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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 165
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| Author review |
| Overall Rating | | 10 |
| Professor Rating | | 9 |
| Interest | | 10 |
| Easiness | | 9 |
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Average 95%
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Gerontology 2B03
Overview:
Gerontology 2B03 is a course that talks about what happens to us as we age. It includes Theories of aging, aging at a cellular level as well as a physical lever, a basic explaination of how each system works (cardiovascular, skin, bones, joints) and their normal and abnormal age related change.
Course Breakdown :
2 Midterms -- Each 20% (For a 40% Total)
1 Paper -- 15%
Final Exam -- 45%
The Professor:
In 08/09 Dr. Duxbury taught this course. She is a biology professor at the University of Waterloo. Overall, she is a nice person. She ends the classes 30 mins early, and has a 20 minute break in the middle (of this evening class). On the other hand, sometimes during lecture, she asks questions that if you had the lecture notes and looked down you'd see what she wants you to answer -- but it seemed a little lame to answer so no one would. She'd then make this face that made us seem really stupid. She does however like to give a lot of hints during lecture, as well as cover the material at a good pace.
The Textbook:
The textbook that is supposedly required is BIOLOGY OF HUMAN AGING by Alexander P. Spence, Prentice Hall, 1999. However, she explicitly mentions during the first class that it's not mandatory to have the book. She doesn't test anything out of the book, only her own lecture notes, so the only real purpose of the book is if you needed extra clarification, however most of the time her notes are more detailed than the book. If you ever need to just make a reference to the book, or are feeling lost, she puts a few copies on reserve at Mills.
Midterms:
There are 2 midterms, both of the are all written answer. She mentioned in class that she has given you a certain amount of detail in her slides and during lecture, and that during the midterms she expects that you give her back the same amount of detail, however she doesn't want you to memorize her slides and will take marks off if you should just like her slides. She 's quite serious and it's at times difficult to get full marks if you forget small details. Dr. Duxbury marks the midterms herself so it takes a few weeks before you actually get your marks, you don't get your midterm back though, you have to go in and see a TA to see your midterm. You also can't get it re-graded.
The First Midterm -- It basically covered EVERYTHING that was covered in the classes up to the midterm. You had no choice on any questions except for definitions where you chose 3/7. Overall it wasn't too hard but you really had to know details to get full marks. The class average was 75%.
The Second Midterm -- It covered from the first midterm on... It was a little more difficult because you had to relate everything back to aging, however she cut some slack and marked a little easier (I feel) as well as gave us not only a choice on definitions (3/6 this time) but also a choice on short answers (2/8) as well as 2 bonus questions! The class average for this one was 77.5%
Assignment:
There is 1 written assignemnt what was quite enjoyable. Basically you had to think of 1 bad habit that you have and describe how it will impact your aging process, and what you can do to fix it. Dr. Duxbury is more than willing on giving you advice on what you should talk about in your paper as well as helping you decide whether you have a good topic or not. 5% of your final mark is allocated to a 1/2 page synoposis that you are to submit. As long as you cover everything it asks for, you will get full marks (or close to full marks). Make sure you pick up your synopsis during class because you will need it when handing in your final copy, as well as the synopsis has really important information/corrections/suggestions on how to improve your paper. The assignement itself is worth 10% and once you have the synopsis written it's not that hard to write. It's 4 pages in length at most. Many people did really well on the assignment.
The Final Exam:
The final exam is in the exact same format as the midterm. You get a choice of definitions, and on top of that you get a choice of 1 "long answer" question that is worth quite a bit. You have 3 hours for the exam... and many people finished in 2-2.5 hours. It's double the length of a midterm though. Dr. Duxbury wants you to do well in the course, so she gives you a LOT of hints on what iwll be on the exam, she even provides you with the pictures that you will be tested on (not the questions... but you can deduce what the questions will be from the pictures). On top of that on the "Exam Information Sheet" she gives examples of thins that *MAY* (and do) come up on the exam. If you do better on your exam than on 1 midterm, then she will take your lower midterm and make it worth 10% instead of 20% and add that extra 10% onto your exam.
Overall:
Gerontology 2B03 was one of my favourite courses at McMaster. There are a lot of real world applications you learn and you can help protect yourself from increased aging rate. It isn't very difficult to get a double digit grade in this course.
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