School of Biomedical Sciences & Pharmacy
Honours Program

INTRODUCTION TO THE HONOURS PROGRAM

Welcome to the Bachelor of Biomedical Science Honours program. I am sure that you will find it an interesting and stimulating program and one which will provide a very different experience from that which you have had so far in your studies.

PURPOSE

The Bachelor of Biomedical Science Honours Program is essentially a research training degree. The primary purpose of the Honours year is for the student to develop a new testable hypothesis after reviewing the literature, design appropriate experiments, collect, and critically evaluate the generated data, and communicate the data to others. Students should note that it is an essential component of the Honours year that they critically analyse and present their own data.

AIMS

An Honours year in Biomedical Sciences will provide you with a number of generic educational skills that will be of life long value regardless of your ultimate career path. At the most basic level you should develop attitudes and fundamental skills relevant to problem solving, self-learning and team work that will be highly valued in the workplace and the broader community. In more specific terms you should learn:

How to retrieve information of various kinds using electronic media.
How to critically evaluate the information received to develop an understanding of the background and the current status of a particular field.
How to use this information and your own insights to create hypotheses that can be tested experimentally.
How to design statistically valid experiments to test a given hypothesis.
The wide and exciting range of technologies that are currently available to address medical problems.
How to assimilate data and draw conclusions
How to present your results in written and oral form.

The development of these skills will be assessed by a number of indicators including a review in which you critically examine the literature that is relevant to your thesis work and a thesis summarizing the work you have done through the year. Your ability to present and discuss your work with others will be assessed through a presentation outlining your Honours proposal, a thesis review and an end of year seminar outlining your results and the conclusions that you drew from those results.