As I have mentioned in my blogpost about my recent graduation from foundation (!), I usually do a breakdown of each of the courses I am taking that semester. I will talk about what each course is all about, and how I feel about them! If you’re interested, you can read here my breakdown of my courses in my 2nd semester: Uni Semester 2 starts! … but it’s not what we imagined it to be. Due to the need to adapt quickly to university life, I did not do one for the 1st semester. However, I have still written many blogposts that describe my first experiences in university, all of which you can find in my blog.

The courses I took in the 3rd semester consists of 5 courses: Organic Chemistry, Introduction to Physiology, and Programming Concepts, Math, Physics. This semester’s courses are very practice oriented. Any amount of studying from the lecture notes alone is not enough; you need lots of practice too. But with practice, you can get very good at it.

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY for me required studying from the lecture notes, and then once I was done covering any chapter, I felt like there was still nothing I can understand yet. However, I told myself to do the tutorials nonetheless, and I kept referring to the notes again and again, until I became very familiar with the knowledge taught in the syllabus. Each chapter is very intertwined; they overlap a lot, and it soon became fun to see the connections, and draw out the various chemical structures, and “make” useful chemical compounds through a series of steps.

INTRODUCTION TO PHYSIOLOGY can be said to be an introduction course leading to our health science degrees at our university. It was very interesting and fun, as it covered the basics of each of the major systems in our bodies. However, I feel like I did not get to do it in proper depth, therefore I’ll be studying more of it during my long 5 month break. I am quite looking forward to that! ❤

PROGRAMMING CONCEPTS was very much like learning English. The programming language we learnt was Python, and we used an application called IDLE to write our code. It just required a lot of practice, and soon the things you master become like English Grammar: it becomes natural. There is even a word for “Grammar” in Programming language: “Syntax”. There is a specific layout that you must roughly follow as you write your code: 1. imports (importing modules that will help the program recognize specific types of codes), 2. constants (using an equal “=” sign to assign a value to something (For instance, age = 18, purchase_done = True, etc), 3. Various types of codes (print, user input, codes that make the program run only if a condition is fulfilled, and codes that repeatedly run again and again until a certain condition is met). I found this course quite enjoyable and enriching as it is requires very logical thought, and because I also got to programmed simple programs that I could relate to, such as cashier systems, computation (calculation) programs, and the hardest being a basic airflight ticket reservation system. The best way to study for this subject is to code a bit every day, watch some Youtube tutorial videos (they are really helpful), until you get used to the “Syntax” (programming grammar).

MATH was quite difficult for me, but I pinpointed the main problem: not enough practices and past years were done, as I had been focusing on other subjects that also needed a lot of investment in practice, such as organic chem and programming. I might be studying some math during the break too, as there is always math rooted in every field you can think of. I do like the challenge that comes with solving a math question. Math is the king of all subjects, so I’ve got to work on it! 😛

PHYSICS had a lot of formulas to memorize; so I prepared a list of formulas and important things to know before the exam. It is also a subject that requires much past year practice. Since it was open book, I could refer to them. However, Physics is probably my least favourite subject ever since I first came into contact with it in high school (secondary school). Somehow, I had always done quite well in it, yet I do not like the subject particularly, Still, Physics happens to be the King of all Sciences (though not the king of all subjects like Math), and it does explain some interesting phenomena that we see around us in daily life, so it can be interesting at times too.

To conclude, I found all of the courses quite enjoyable; however with the tight schedule of this semester I only managed to skim through all of them, therefore I did not build the best foundation in these 5 courses. With the coming break, I do hope to be able to make the learning process more enjoyable for myself by reading about each of the topics in more depth!