Open day - closed week
Hey guys! How've you all been?
Most of you looking at the time stamp on this will be wondering, what are you doing at home? Answer, i'm not feeling too great....so i decided to spend the day at home - working mostly >.> (....as we can see xD) it's nothing serious, i just NEED to get better before the ball on thursday lol....but that's a different story, and will come in later.
UWA open day! Where to begin, found out alot about not only UWA but myself too, in terms of what course i want to do, why i want to do it, my motivation, how far i was willing to go to do a certain course etc etc. Most of the photos in this post will be sorta crappy because i was moving alot and didn't reli have time to stay still; so please forgive me haha!
African Tulips, one of my favorite flowers. They bloom around the time of my birthday (lol that's not why i like them XD) they're a beautiful shade of red, that goes from a bright bright red from time of birth, to a more dark maroon toward the end of their season. Beautifully crafted flowers too. They're all over UWA; and contrast nicely with some of the architecture.
We left the church at around 12 to get to UWA at around 1. We arrived at like 12 30, having nowhere to go. Oh 'we' is Debra and Joan haha, i followed them coz uncle Ken was going so he figured i could use a lift too. Upon arriving, we randomly walked around until we met Leon, Pasteur and friend michael. Lol, then we noticed these orange bands that they were wearing and we were like,
"...where did you get those?"
"huh? oh med expo"
".....nat likes orange..and we like bands, so lets go!"
So off we went to the med expo, where we all collected these awesome orange bands that read
CHANGE THE WORLD
on them, so i figured that made them even more awesome! Nat if you read this (unlikely XD) then Deb collected one of those orange bands for you lol, think she planned on giving it to you through Sarah? Not sure, but yeah haha! Dunnnnn worry, it was free XP
The med expo reeked of little chunks of flesh that people were trying to stitch up...as in like, volunteers..we steered clear of that, and Joan decided to have a go at being a dentist!
wahhh so pro....
"ahahah that's piss! gimme a shot!"
"ooooooh yeah, i am l337"
Lol. Obviously Joan didn't say that, but that was how i interpreted the pictures XDD. She did a great job! And moulded some....teeth imprints.....actually i'm not sure what she did; but the putty smelt like clinic xD Had a bit of a problem trying to rip it off the mould....but in the end we fixed it! And brought home a nice piece of pink clinic putty, or whatever dentists call it. (nat? XD)
We then decided to head off to where i wanted to go; biomedical sciences. So we walked to the new biomedical building which was lookin pretty fancy. There was a free popcorn machine outside; so Leon, Pasteur and Michael lined up for this so called 'free' popcorn; whilst the rest of us moved on inside. Later we were to find out that the popcorn was not 'free' it was LOADED with salt so that you had to buy a drink,- for 3 bucks- later on in the day XDDD slyyyy -_-.
Biomedical science is one of the largest schools of science; rivaling the size of some of the faculties in the university, in fact i can recall the lecturer calling it the largest school in the university. It's one of the most in-demand fields in Australia and worldwide - hence the low TER of 82. Anticlimatic huh? XD However the range of majors is incredible, from cell physiology to molecular biology to genetics.
Those pamphlets (although you cant see the titles) are of all the major units in the school of biomedical science. Basically this is a way of getting involved in medicine, without having to deal with patients. The background work - behind the scenes, if you will.
I got quite interested in this field ever since i talked to a biomedical geneticist at this meeting in school... and ever since i guess; i've been looking to this field as a sort of...weird interest. I wasn't really sure why i wanted to do it; but i'll come back to that later. Biomedical science has this new building that i was talking about before; cost them around 65 million dollars.....not including equipment.
My camera couldn't catch the entire building, so i just snapped off a random chunk of it XD There were all manner of exhibits there, from sexually transmitted diseases, where you could actually view the bacteria, to extracting the energy from plants.
Which sorta caught my attention. So fine, borrrring you may say.. well, think about what could happen if we had the ability to extract energy from plants? Technically that means that we'd have an infinite source of energy, doesn't it? Combined with Genetics, God knows what that could lead to.
Unfortunately i couldn't hang around there for too long, because i had a biomedical 1 lecture at 2 PM, and the others wanted to go to the med lecture at 2, so we split up and went our seperate ways; after they left to go to med, i had around 2 minutes to find the lecture theatre. Find it i did! It was just in front of the biomedical building, in this sorta shabby place. Why didn't they have it in the new building XD. But nevertheless, i plonked myself down the back; tried to take a photo without looking too stupid in front of everybody there and i got this :
Some random black dude moonwalking down the stairs. No, i'm joking. He was doing it up the stairs.
Anyway the lecture was interesting, the lecturer was very in the know, and covered pretty much everything that a year 12 student could possibly want to know about the biomedical course, and more. Turns out that i have to do one extra unit of calculus, physics, human bio and chem. Since i didn't do anyyy of them in year 12 - he continued on to say that alot of students do that; and these are the students that pass. Because apparently those that do it in year 12, take different electives, and forget all their high school material, so when the next unit comes.....uhoh.
