SCIE30001: Science Research Project

Depends on supervisor. Mine was an extended literature review of about 4000 words and an oral presentation. Not sure how much each were weighted.

None

R.K.

None

None

No lectures. Weekly contact hours range from 2-15 hours.

2011 Semester 2

H1

It varies depending on the department. For the Microbiology and Immunology department, it was:


10% Literature review
10% Ability to record results properly
15% Ability to carry out experiments independently
15% Oral
50% Report on your experiment (thesis)

This subject was a lot of fun, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in working in a lab, or progressing to Honours. You’ll get a lot of good research experience, such as designing/carrying out your own experiments. In the first few weeks I was taught lab techniques, and by the 3rd week I was independently carrying out assays by myself.

Make sure you pick your supervisor well, because you’ll be with them A LOT for the whole semester. Also, be mindful that although you can nominate when to be in lab, it will require a lot of your time. One girl doing the subject had to complete a 12 hour experiment (all in one day).

Other things to consider:

• If you’re part of the Microbiology and Immunology department, then you’ll have to do MIIM30013 Techniques in Microbiology & Immunology in Semester 1 instead of Semester 2.
  
• You need at least an 80 average in second year to do this subject. The process of enrolling in this subject is also different from others in that you need to be interviewed by the coordinator before you can enrol.
  
• If you’re keen, get in quick! There were only 10 positions available (in the Microbiology and Immunology department).
  
• This isn’t like most lab subjects where you follow a set of instructions and write about the outcome (which is known). On some days there will be results, on others there will be none. Stick with it though! When I did it, there were many times where we discovered things that had never been reported before.

NA

NA

NA

5/5

NA, but you’ll be reading at least 30-40 journal articles as research for your lit review and final report.

10 hours a week in a lab, but you tend to spend a lot more than that. Most weeks I was in the lab for around ~15 hours.

2011

93