There is so much in this course that it is hard to begin. Basically, you will be performing a research project that is guided by the professor, lab coordinator, and TAs. The goal of the course is to familiarize students with the biochemistry department at McMaster, give students wetlab skills, and teach them how to write out what they're doing like you would see in journal articles. In this regard, I think there are very few courses that are so comprehensive and directly applicable to future careers or job opportunities for students.
Every week (with a few exceptions) there is a lab which take anywhere from a 1 hour to 4 hours - as long as you finish everything you have to do, you can leave early. Before each lab there may be a prelab where you answer a few questions, read a paper, etc.. which usually help to reinforce the importance of a certain technique you're learning and the theory behind it. If there is anything difficult or hard to find, Felicia (the instructor) will probably tell you what the answer is through her lectures. The lectures were 2 hours once a week, and were sometimes just random tangents, but aimed to make sure people were on track with the project and knew what was going on and WHY.
In first term, there was a test this year that was pretty much just a rehashed version of the dry labs such as making primers for PCR, and that sort of thing. Also there was a PBL component where you interview a professor in biochem and make a short presentation about them. In second term, there is also a test which focused more on the project as a whole, and the PBL project was to in-depth describe one of the techniques that was taught in a lab (i.e. crystallography, SDS-PAGE).
At the end of the year, you write a really long report - pretty much a journal article on the project you did. Thankfully, they sneakily get you to write out a lot of it during the year as 'discussions' for the previous lab. Make sure you do them and try hard so you get feedback and don't have to worry about figuring stuff out from old labs for your final report. There's no exam
Overall, this was a really fun course, you'll make tons of new friends, and one of my favourites at McMaster!
The breakdown was:
25% final report (end of term 2)
5% progress report (end of term 1, practice for final report)
5% mini lab writeups (in term 2, practice for final report)
20% for tests (1 per term)
10% PBL projects (1 per term)
Prelabs/participation/drylabs/marked labs/quizzes make up the other 25%.... the exact breakdown of these components is in the course outline if anybody wants more detail than that.
Definitely a lot of work, but everyone in the course generally does well (I think we were told the average in the course is a mid-80).
