UWS LOVE

So, today was examination results day. A state holiday observed in respect for the stressed out students of UWS. Naww, I wish...
Anyway, I'm on a super-high; my end-of-year marks were enough to cover for my so-so pass score in the first semester, and as a result I'm sitting on a comfortable credit average :) And so far, the news from the rest of my cohort has been quite positive - unfortunately, it seems we had a drought of HDs...
So, in the UWS faculty, there's been talk of implementing an Honours system (you know, those ppl with MBBS(Hon.)) which involves a fairly relaxed (200 hours spread over two years) research project, and doing well academically. There's also been talk of a combined MBBS/PhD program - we have a sole student who did the Bachelor of Medical Research, who's also been funded for a PhD; kudos to her for being a trailblazer :) The PhD would add an extra 3 years; I don't think it will come under the 7-years-at-uni rule (the maximum amount of time you can stay in uni, being funded as a CSP place, is 7 years, if you're not over 25) though - otherwise I don't know what would happen. Also, it seems to be a pathway from the Bachelor of Medical Research. All of this interests me, since I'm considering clinical research in the future, and I guess it bodes well for UWS, offering these additional degrees/letters in your degree.
Today in the labs, we set up another experiment; although on paper it appears as if there were 3 separate projects with 3 different students, we seem to work together. Which is cool, which is cool. In fact, there hasn't been much time 1-on-1, excepting the early (for the holidays) mornings when there's no-one else but researchers and receptionists (who are rather friendly, I must add). We also got a pretty hefty insight into why lecturers sometimes can't make lectures or don't prepare them to as high a standard as we'd like (page numbers, nice Powerpoint design) - our Year 1 co-ordinator was running an experiment for about 30 hours straight, with monitoring around the clock. When this type of experiment is done regularly, rather than as a one-off stint, I could see how it would eat up your time - not to mention, keeping up to date with what everyone else is doing in their labs, analysing data, and writing up goodness knows what (A thesis? An outline?)
I've also found that research is very techy. Why am I surprised, I'm not sure (I should've expected it...) but the amount of software, hardware and even the presence of programming/coding scripts was bewildering. Right up my alley, then.