What is free time, and where can I find some? For the most part, our first few lectures were going over fundamentals and basic stuff, which really doesn’t prepare you for the workload that hits once you’re past this stage. But, for me anyway, it was stuff that I had chosen I wanted to learn, which made it seem enjoyable, and the work load seemed tolerable.
One big thing that a lot of people seem to want to know, is how similar second year Chemmat is to the Chemmat 121 paper, and the answer to that, is that it isn’t very similar at all. We only have one materials paper. You can choose to do more materials electives in your third and fourth years, but the following run down will hopefully give you some idea of how materials based the course has been so far:
ENGGEN211: (a.k.a. MM2) As you’d expect, this is basically a step up from ENGGEN111. Every second year takes it, and as someone who enjoys maths, most of its pretty enjoyable (although I will emphasise the word most in that sentence).
CHEMMAT211: This is our process engineering course; our lectures are shared with food science students. The notes are really clear, and they include examples which the lecturers work through with us in lectures which I feel helps us with gaining a better understanding of the concepts. The textbook also has heaps of practise questions, which definitely helps with getting the hang of what you’re doing
CHEMMAT242: Applied Chemistry, some sections of this paper are definitely more exciting than others. Having taken year 13 chemistry definitely helps with this one, because there is a lot of information fed to you in a fairly short time period.
CHEMMAT221: Essentially a follow on to CHEMMAT121, again with most of the lecturers being almost contagiously passionate about what they’re teaching. The labs are really interesting, and really back up everything from the lectures, so you get to “see” things happening as you learn them, which I find helps a lot with getting a good understanding of concepts.
Going into specialisations has been so awesome. We’ve gone into a much smaller class, of about 85 people. I’m super shy, so I’ve always had trouble with talking to new people, but almost everyone seems so much friendlier and more approachable now (and if you’re too shy to talk to people, you seem to get adopted into a group). You’ve chosen to take the subjects that the lecturers are so passionate about, so most of them are really passionate about what they’re teaching you and want you to develop a passion for it too, so they seem to become quite approachable. So, make new friends, ask questions where you need to (even if you think they’re “dumb”), and have some fun!
So, until the next post (which I hopefully won’t leave until a week when I have two assignments due, and two tests).
-Penelope