BIOSCI107

In terms of content, I enjoyed this paper the most out of all my first semester papers. I guess this is because it focuses around the human…

CHEM110

Chem110 was one of the courses I was least looking forward to. Whilst I had enjoyed and done well in NCEA Level 2 Chemistry, I both disliked and did rather averagely in Level 3 Chemistry.

For those of you still in Year 13, I found the Organic Chemistry and the Aqueous papers the most…

POPLHLTH111

PoplHlth111 was great, because it did not require nearly as much work as the science subjects to do well. Maybe that was because the concepts were logical and weren’t exactly mind-boggling in the slightest. Or maybe it’s because there wasn’t nearly as much content in one lecture, and more just examples of…

MEDSCI142

This was my favourite paper of the whole entire year. It was also the paper that required the most time and effort to do well! I didn’t mind this too much because I loved the content in this paper so much. It is the most similar to medicine, so if you don’t enjoy this paper…probably rethink your career choice!

PHYSICS160

I am by no means the biggest fan of physics, so I really wasn’t looking forward to this paper. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised by the difficulty (or lack thereof) of the actual physics in this paper. I did not have to put much work in to do well. However, this paper had the tendency to drive everyone…

What are my chances?

This is a question you will no doubt ask yourself a lot throughout first year.

Now, I can’t actually answer that question, but I can point you in the direction of some resources that can give you some idea of what your chances are.

I have to plan my own timetable?!

For those of you who are just about to start university — you will need to plan your own timetable!

This is quite a lengthy post. I will start from the basics, so skip through to where you need help!

First Semester

Textbooks?

I recently sold my textbooks from my first year, and had a few students message me asking about which ones they needed and where they could get them from.

So basically, this is my review on the textbooks. Ultimately, just remember, this is what worked for me — you may use textbooks…

BIOSCI101

**EDIT — as of 2019, this paper is going to be taken in second semester. Back when I did it, it was in first semester. It has swapped places with your gen-ed, which is now in first semester. This just means that this is one of three non-core papers in second semester, rather than the only non-core paper in…

BIOSCI106

A paper entirely about biochemistry. That freaked me out. I didn’t think I could do an entire semester of the last few weeks of BioSci101 when we did biochemistry.

This paper wasn’t as dreadfully bad as I thought it was going to be. But that does not mean I enjoyed it. Thankfully, it…