What courses should I be taking? Confused about majors (1 Viewer)

[jessikat]

So I just finished the HSC and I'm looking at doing BSc (Adv) but I'm really not sure what major I want to do just yet. I've been told that it is encouraged to take a wider variety of sciences in the first year but I'm just wondering what that actually means. I know that I don't really like biological sciences so have eliminated majors based on that. Should I be enrolling in level 1 physics, chemistry and maths as that is probably going to be common to a lot of majors I might be interested in? Looking at the majors' program guides, it suggests to take certain subjects at each stage...so for instance Earth Science has GEOS1111 and GEOS1121 in stage I. Am I going to be at a disadvantage if I haven't completed these when I go to second year if for instance I decided to do that major? Just as an example.

 

[plasticities]

Even though it isn't essential to know your major until the end of the year when you declare it, it is advantageous to have an idea of what you possibly want to do. In the case of your example, if you decided at the end of the year that you wanted to major in Earth Science but you hadn't done GEOS1111 and GEOS1121 I don't think you would be at a disadvantage in terms of prerequisites (since I don't think the stage 2 courses have any) but there are a lot of other stage 2 courses that have subjects you must complete before you enrol in. Regardless, you will have to complete the stage 1 subjects at some point since they are required for that major (taking perhaps more time and money).

If you had honestly no idea what you are interested in majoring in, then I would probably suggest going with physics, chemistry and maths as you said, plus maybe another subject that might come in handy.

 

[jessikat]

Thanks for getting back to me about that. That helped a lot. The trouble is that I'm just interested a few different majors and it's just difficult to choose. Physics, chem and maths seem to be common to most of them at some point or at least are recommended as complementary subjects. Hopefully I will have a revelation about what major I want to do though.

 

[plasticities]

Just out of curiosity, what were the majors you were considering? I kinda had a major in mind when I first enrolled, mainly so that I had a course plan to follow, but I wasn't 100% committed to it, but the subjects I took ended up satisfying the stage 1 courses for all the other majors I was interested in too so it worked out okay. Yeah, those (excluding biology) will be the most common foundation courses, so it's good to enrol in them just to be safe.

 

[jessikat]

Umm, the ones on my list are earth science, climate systems, materials science, chemistry or geochem (though am less sure about this last one). The list seemed longer written out than in my head. Better than 23 I guess. What major did you choose?

 

[plasticities]

After looking at those, yeah I would say for semester 1 enrol in Higher Chemistry (in case you decide to major in chemistry, the higher course is required), regular or higher physics (depending on your strength/interest), regular or higher mathematics and SCIF1121 (I think it would be better than SCIF1131). Maybe after a semester you will have refined your list a little, but say if you decided earth science you would still have to do both the GEOS courses and unfortunately none of the classes you actually took will have counted towards those needed for your major. Haha definitely better than 23, at least you have some idea to put you on track. I chose neuroscience, which worked out nicely with immunology, pathology, physiology and psychology as well, in case I changed my mind.

 

[jessikat]

Oh okay, that makes sense. That's good that there is a bit of crossover between majors there. Is there a huge difference in difficulty between the normal and higher subjects? And are there any benefits to doing higher physics say, if it is not required by my major? Sorry I'm a bit ignorant.

 

[plasticities]

Haha not at all, these were all things I didn't know either last year. I did higher chemistry last year, and from that, the content difficulty isn't that much more in my opinion. You learn pretty much 95% the same things as the people in regular chemistry with just a couple of topics added on. You'll get extra questions for tutorials and labs (and sometimes different labs altogether) and for the final exam as well. But the mid-semester exam is the same for both courses and it's really not that much of a stretch, plus I'm pretty sure it scales better than regular chemistry. They also have a little test you do before the mid-semester exam that will indicate if you should drop to regular/stay in higher, but I think that was more of a recommendation than anything. If the higher version isn't required by your major, I don't think there would be that many advantages, but generally if you're really good at the subject or have real interest in it, I think the higher physics and mathematics might go more in-depth, so you would be more challenged etc. It wasn't required for me to do higher, since my major said either would do, but the handbook said that regular was aimed at people that didn't do chemistry in year 11/12, while those who did it, would be better suited to higher, but plenty year 12 chemistry students chose regular anyway. If it isn't required, it's really up to you if you want to give it a go, and you can move down anyway if you don't like it.

 

[jessikat]

Aha I see. Hmm..not sure how I feel about harder physics. Even if only slightly haha. Thank you so much for your help! I am much less confused.

 

[plasticities]

You're welcome yeah if you're not that keen and it's not required then go for regular. It won't disadvantage you in any way and it'll probably be a lighter workload too haha.