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!