#biol 436

[princesswincess]

UBC Course Review Winter 2016

Winter 2016 was my first semester at UBC (University of British Columbia). 4 courses + a part-time job made this semester overwhelming. Looking forward to the end of “Snowmageddon” in VanCity!  I took CPSC 110, MATH 100, BIOL 436 and CPSC 430 and here are my thoughts!

CPSC 110 – Computation, Programs and Programming

Textbook: None

Verdict: Be prepared for a lot of work. (Challenge this course if you can!)

Computer Science 110 focuses on functional programming and design in Dr. Racket (a programming language you’ll never use again!) I had Dr. Kiczales as a prof, who I would recommend if you’ve got to take this course. Others I knew in Dr’s Estey and Berg’s classes also recommended them. While the actual teaching is great,  the design of this course is awful, which makes it extremely time consuming. All the coursework is provided online and instead of normal lectures, you’re required to watch video lectures. In your in-class lecture you do practise problems based on the material you learnt in the videos. The video lectures are lengthy (think 4-7hours extra a week) + you’ve got labs, assignments etc. While the course itself is fair, be prepared for a boatload of work.

Small aside: the justification for the insane amount of out-of-class work was that making students come to lecture having already learnt the material helps them learn better. While I’m sure that this finding is all solid science, I found that because lectures were useless if you hadn’t watched the videos, I would often skip if I didn’t have time to watch 7 hours of video that weekend. Also, why am I paying $600 for what is essentially an online course with extra questions? I believe that video lectures devalue the course as a whole since Coursera, MIT Open Courseware, etc. all exist to provide online learning. The entire reason why I’m paying to go to lecture is to…go to an actual lecture.

MATH 100 – Differential Calculus with Applications to Physical Sciences and Engineering

Textbook: Free

Verdict: You’ll get out of this course, exactly what you put in.

Math 100 was likely the most straight-forward course I took this semester. I had Dr. Walls, who was great at lecturing. A couple good things about Math 100 are the free textbook and the fortnightly quizzes instead of midterms. Personally, I prefer having my marks distributed over quizzes rather than having a midterm worth 20% or so. Besides the final exam, your other marks will come from weekly Webwork assignments online, which aren’t too difficult. My only complaint for this course were the other students, who were so often so loud during lecture you couldn’t hear the prof.

BIOL 436 – Functional Genomics

Textbook: None

Verdict: Wouldn’t recommend.

This biology course is a bit of a mess. The prof does genuinely seem to care about the students, and the class average was high, however I found the disorganization, lack of concrete expectations and returned marks to be stressful.  A large portion of the marks are “completion marks” towards a large term project where you design a functional genomics experiment. The term project requires you to submit small portions during the course and do both a presentation and a term project. The midterm had a group portion and  there is a take-home final  based upon class/tutorial material we had done previously. While the material itself wasn’t too hard, I found that the class was confused most of the time since we were unsure of the prof’s expectations. When I did ask questions I found that the answers I got only made me more confused. I do know others who liked this course, and while I did get a “good” mark, this was my least enjoyable course at UBC, mainly because I had no idea what grade I would get.

CPSC 430 – Computers and Society

Textbook: easily “found” online (or available at the bookstore for ~$150)

Verdict: Great! And not overly difficult if you put in the work.

This course is taught by one of the most engaged and excited profs I’ve encountered at UBC, Dr. Dawson. This is an ethics course with a focus on computer  science related topics. At first I found the course a little daunting because I found it odd to understand and apply the ethical theories we had learned in class; however, once I had gotten the theories under my belt, the course was quite interesting. We talked about things like The Patriot Act, hacking, moral dilemmas etc. I got to learn about a lot of topics that I usually would have avoided because they seemed dry or overly complex. In terms of course-work, there are short essays due about every two weeks and some (easy) online quizzes. The class average was pretty high. The only thing I did not like about this course were that you have to speak in class (of 100+ people) to get participation marks. I found it very daunting to give an argument about topics that I had only a shallow knowledge of. Having said that, if you don’t speak at all during class, it’s only a small percentage of your total mark that is lost. The only pre-req is one CPSC course, so take this one if you have the chance!

