sem it was ever run), CHM3911 (physical chem = when maths methods/spesh meets chem, totally not pumped for the calculus/linalg we have to do)

                In the middle: MTH1020 (I have severe mathematical skill issues, but the cheat sheet allowed on the exam will probably save me just like my cheat sheet single-handedly saved me in biophysics), CHM3941 (inorganic chem is easy enough but it looks like organometallics will return which is the CHM2911 topic I hate the most), CHM3922 (love organic chem and Breaking Bad but I heard about 3922's difficulty)

                Units that will probably be highlights: CHM3930 (med chem, similar to my biomed core units + Andrea is coordinating it which is great according to past students + my own experience when she helped me with timetabling), CHM2942 (biological chem, again a biomed core unit/biochem unit repackaged), CHM2962 (another organic unit repackaged, just with an emphasis on food)

                6 days later

                Prelearned the 1st 2 weeks of CHM3941. Although it's an inorganic ie synthetic unit, inorganic NMR is essentially methods probability disguised with combinatorics and tree diagrams for isotopes. Normally I thought synthetic units are easy on the maths side, with the hardest level being stoich calculations.

                CHM3911 doesn't look as bad as I thought, had a look at the formula sheet for the midsem and the final, luckily only 2 integrals on there, with the rest being plug and play algebraic rearrangements. Rate laws are given in both derived and integrated forms, so we don't need to do our own calculus to find these.

                a month later

                It's been forever since I last updated my journal, took my very first L in my WAM farming history cuz I had to hand in a physical chem double lab report in late. Never had to hand in anything late in 2 years of biomed, colloidal chem is just that confusing I totally get why on the old unit reviews thread someone gave colloidal chem in pharma a 0/5. Like you half-understand how something works and when it's time to put pen to paper (finger to keyboard), you don't actually know what to write and the literature you consult are in the exact same foreign language that is colloid sci terminology. While Rico was pretty good at explaining how colloids work conceptually, the jargon required to express your own answer accurately is super convoluted. I shoulda done water chem instead honestly.

                However, I did calculate that I'll still pass the lab hurdle if I get 30% on this report, 90% on the comp chem labs and 15% on both of the next double weighed reports. Had my first comp chem lab yesterday and the teaching team was extremely helpful, hoping to smash that lab section. Best of all, comp labs are on Zoom

                7 days later

                T-minus 6 days until my first midsem, haven't touched most lectures, will spend 1 day on each chem unit watching them.

                Med chem midsem may actually go very well since 80% of the examinable stuff was covered in BMS2021 which was one of my favourite units in biomed.

                Inorganic, a mix of feeling elated since UV-Vis and magnetism are pretty nice and easy (except maybe the Gouy balance formula that apparently won't be given), but NMR has the potential to become pretty ugly especially now in 3rd year H-NMR can see other NMR active molecules in its splitting. Dave did say since last year too many people were complaining about essentially sitting a 2 hour exam in an 1 hour midsem, this year they'll make it super easy.

                Physical, dread. Just dread. I'd think it's just a slightly harder version of essentially U3 VCE chem but I was dead wrong with colloids. Some concepts are coming together such as surfactants, surface tension, Laplace pressure/Kelvin equation (basically modelling droplet/bubble growth and shrinkage), contact angle and adsorption isotherms, but not others such as formal explanation of dispersion forces, emulsions and stabilisation of colloidal materials which remain in Chinese (not the best analogy since it's my native language, but the point is they're virtually incomprehensible). I'm looking at the formula sheet and it looks like it will scrape me that pass. Also not keen on the thermodynamics topic, since apparently most formulas won't be given on the formula sheet, but that's for the final exam. Looking ahead, the P chem course ends with solid, liquid and gas theory. It's almost a poetic bookends in that the hardest unit of the chem major at Monash finishes with the chemistry that started it all. I used to complain that year 7-10 chem = solids, liquids and gases and in year 11 you get bombarded with moles, organic, analytical, pH, redox etc. Now it all goes back to the very beginning.

                At this point, still looking to get low-mid 90s in MTH1020. I just want to pass P chem now with the insanity of the content in it. Inorganic, still looking for a mid-high 80s HD (labs are very draining, the writeup is even more so) and for med chem, still wanting that mid 90s for a WAM farmer's pride.

                Enough rambling from me, time to grind more lectures.

                5 days later

                Update at the beginning of the midsem break

                CHM3930: easiest midsem ever but made a million mistakes. Super disappointed in myself

                CHM3941: Probably did dogshit (might be the first midsem I fail with <50%), there were typos that made some questions take an unreasonable amount of time to solve, certainly not within the 50 min limit. Hoping that it gets scaled or the offending questions get removed from the total (still kinda mad if this happens since I could’ve used the time on that question to check for mistakes)

                CHM3911: Surprisingly easy, lots of plugging and chugging which is trivialised by the provided formula sheet

                11 days later

                1st day back from the break and my most dreaded midsem result got handed back. Normally I wouldn’t be so happy with an 80% (leftover biomed WAM farming perfectionism), but since this is the inorganic midsem we’re talking about, I was elated. Many people have noticed that their marks were boosted and I definitely though I only got 60% maximum too, so scaling probably saved the day. Last year’s midsem for this unit was apparently even more insane with the top mark being 34/40 (with no one’s results being scaled up)

                7 days later

                Exam timetables are out, luckily I don't have a repeat of the midsem situation with phys chem and inorg chem on the same day. What's better is that all my exams are in the afternoon, which is tailored to a night owl like me.

                I'm most worried about inorg chem because my in sem grades are the lowest for that subject due to the difficult midsem we sat (and strict marking in the lab component). In addition, I heard from past students that the final will be absolutely cooked and practice materials are not very indicative of the actual exam. Sounds like the situation with CHM1022 when I did it.

                Luckily, none of the chem exams are hurdles and for med chem + phys chem, since the in-sem assessments are worth 60% of the total grade, as long as I get above 83% in sem, I pass the unit. MTH1020 will not be an issue at all since Dan will allow a cheat sheet, effectively making it open book.

                Week 1 Monday: phys chem

                Week 2 Wednesday: med chem

                Week 3 Monday: inorg chem

                Week 3 Wednesday: calculus (MTH1020)

                From here, my study plan would be to grind for phys chem during SWOTVAC, grind for med chem right after phys chem, grind for inorg intermittently between phys and med chem (due to overlaps in content), and YOLO MTH1020