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Biology 1A03 sinthusized 1st Year Course Reviews 124 12-25-2014 01:30 AM

Biology 1A03

 
Biology 1A03
Published by dumbconsumer
05-29-2011
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Biology 1A03

Had the Course in the Fall in 2010/2011.

I had Dr. Kajuira, she seems like a genuinely nice lady but uhhh, on the professor end of the continuum, there areissues.

FIRSTLY, she can be a bit patronizing at times, spend lengths of time to tell you how to study. Now, that's a personal opinion, i'm sure there were some kids that might have benefited from her pep talks, i didn't. Another issue here is that while she's trying to ease you into the course, she was actually one of my most intimidating professors, like before a midterm i'd be told "study the textbook, study supplemental information and images posted online, study the student forum I created, study the skeleton notes, study the key words at the end of the notes." In the end, you'll get 90% of your questions from the skeleton notes, and 9.99% of the questions from everything else but the textbook. you'll never get textbook-only questions, even if she'll say you will (at least in my experience). Often times though, you'll need to read the textbook anyways, for reasons i'll discuss in part 3.

SECONDLY, she spends a lot of time promoting a charity club that she is part of called iGnite, it's a good cause and all that, so you can never hate her too much for it, but still, a lot of class (and real estate on AvenueToLearn) is used to update iGnite members or promote iGnite activities, which can seem a bit unnecessary with a group of people in which the majority aren't even a part of the organization. Her incentive to get you to join is a reference letter, not a stellar, academic, gets-you-into-med school reference letter but more of a "this person helped with volunteering activities, give them a job please" type of letter. Still, if you're a keener looking to make professor contacts, Kajuira + iGnite might be a place to start.

FINALLY, and this is the big one, she glosses over a lot of key concepts very quickly. May not be her fault, there's a lot to cover. She gives you "skeleton notes", where you're supposed to fill in the blanks, and basically if something isn't a blank that needs to be filled in, she'll run over it very quickly. I specifically remember a lecture on micro-tubules where I came out with no idea about what had happened. This is why you need to read the textbook (as mentioned in part 1)

With all of that said, she almost always teaches this course across both semesters, and the summers, so she may be unavoidable, learn to live with her, it's not too hard, she's nice really, i feel mean saying some of the stuff above, her class is just...not fun.

Secondly I had Dr. Boreham, considering the boring reputation most of the first year bio profs have, you want to aim for his class. He will keep you awake, he will keep you entertained. I don't have too much to say about him, a few issues nonetheless:

Firstly, he likes to test some extraneous information, like he kept telling us that all the DNA in your body can stretch to the sun and back many times, then he asked us this in on a test, but changed it to the DNA in one cell (not your entire body), and the answer changed obviously, I fell for the trick, countless other people did, so yea, he can be tricky. But uhh, these minor tricks aside, his questions aren't too hard. The hardest questions you'll encounter aren't even from his own material, but rather from guest speakers he brought in through the years.

Secondly, he's unusually aware about what you should have learned already in high school, like DNA replication, so he won't teach it in detail, usually he'll use the extra time for something fun and you won't mind it, but nonetheless, if you're rusty on some high school stuff, you'll need to review the textbook.

Also, and this is so amazing, He has a 5 minute break in the middle of each lecture, this is SO GOOD. KEEPS YOU AWAKE. during the break he often plays music, one time some girls did a dance on stage, it was hard to watch but it was entertaining.

Now for the course:

the material is 60-70% high school review, usually they'll add a few more details that weren't covered in high school. It may even be easier than high school in a way because you don't cover any anatomy, physiology, glycolisis or the krebs cycle. the labs are the major issue. Major issue in the sense that they are the most boring component of an already boring course (personally). Often depends on who your TA is, but they are generally instructed to keep marks at a certain low standard and my TA told us she got yelled at for giving us relatively higher marks. I didn't mind lol. Labs are usually unrelated entirely to the course material, and thus they get their own lab exam. the lab exam is easy, but you need to have your lab book in order. The bio department is so annoying about this as opposed to the chem department, you need to rewrite the entire procedure in your lab notebook, you will also be tested on random barcodes and whatnot. I just got together with one or two friends and compared all the info we had in our lab books and we made sure we all had the complete info. Worked out well. For the final, i'd suggest paying attention to the content breakdown they give you (usually one professor writes 2/3rds of a test), still study the other prof though, or the maximum you can get is 66%. From time to time, a multiple choice question from the midterms will reappear on the final, so picking up your marked midterms, and later reviewing them, is highly recommended. The midterms have a written component to them, the final does not.

Can't think of anything else, feel free to msg me on macinsiders for specific questions.

