Posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2019, at 20:25:18
In reply to Re: games, posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2019, at 19:49:11
It is probably not clear...
Medicine is an undergraduate degree in this country.
First Year is fairly open entry but entry to second year is competitive.
There are basically 3 entry pathways.
There are two on the basis of first year. They have in common 4 subjects - cell bio, anat and phys, epidemiology / public health, organic chemistry. The rest of the subjects are biological physics and biochemistry for the 'biomed' pathway and sort of public health-y population health and health psychology for the 'healthsci' pathway.
The population health stuff is weird... I have done some statistics and I have previous background with psychology (including social and clinical)... The stuff here is something else... It's 'informal' reasoning or something that... Often doesn't make any sense by people who have not studied statistics or psychology.
The other pathway is graduate, on the basis of previously completed degrees - where the degrees must have been completed in NZ.
There are around 280 domestic places.
Around 40 for Maaori and pacific islanders
Around 50 for students from rural secondary schools (as best I can figure, including rurally located boarding schools)
Around 50 competitive entry graduate
Around 150 competitive entry from first yearI think the breakdown is something like the above. And they are sort of quotas for Maaori and pacific and rural origins (I'm pretty sure rural origins was the 'trade' for Maaori - I would be surprised if it wasn't a reward for wealthy people sending their kids to rural boarding schools to reduce pressure on inner city schools, if possible... I mean I know they want us to believe it is about serving the needs of rural communities, but I have no reason to believe them to be altruistic...)...
So...
Then they don't actually say how many grads vs first years. I guess they can make their rank list and experiment with different numbers of grads vs first years until they get most of the kids they want and cut out most of the kids they don't want...
So then we have a cohort. And a bunch of them are 19. And they have basically been selected in on the basis of their Secondary Schooling. Because the biomed curriculum really rewards students who studied those subjects well at good Secondary Schools. And it is basically impossible for students who didn't. But just in case a student from a non-traditional background is looking like they might make it... You can fail them for an essay in Population Health. Just so they don't get in, you see. If they don't have the foresight to flee (if they remain with full time status) they will have irrevokably f*ck*d up any chance of doing Med. A fail on your GPA is not something that can be recovered from.
So they failed me.
SO I dropped back to part time and fled.
There was nothing else to be done, given that people were blustering and thumping and refusing to follow University Complaints procedure and the people hired to help over at the Students Union... Well... They surely pick the most incopmetent ones they can find for those kinds of jobs. Unintentionally??? Yeah, right.
The Government pays the bulk of the bill to train the Med students. So we have these 19 year old second year students doing the cheapest undergraduate level medical degree in the english speaking world.
They don't have a 4 year (not even a 3 year) undergraduate degree in science (or anything else) behind them.
But they are second year Med students. And after 2 more years of both science and case-based learning they'll be in the hospitals.
FAIMER listed Auckland as 'graduate entry'.
But most of the people coming out of Auckland Medical School do not have previous degrees. It is an undergraduate level degree.
They expediate their kids because it's cheaper that way, I guess.
They don't have to pay for an undergraduate degree.
They don't have to pay for a graduate medical degree.
They may have to contribute towards the cost of their undergraduate medical degree (but they have organised surprisingly many scholarships for their own kids).
So most of their money they can spend on US accreditation.
Which really doesn't seem fair.So now the problem has to be... That if this is the cheapest medical degree in teh English Speaking world why wouldn't US students go do this cheaper one (even if they pay international student fees it would be considerably cheaper than a US 4 year degree BEOFRE the cost of a US medical school degree)...
So I guess they call it 'graduate entry'.
And they say you have to have completed a degree in NZ first.
But there is this 'from first year' entry route...
And then they sort of go 'aw! better luck next time! Stick around and you can apply again in only 2 years!'
Only they will make sure you fail one of your papers so you will be culled.
There doesn't seem to be any integrity.
Expediating the kids through isn't good for anyone.
It's not good for those kids.
They don't get the chance to decide what they want to do with their lives. Whether Medicine is something they want to work for, or not. They don't get to follow what they are passionate about... Do a degree in cell biology or neuroscience or whatever... They don't get to study the arts for fun. What little exposure they get to it is mostly designed to get them screaming back to Med. At least that was the slice that I could see from here... Not least because that is our exposure to the Arts generally... It is not something we value, here...
Out education system got so f*ck*ng crappy.
The worst of it is they can't even tell the difference between merit and the lack of it. Half the people whose job it is to decide think it is just about picking the ones with the... Cutest eyes. Or f*ck knows what.
Social experiment round 2: Giving it back.
Sigh.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1102325
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20181106/msgs/1102962.html