But that's what he said. All i gathered from that is i have a crapload of work to do in my first semester XDDD (assuming i get in) - and i really thought to myself :
would i be willing to work my ass off that hard, just to do this course?
I found myself thinking, yeah. i would. Why? That didn't occur to me straight away. But the lecturer was talking about how everybody should have a motivation to do a course. If it's law, medicine, biomedical sciences, architecture whatever - everybody should have a purpose; a goal to reach.
What WAS my goal? I thought about it hard and i believe i found it.
To make a difference.
Simple isn't it? Does it sound too shabby? But i guess that deep down- that was my motivating material. To make a difference, to help in the immunisation of a disease, to possibly help find a cure for a disease, to discover a new antibiotic, to unlock secrets of the human genome that might one day benefit society......all these that might one day save ONE person's life. One life. Seems small compared to the somewhat 6 billion that are out there; but- what if it was your life?
Yeah. Suddenly not so insignificant huh. To save a life - i guess it came down to that. To stop that person from contracting that disease, to cure that person of that disease, to discover a way to halt the progress of that disease.
Somebody asked the question, "how many biomedical scientists end up contracting diseases that they were trying to study?"
Either he thought it was a stupid question; or that question hit a chord. Coz the lecturer didn't answer, and just moved on. But with all the modern technology and safety conditions in the new labs- i doubt the chances of that are high at all. Still though; take it into consideration? yes. Let it stand in my way? lol, not a chance.
I thanked the lecturer after for the speech, and i found out he was a really nice bloke; who was really encouraging, telling me that if i really wanted to do this course- i should. And that anybody was capable of it, providing they put in the hours. (then i thought to myself, how many hours =_=) But he ended on a positive note, reminding me that i should always strive to achieve my goal and my potential, to do the best in the field. He then pointed to a poster of a Nobel Laurette of 2005- who was in the medical department in UWA, smiled at me, and then walked off.
I came out of the theatre knowing where i was going. At least, for now. God will obviously have the final word in my choice - and i guess i really have to sit down and think it out with myself too; but at least i have something to aspire to, someting to achieve? And that means alot to me, somehow, it does.
The rest of the day passed quickly and as i waited under this tree to get picked up, i can remember distinctly smiling to myself and thinking,
"this is going to be fun."
What!!?Studying?? Fun???
What has gotten into me =_=||
Fin~
Most of you looking at the time stamp on this will be wondering, what are you doing at home? Answer, i'm not feeling too great....so i decided to spend the day at home - working mostly >.> (....as we can see xD) it's nothing serious, i just NEED to get better before the ball on thursday lol....but that's a different story, and will come in later.
UWA open day! Where to begin, found out alot about not only UWA but myself too, in terms of what course i want to do, why i want to do it, my motivation, how far i was willing to go to do a certain course etc etc. Most of the photos in this post will be sorta crappy because i was moving alot and didn't reli have time to stay still; so please forgive me haha!
African Tulips, one of my favorite flowers. They bloom around the time of my birthday (lol that's not why i like them XD) they're a beautiful shade of red, that goes from a bright bright red from time of birth, to a more dark maroon toward the end of their season. Beautifully crafted flowers too. They're all over UWA; and contrast nicely with some of the architecture.
We left the church at around 12 to get to UWA at around 1. We arrived at like 12 30, having nowhere to go. Oh 'we' is Debra and Joan haha, i followed them coz uncle Ken was going so he figured i could use a lift too. Upon arriving, we randomly walked around until we met Leon, Pasteur and friend michael. Lol, then we noticed these orange bands that they were wearing and we were like,
"...where did you get those?"
"huh? oh med expo"
".....nat likes orange..and we like bands, so lets go!"
So off we went to the med expo, where we all collected these awesome orange bands that read
CHANGE THE WORLD
on them, so i figured that made them even more awesome! Nat if you read this (unlikely XD) then Deb collected one of those orange bands for you lol, think she planned on giving it to you through Sarah? Not sure, but yeah haha! Dunnnnn worry, it was free XP
The med expo reeked of little chunks of flesh that people were trying to stitch up...as in like, volunteers..we steered clear of that, and Joan decided to have a go at being a dentist!
wahhh so pro...."ahahah that's piss! gimme a shot!"
"ooooooh yeah, i am l337"
Lol. Obviously Joan didn't say that, but that was how i interpreted the pictures XDD. She did a great job! And moulded some....teeth imprints.....actually i'm not sure what she did; but the putty smelt like clinic xD Had a bit of a problem trying to rip it off the mould....but in the end we fixed it! And brought home a nice piece of pink clinic putty, or whatever dentists call it. (nat? XD)
We then decided to head off to where i wanted to go; biomedical sciences. So we walked to the new biomedical building which was lookin pretty fancy. There was a free popcorn machine outside; so Leon, Pasteur and Michael lined up for this so called 'free' popcorn; whilst the rest of us moved on inside. Later we were to find out that the popcorn was not 'free' it was LOADED with salt so that you had to buy a drink,- for 3 bucks- later on in the day XDDD slyyyy -_-.
