H3 Biology

Each time I think back on my H3 Bio journey I am truly humbled and amazed. H3 Bio is not an easy subject to take. We learnt based on doing our own research, consolidating the information, and then teaching our classmates whatever we have absorbed in that process. For J2s already juggling other hectic academic commitments amidst their co-curriculum activities, needing to set aside additional time to read research papers and understand H3 subject content is not easy.

The thing I enjoyed the most in my H3 journey was the friendships that came along with it and the amazing people that I met. Our H3 cohort was split into 6 groups, and I was in a group with 4 other amazing people (we started off as a group of 6 but one, unfortunately, dropped out mid-term). As the subject required independent learning, we relied on one another to discuss difficult content material and to understand the topic at hand, while helping one another to revise and pushing one another on when times got tough. I think my group really embodied the spirit of ‘teamwork’ and ’support’, when each time I had a query and sent it to the chat, my group mates would respond quickly and patiently. My team has really made the entire experience more enjoyable - so to Group 2: kudos and thank you so much :)

The main reason why I took on a H3 subject outside of my H2 ones is because of the academic rigour that comes out of it. Sure, I was already struggling with H2 Biology, but I wanted to learn more and that fact made the decision-making process pretty easy. Specifically, I was intrigued by the lesson outcomes of learning about the communication systems within (and between) organisms, for example, the nervous system and quorum sensing, as well as the learning outcome that focused on immunology. Truthfully, I did think about giving up on scoring well in the examination because of time constraints. Hence, nearer to Prelims, I simply focused on understanding the lesson content and exploring the topic as much as I could. I think that was the best decision I’ve ever made. I left all of my nights to H3 Biology just reading through different research papers that were related to the syllabus content, and then even slowly venturing out of the syllabus. That was the one time I really felt revitalised by what I was learning. It felt really nice to just learn whatever I was curious about, instead of being bounded by arbitrary syllabus guidelines. I did eventually do well for my Prelims (well enough for me at least), but I think that the main takeaway was how much I really enjoyed learning about things that piqued my curiosity.

Through the H3 lessons, I also learnt the skill of scientific argumentation. Learning how to make clear-cut, to-the-point arguments, while being logical in my explanation and providing the necessary evidence was not an easy journey. Starting out failing the subject miserably, it was difficult to keep pushing on, but I’m glad to say that I eventually emerged as a better writer and a more organised thinker. To any juniors thinking of taking on a H3 subject - do it if you’re really interested in the content!