We all know that the assessment period can be challenging, especially in winter. Motivation can be low and stress and anxiety can be high. Looking after your health and wellbeing is essential to being your best at The University of Melbourne. We are here to provide our top tips for surviving the assessment period and keep your cool.

The Faculty of Science hosted a Three Minute Thesis competition on 31 May. The event was an excellent showcase of the great research happening across the Faculty and gave participants the chance to prepare for the University’s central 3MT competition, which will begin in July.

My name is Jack Simkin, and I graduated in April 2018 from the Master of Environment at the University of Melbourne. After completing a Bachelor of Environmental Science at RMIT in 2012, I worked as a Hydrographer for 4 years, collecting water quality and river flow information across Victoria. This experience in the work force helped me focus my ambitions for coming back to university, culminating in a year ling research project, which took me from a coastal Fijian community to presenting at the Resilience2017 conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

Sarah Dickson-Hoyle has recently been awarded the Future Forests Fellowship from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, where she will complete her PhD studies in place-based fire management under the supervision of Dr Lori Daniels, a disturbance ecologist.

SWOT Vac is a time for you to cram a full semester of knowledge into one week, right? Believe it or not, SWOT Vac week is a great opportunity for you to stop, relax and reflect on the past 12 weeks. You should be proud of the hard work and effort that has been the past semester. Use SWOT Vac to your advantage and make the most of your available time.

Fourth-year Bachelor of Science student, Renee Demeo, talks about her study abroad experience at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Master of Science (Physics) student, Madeleine Zurowski, recounts her experiences during her time on exchange at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University.

The Faculty of Science will be hosting a Three Minute Thesis competition on Thursday 31st of May 2018.

The Faculty of Science hosted a panel as a part of Employability Week (11–17 April) for undergraduate students in the Bachelor of Science. The panelists provided students with insight into the transition from university to the workplace.

Bachelor of Science student, Jason Hobson, discusses his time volunteering as part of the In2Science and Science Delivery programs.

David Adams, reflects on his first year as a PhD candidate in the School of Geography.

Expressions of Interest for the Faculty of Science Thesis Boot Camp are now open. Late stage graduate research candidates are encouraged to apply.

Bachelor of Science student, Beiwei Lin, discusses the importance of mentoring through her undergraduate studies.

Bachelor of Science student, Oliver Murray, talks about his experience while on exchange to Rutgers University.

We hope you're having a great time settling into the first weeks of your course. We also hope you’ve been trying out a few active learning methods such as preparing for lectures, taking notes and setting up a self-study schedule.

In February a group of school kids got a lesson in physics while experiencing the stunning beauty of a flyover of Antactica.

Science alumnus Jonathan Ling, now a Digital Analyst at Accenture, took to Linked In to share his advice for science undergraduates on life after university.

Do you want a head start in your career? The Unimelb Careers Festival is new in 2018 and will feature a week-long schedule of careers & employability events.

In the last edition of Under the Microscope, we gave you a check list of all the things we wish we had known when we started at the University of Melbourne. In this edition, we want to share an amazing resource our friends at Academic Services have created.

Your (un)official guide to starting out at University

It has happened to all of us. We have woken up on the morning (or afternoon) of the 1st of January and thought about the things we’re going to do differently this year.

Over the recent summer holidays, four maths students from the Faculty of Science undertook a Trading internship at Optiver, a leading technology driven trading firm based in Sydney.

Been offered a place in the Bachelor of Science for 2018? Congratulations! Now for the next step: attending Science: Day 1. Come along to learn all about what the BSc can offer you, and how you'll choose your subjects.

We welcome all students beginning a graduate coursework degree to an orientation session on Monday 19 February. Depending on your graduate program, there will also be other orientation sessions for you.

The process of choosing your first-year subjects may appear daunting, but don’t worry, we have lots of resources to support you through this important process.

Does smelling the scent of blood make us hungry, even for vegetables? Maybe, says an exploratory pilot study run by University of Melbourne research students

University of Melbourne scientists have collected blowflies from farms across Australia as part of efforts to develop a vaccine to protect sheep from flystrike.

For the first time, University of Melbourne researchers have identified the long-term health risks of removing tonsils and adenoids in childhood.

An international team, including University of Melbourne scientists, is looking inside trees to learn exactly how wood is formed at the cellular level.

Inspired by how bees make collective decisions, University of Melbourne researchers are exploring how crowdsourcing techniques may help intelligence analysis

University of Melbourne scientists are using breeding to genetically adapt quolls to resist toxic cane toads – if it works it may help other endangered species

A University of Melbourne expert explains what the eruption of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano can tell us about what’s happening deep in the Earth’s crust.

Lights have brightened our nights and urban wildlife is having to adapt; University of Melbourne research explores our light's impact on nocturnal urban animals

University of Melbourne geologists have shown how strong cratons formed billions of years ago, when Earth transitioned from a volcanic state to plate tectonics.

China’s famous Zhangjiajie rocks may look like scenery from Avatar, but University of Melbourne research finds water, tectonics and time created this wonder.