Biomedical science is one of the largest schools of science; rivaling the size of some of the faculties in the university, in fact i can recall the lecturer calling it the largest school in the university. It's one of the most in-demand fields in Australia and worldwide - hence the low TER of 82. Anticlimatic huh? XD However the range of majors is incredible, from cell physiology to molecular biology to genetics.
Those pamphlets (although you cant see the titles) are of all the major units in the school of biomedical science. Basically this is a way of getting involved in medicine, without having to deal with patients. The background work - behind the scenes, if you will.
I got quite interested in this field ever since i talked to a biomedical geneticist at this meeting in school... and ever since i guess; i've been looking to this field as a sort of...weird interest. I wasn't really sure why i wanted to do it; but i'll come back to that later. Biomedical science has this new building that i was talking about before; cost them around 65 million dollars.....not including equipment.
My camera couldn't catch the entire building, so i just snapped off a random chunk of it XD There were all manner of exhibits there, from sexually transmitted diseases, where you could actually view the bacteria, to extracting the energy from plants.
Which sorta caught my attention. So fine, borrrring you may say.. well, think about what could happen if we had the ability to extract energy from plants? Technically that means that we'd have an infinite source of energy, doesn't it? Combined with Genetics, God knows what that could lead to.
Unfortunately i couldn't hang around there for too long, because i had a biomedical 1 lecture at 2 PM, and the others wanted to go to the med lecture at 2, so we split up and went our seperate ways; after they left to go to med, i had around 2 minutes to find the lecture theatre. Find it i did! It was just in front of the biomedical building, in this sorta shabby place. Why didn't they have it in the new building XD. But nevertheless, i plonked myself down the back; tried to take a photo without looking too stupid in front of everybody there and i got this :
Some random black dude moonwalking down the stairs. No, i'm joking. He was doing it up the stairs.
Anyway the lecture was interesting, the lecturer was very in the know, and covered pretty much everything that a year 12 student could possibly want to know about the biomedical course, and more. Turns out that i have to do one extra unit of calculus, physics, human bio and chem. Since i didn't do anyyy of them in year 12 - he continued on to say that alot of students do that; and these are the students that pass. Because apparently those that do it in year 12, take different electives, and forget all their high school material, so when the next unit comes.....uhoh.
But that's what he said. All i gathered from that is i have a crapload of work to do in my first semester XDDD (assuming i get in) - and i really thought to myself :
would i be willing to work my ass off that hard, just to do this course?
I found myself thinking, yeah. i would. Why? That didn't occur to me straight away. But the lecturer was talking about how everybody should have a motivation to do a course. If it's law, medicine, biomedical sciences, architecture whatever - everybody should have a purpose; a goal to reach.
What WAS my goal? I thought about it hard and i believe i found it.
To make a difference.
Simple isn't it? Does it sound too shabby? But i guess that deep down- that was my motivating material. To make a difference, to help in the immunisation of a disease, to possibly help find a cure for a disease, to discover a new antibiotic, to unlock secrets of the human genome that might one day benefit society......all these that might one day save ONE person's life. One life. Seems small compared to the somewhat 6 billion that are out there; but- what if it was your life?
Yeah. Suddenly not so insignificant huh. To save a life - i guess it came down to that. To stop that person from contracting that disease, to cure that person of that disease, to discover a way to halt the progress of that disease.
Somebody asked the question, "how many biomedical scientists end up contracting diseases that they were trying to study?"
Either he thought it was a stupid question; or that question hit a chord. Coz the lecturer didn't answer, and just moved on. But with all the modern technology and safety conditions in the new labs- i doubt the chances of that are high at all. Still though; take it into consideration? yes. Let it stand in my way? lol, not a chance.
I thanked the lecturer after for the speech, and i found out he was a really nice bloke; who was really encouraging, telling me that if i really wanted to do this course- i should. And that anybody was capable of it, providing they put in the hours. (then i thought to myself, how many hours =_=) But he ended on a positive note, reminding me that i should always strive to achieve my goal and my potential, to do the best in the field. He then pointed to a poster of a Nobel Laurette of 2005- who was in the medical department in UWA, smiled at me, and then walked off.
I came out of the theatre knowing where i was going. At least, for now. God will obviously have the final word in my choice - and i guess i really have to sit down and think it out with myself too; but at least i have something to aspire to, someting to achieve? And that means alot to me, somehow, it does.
The rest of the day passed quickly and as i waited under this tree to get picked up, i can remember distinctly smiling to myself and thinking,
"this is going to be fun."
What!!?Studying?? Fun???
What has gotten into me =_=||
Fin~