very true... the first several years are the worst.. my cousin almost cried the first couple of weeks of her housemanship thingy in kuala terengganu. i'm so not looking forward to that

very true.. but i think it all goes down to how the university decides to have or carry out the traditional system. in my university, we have supervisions for each of the subject we are doing.. we will all meet for an hour(for each subject), and basically the supervisor will go through what we've learnt. and it is during these times that we will be able to listen to stories as to how the things were discovered, and also clarify anything we don't understand.. in fact, i prefer the traditional method much more than the pbl method. we had to do pbl for one of the subjects last term, and i found that i didn't learn anything from the sessions. worse thing is that i actually managed to confuse myself with some of the basic concepts of the subject discussed..

(i just saw this post )

you have a pretty light load...

i'm a second year medic, and apparently this year is supposed to be hell for us..

basically, i have 12 hours of lectures; 4 hours of supervisions (i.e. tutorials); 5-8 hours of practicals (depending on the week..).. so some days i have a solid 9-5 (with an hour break for lunch).. (not to mention the fact that everyone does extra stuff e.g. sports and drama.. so u'll be pressured to join in.. hehe..)e.g., on wednesdays i have 9-2; 3-4; 6-7 and 8-10..

i supposed this is where there is a difference between pbl and traditional system. in pbl u research the topic, and although the amount of reading needed is a lot, it probably can't beat being taught by a person who specializes in the field.. in traditional system, we basically have 12 solid hours worth (each lecture lasting an hour) of teaching and information to digest.. and in practicals (especially our path practicals) we sometimes learn new things, like gram staining and microscope stuff..

but as for the understanding tu.. i think old doctors are just pulling ur leg.. waktu their time, most of the stuff weren't discovered yet, and (for biochem, i think) they have great big holes where they don't know how things work.. haha...

same la.. but the library is usually well stocked so we don't really need to worry too much bout that.. as for exams, memang lecture materials masuk what... in our pharm lecture, our sneaky sneaky inflammation lecturer put all the drugs we need to know in the last slide of her last lecture!! gila tau.. my friend ter-miss out the drug name, nasib baik itu cuma test, bukan final exams!!!


hehe... but i agree la that old doctors seem to know their stuff well. i think it is also the attitude of the current students, me included. We just want to pass exams, and not really understand a certain concept. as a result, we don't really learn anything. we don't try to make associations with stuff that we learn, hence our memory of the thing pun doesn't stay there for long..


Well, that's only my second year.. first year kurang la.. we only had 9 hours lecture, 6-9 hours lab and 3 hour supervisions..

but our holiday very long one... the first three years, we are on holiday basically for half a year close to 7 weeks for christmas and close to 6 weeks for easter