Good luck!
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Old 08-14-2011 at 12:34 PM   #2
lifesci
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I had kajuira/wilson. Kajuira can definitely spend more time telling how to study as opposed to teaching the material. Reading the textbook beforehand makes lectures more understandable! Wilson was a bit dry, but taught straight to the point I found.
To study for midterms, I picked out important ideas from lecture and read the textbook chapters related to them. Definitely helps for the written answers to have that background info.
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Old 08-15-2011 at 04:02 PM   #3
Razzleberry
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I found Bio 1A03 to be the hardest course in first year life sciences. The textbook is really useful, spend a lot of time looking at the pictures and reread a couple of chapters before the tests
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Old 09-13-2011 at 07:44 PM   #4
t.b11
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this course was ugh -_-
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Old 09-14-2011 at 02:52 PM   #5
Aric Huang
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I thought the course was mostly review, so it wasn't too bad. The textbook is pretty simple to read. To course is pretty much memorization of information.
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Old 10-31-2011 at 02:34 PM   #6
winnythe
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Easy, fun class. Labs weren't as interesting as I thought they would be. Dr. Kajuira was my favorite professor in the whole semester.
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Old 01-10-2012 at 09:47 PM   #7
asdfasdf1234
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This course wasn't too bad, just the labs were a bit tedious. If you have Wilson, make sure you to go her classes for the last couple weeks. I found a large portion of the exam was based on that material.
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Old 04-12-2012 at 04:16 PM   #8
trana22
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I really enjoyed this course, Kajura was awesome !
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Old 04-17-2012 at 02:32 AM   #9
sam_akbari
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Kajura was un-original. She would literally recite examples and scenarios from semester to semester as if its all staged. When you asked a question that the student audience clearly found she didnt know, (which was i.e. 90% of the time), she would answer something completely different and leave the students confused. Never to the point, described what is important to know but never taught it.

it was fine for me because most of it was review and if not i would read the textbook.

Wilson, yes dry and people would call her snappy, but she was 1000 times better. She was direct, explicit, to the point, answered questions very well. Not my favorite prof but i have definitely seen much worse.

Labs were terrifying as my TA was very scary, demanding, condescending, rude, and unrealistic with her expectations. Labs themselves were okay, annoying, but at the core, fun to do.

As lame as the course was, i really like the biology because i find it interesting. So depending on your view on bio, you may or may not like this course. I found it good (even with all the obstacles)

Swampis says thanks to sam_akbari for this post.

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Old 08-12-2012 at 12:55 AM   #10
Mouhanad
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Hey, I have this course this fall and I'm looking at the textbooks I need.
Any idea if I actually need the short guide and the how to write about biology guide?
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Old 08-12-2012 at 09:05 AM   #11
jhan523
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mouhanad View Post
Hey, I have this course this fall and I'm looking at the textbooks I need.
Any idea if I actually need the short guide and the how to write about biology guide?
I never used it in first year, or second year. But when I took my program's lab course, they marked very thoroughly so I used the book to write better reports. If you are struggling in your lab reports then you may want to get the book. But asking the TA what they are looking for in a lab report should probably be your first step.
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Old 09-07-2012 at 10:32 PM   #12
anto
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This course was pretty straight forward and I liked Dr. Kajura's notes, but most topics were review from high school.
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Old 12-17-2012 at 09:36 PM   #13
naval23
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Oh, this course was great. It was actually not that content heavy if you compare it to Grade 12 bio. It is mainly Grade 12 Molecular Genetics + Biochemistry, with a little bit of Grade 11 Biology (Meiosis & Mitosis in a lot more detail). The only new topics were stuff about organelles, and the biotechnology parts. Dr. Kaijura is an amazing prof. I know some people don't like her telling you how to study, or how to adapt to university, but I found it nice that a professor actually cares. She's so warm and caring, it reminded me of some of my high school teachers. She's also a really good lecturer, her notes are great, they have all you need to know. She'll tell you to read the textbook, but you don't really need to. I loved her cancer lectures, and her personal stories like sitting in the waiting area in the Children's Hospital to get a perspective of other lives, she's a really great person. Then we had Dr. Zhu. I know the language barrier is there, but I liked her. She's extremely intelligent, her notes are very complete, and contrary to what people may think, she is good at explaining material. Some people are very rude in that class, walking off in the middle of her lecturing, and I felt kinda bad for her. Classes did get really small in her section. Her questions were very straightforward though.

For tests and exams, I just recommend studying your notes at least 3 days before. The questions are very straightforward.

The one drawback for this course was the labs. In the first day, Alastair will tell you have 3 skill labs to do which take about an hour each. The annoying part is signing up for them, because by 10am, all spots are filled, you have 2 weeks to complete them. Don't leave them to the end. And the labs are AWFUL. The documents are 15 pages each of just information, that you need to incorporate into your lab notebook. It's very time consuming when you have to handwrite everything in your notebook. Some of the labs are just so random, the procedures are not clear at all, and it's very poorly organized. Unlike in chemistry where you can watch the lab video beforehand as much as you want before the lab, in biology, they play it DURING the lab only once, where you have to watch it with your whole class. Most of the time, watching it once wasn't enough to get a clear feel of how to do the lab, and then you were lost for the whole lab. Even my chem lab TA was telling me how she didn't like how the labs were organized in biology, and I agree.

Overall, 90% of this course is review of Grade 12 Bio (mainly Genetics and Biochemistry). It's very easy to do well if you keep up with the material.
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Old 01-06-2013 at 05:20 PM   #14
waleed_23
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An overall informative course but it is highly dependent on your prof. Kajiura was awesome.
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Old 01-08-2013 at 02:00 PM   #15
Ask1611
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It's a good course so far!
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