This course was very fair and was 1 of the most interesting courses I've ever taken at Mac. Dr. Rollo taught it in the 2009-2010 year and although he's not the best prof., he gets the job done.
Basically, this course teaches you about the physiological mechanisms of circadian rhythm, thermoregulation and epigenetics. All material is taken straight from the "textbook" which is just a bound collection of 30 science journals, and his lectures, which just expands on textbook material.
Rollo's lectures are extremely boring because he tends to mumble a lot and he doesn't turn up his mic so you'll probably end up spending 50 minutes in class either chatting with your friends or being annoyed by people chatting with their friends. There is a LOT of detail in the material but Rollo is pretty chill and has pretty easy tests. He rarely asks very specific questions (except the odd 1 here or there) and will only test on general concepts that he's gone over in class again and again. The class average in my year for the first quiz was probably 80+ and same for the midterm. The final was a bit more challenging because of the sheer amount of material you had to read but was still fairly easy.
P.S. There's also a 5% bonus for participation which depends on how often you post on the forums but it's extremely subjective because it depends on how frequently you post and how well-written your posts are.
This was a pretty good course. If you don't like labs very much, but love physiology and don't mind reading scientific articles, this is def. a worthwhile course to take
i LOVED this class, it was BY FAR my favorite class at mcmaster.
Dr. Rollo is a very good and interesting prof, his test are very fair.
half of the midterm is on lecture material and the other half is on readings from articles he assigns (course ware). Make sure you read the articles because he will ask random questions (like who invented the refrigerator in their dreams...or something along the lines of that)
Any updates on this course ? How easy is it to get an 11or 12 if you study well for the midterms and exams? Surely it's an interesting course.. But is it unnecessarily tricky or are midterms/exams designed to screw u over?? Thanks!
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