Quote:
Originally Posted by giftedchick
thank you.. but i was also looking for info such as:
-the prof's lecture style
-difficulty
-tests/assignments format
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I took this course an thoroughly enjoyed it. Its a different style of learning, not the usual go to lecture and do a lab thats vaguely related to material. This was truly a lab oriented course that provided insights into all disciplines of biology and research methods. The prof, Dr. Jacobs is very different from first year, if you had him I am not sure. The lectures were very laid back, there is no real need to take notes, just absorb and learn (Nothing he said was directly tested). He talks about the lab and how its done for one lecture of the week, while the other lecture of the week is talk on research methodologies ( so no notes just listen and learn).
Difficulty wise, I found it pretty easy, but the workload is not quite heavy, but above average. This is due to the labs being every week and the prep/prelab/post labs that were needed. The assignments were not difficult, but we had to write 2 letters to nature which were reasonably time consuming and tediious.
NO MIDTERM, just lots of lab related stuffs. The exam was largely take home with a ridiculously short portion where we came down to a room during exam time and wrote(most ppl finished this part in 30mins). The take home was extensive, but doable with a group of classmates or a couple hours alone in the library. Also the in class portion of the exam was open book, so what a lot of people did was print out all the lecture notes he posted and brought them in, although they were not needed at all.
So this course was not too difficult but at the same time interesting. NOW when I took it in 2009 fall it was the courses first time running. So we were the "test" subjects and things were unusually easy for us (some things (experiments) didnt work out so marks were easier to get). That being said, the course is going to be changed so expect differences in difficulty. However I dont expect it to get too hard, very manageable course for a 2nd year student. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, gives a good insight into various areas of biology, and introduces students to a research career.
