MEET YOUR HALAD GAMSAT TUTOR: JACK

JACK TUTORS SECTION 3!

Halad to Health is a NFP that runs Australia’s most affordable GAMSAT tuition students, where all proceeds raised from tuition fees go directly towards the Halad to Health Foundation Philippines, to give access to proper health education to students in rural Philippines.

Here’s A Bit About Jack

I grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne, completing my VCE at a local state school. I completed my Bachelor of Science at Monash University in 2020, majoring in physiology. Currently, I’m taking a gap year to pursue my personal interests and to save money to help pay for any expenses that may come with medical school.

My journey towards medicine is quite non-traditional. I wasn’t set on medicine from a young age. I wasn’t even set on medicine following the completion of my VCE. In this vein, I decided to embark on a double degree in Science and Law following my VCE to keep my options open. Don’t ask why I chose to do law… (cough, cough… Harvey Spector). Long story short, I was instantly enchanted by the health sciences, particularly the room for exponential growth in knowledge. Once you learned one thing in the health sciences, you instantly open the door to multiple other pockets of knowledge, and I loved this aspect. When it came to what particular aspect of the health sciences I wanted to follow, I ultimately chose medicine as it aligned with a number of my other interests (which we can discuss but I don’t want to make this blog any longer than it already is haha).

Once I decided to pursue medicine, I reflected on how I could make a difference in the health field. Part of this reflection was based on my own background, where I witnessed the potential for devastating consequences as a result of poor health education. I hope one day to be involved in health education, particularly in communities that are most in need. Why should someone suffer because they are in the unfortunate position of having low health literacy? This is why I love Halad’s mission- to bring health literacy to disadvantaged global communities.

Okay, now enough about my journey… let’s talk about my pets. I have two cats, Simba and Missy pictured below. I absolutely adore them, and their superpower to liven up anyone’s day. My partner also has two cats (Milo and Snowy) and two dogs (Mocca and Caesar); therefore, you can say by extension, I have four cats and two dogs. Below are some photos of these pets. The one on the left is of Caesar when he was a couple of months old, and the one on the right is of Missy and Simba.

I Had A Chaotic Yet Insightful GAMSAT Journey

I was part of the eventful May 2020 cohort (sigh)… If you’re not too familiar with this cohort, we were hit with a notice 6 days before GAMSAT that it had been postponed indefinitely. The indefinite nature of this postponement left me in limbo, as I’m the type of person that likes to have everything planned out to a tee. Being in limbo about whether the GAMSAT would go ahead, I decided to focus mainly on my university studies. Eventually, we were given a date (with very little notice might I say) and told that GAMSAT will now be transitioned to an online format.

Despite all this, my GAMSAT journey was extremely insightful. I learned the importance of entering a ‘GAMSAT-mindset’ before the test, a mindset where you are kind to yourself, where you are confident in yourself and ready to nail the GAMSAT. You can prepare for weeks, months, or years, but that can all go to waste if you don’t enter with the right mindset. It also showed me the importance of not being totally consumed by the journey towards becoming a future doctor. There will be a lot of unforeseeable obstacles, but it’s important that you don’t let these obstacles become the fulcrum of your life. Take some time off occasionally, be proud of where you’ve made it, and enjoy other aspects of life.

The Way I Teach Section 3 Is All About A Skill-based Approach

In my experience with section 3, what is being assessed is not so much the breadth of your scientific knowledge but rather your problem-solving skills. Essentially, it is a problem-solving puzzle written in the language of the sciences. You don’t need in-depth knowledge of the respiratory system or thermodynamics to do well on the GAMSAT. In fact, the majority, if not all, of the questions in GAMSAT can be answered based on the information provided to the students in the stem as opposed to a reliance on background knowledge.

I’m not trying to discourage you from revising scientific concepts, but you don’t need to go beyond the basics. Once you have the basics down pat, it is important to focus on improving your ability in the various skills tested in the GAMSAT. This is something I hope to instil in all my students, that regardless of your science background, by preparing with a skills-based mindset, you are well on your way to nailing the GAMSAT!

If You’re In My Class, Ask Me About What Chick Flick I’m Watching!

You’ll probably catch me binge-watching a chick flick in my downtime! At the moment, I’m going through the seasons of Gossip Girl at a rather rapid rate. In all seriousness… ask me about anything! I’m always happy to talk about anything you want.

Feel free to contact Jack at jack@haladtohealth.org anytime!