[princesswincess]

Winter 2016 was my first semester at UBC (University of British Columbia). 4 courses + a part-time job made this semester overwhelming. Looking forward to the end of “Snowmageddon” in V…

[ayyellesrambles]

Do you know some good third and fourth year BIOL courses about Genetics?

I really enjoyed BIOL 436, it’s genomics though, so it’s looking at things from a bigger point of view and seeing how different genes interact to give different phenotypes. 

BIOL 335, is Molecular Genetics, it’s the pre-req for most 400-level genetics/genomic courses, it’s hard, albeit very, very interesting! 

I’m taking BIOL 458 right now and although it’s about Developmental Neurobiology, there’s a lot of genetics involved with it. It’s a pretty interesting course and the professor is hilarious! 

[ayyellesrambles]

Course Review Fall 2013, Fourth Year - Term 1

This past semester was alright....there weren't courses that made me super excited to learn and go to class...I"m sure I must've felt like falling asleep a few times in every single one of my classes this semester. It doesn't mean I didn't learn anything though! I did better than expected in the majority of my classes and ended up with a decent average though! I just need to keep it up for the final semester of my undergrad! Here's my review of APBI 318, BIOL 363, BIOL 436, GRSJ 300:

Applied Biology 318, Applied Plant Breeding, Riseman

I was super excited to take this class because I've always wanted to try a full APBI course because of my love for studying plants. It combined basic genetics and basic botany, so it was a good review of a lot of the things I've already learned in my other classes, I didn't learn a whole lot of new material though. Some of my classmates really didn't like it because it was really basic and they've also taken other classes in genetics and plants, we were a whiny bunch. There is no pre-requisite for this course so it is sort of expected that it would be an introductory course, so it's suitable for Arts and Commerce students (there were several of them). I was hoping for more hands-on opportunity to work with plants, but we had labs maybe three times during the term and went to the farm for two weeks. Other than that, it was listening to the prof talk for 5 hours a week in lecture. The workload didn't pick up until November when everything went crazy with multiple assignments and projects, we did pretty much nothing the first two months. No midterm, no final though! Just several small assignments, some laboratory marks and a final paper. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to an introductory course to plants and genetics...if you've already learned the basics, I don't know if the class will be interesting to you. 

Biology 363, Laboratory in Animal Physiology, Lacombe

I am not an animal person at all, unlike 90% of the biology majors. I can't deal with them haha, but I chose this lab because it would give me 2 days off during the week. It was actually pretty interesting. Dr. Lacombe is adorable, she's so funny and fiesty at the same time, you can definitely tell that she enjoys what she does. The course was tough though in terms of marking, the preparation and the actual labs weren't too bad. The workload was definitely a lot lighter than in Biol 341, the Molecular Biology laboratory I took last year. Unlike Biol 341, we had a final exam, which was completely open book. 

Biology 436, Integrated Functional Genomics, Lee

I was actually really scared of this course because I didn't do so hot in its pre-req, Biol 335. However, despite drawing on some of the concepts we learned about in 335, this course focused mostly on high-throughput methods to analyze full genomes and multiple genes. Which was actually pretty cool because it's a little more applicable with what is happening in the world in terms of research because everyone knows that it's usually not just one single gene that gives you some phenotype, but rather an interaction between them. We learned about the different technologies used to analyze genomes and often got guest speakers who talked about their areas of expertise. We had a lot of presentations though and little assignments, and it got a little tedious, but it did help me stay focused. We had one midterm and a take-home final, which consisted of us having to analyze the expression levels of 2000 genes in 3 conditions, and identifying which genes fit a certain criteria we were given. Then we had to choose one candidate gene and figure out its function using online computer programs and build a phylogenetic tree with homologs. This course was very computer based, which exposed me to the world of computational biology and bioinformatics, fields I'm interested in learning more about and maybe going into.  

Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice 300, Intersectional Approaches to Gender Relations, Shelley

I took this course online, and thought it was pretty okay. The content was interesting, but the readings were too long and I often got bored of them. It was a lot more chill than my other courses (aside from Apbi 318). This course made me think about how females are treated in this world and how they are oppressed. We had 3 papers and discussion marks, and that was about it. Each week, there were discussion questions to answer on Connect, based on our readings. Arts courses aren't really my thing, so this course wasn't necessarily one of my more enjoyable courses, but it was interesting nonetheless! This course is great for people who are really into gender relations and enjoy writing.