Potential Pre-medders - NCEA Results are out! It’s time to enrol for Uni courses…

Firstly, congratulations on your results! Whether they are better or worse than expected, they are what they are. It is now time to move on and determine what course to take at Uni. 

And don't worry, you'll accumulate more than enough notes and paperwork to last you a lifetime.

My stack of notes at the end of Premed Semester 1.
I have quadruple this now and it's a forever growing collection.

As for enrolling...

MAKE SURE TO DO THIS ASAP – especially for Semester 1 (you can enroll in Semester 2 later, but still, don’t leave it too late otherwise your preferred Gen Ed class may be full)! You want to get a good timetable, and for some of you who have arranged it correctly, you may even get Wednesdays off! Yippee!

What you might also want to do is to enroll with friends. Premed is a vast ocean of strangers and having some familiar faces around can make your year a lot better.

Times offered are Morning or Afternoon lectures and labs are vice versa. For example, if you pick a morning lecture, you’ll get an afternoon lab. 

Labs

Since labs are compulsory, make sure that you pick the time that suits you. If you’re a morning person, pick a morning lab session and an afternoon lecture. On days when you don’t have labs, you can always stream-hop to attend the morning lectures (and if you’re really keen, both) if you wish. However, I would recommend sticking with your lecture timetable for the first couple of weeks – since it is REALLY crowded – and then consider stream-hopping after, when people slack off and don’t turn up.

Remember, Labs are COMPULSORY and they run on a fortnightly basis so if you can, try and pick ones in the middle or end of the week. While this is not always possible, it’s great because you might be able to ask other students who had theirs earlier in the week, what it was like. And just as a reminder, while individual lab results might not count for much, they do add up so make sure to focus and do your best in each lab! 

Lectures

Now I’m not entirely sure if this is the same for 2016, but when I did it in 2014, morning ones run from 8 to 10, then you have an hour gap, and resume from 11 to 1.

Afternoon ones start 12-1, then you have an hour gap, and resume from 2-5.

Despite being enrolled for afternoon labs the whole year, when I could I would go to morning labs since it gave me a lot more motivation to get up early and be productive. I would go to lectures, have lunch, and then study in the afternoon and try to have evenings off. I found that when I had afternoon lectures, I had the tendency to sleep in, get up in time to go to uni, have lectures all afternoon, and be too tired to study properly at night. So think about whether you’re a morning or afternoon person and enrol accordingly. 

Hope this helps, and as per usual, if you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to contact me! All the best. 

-Diana