[dreus]

I majored in biochemistry and this was the first (and only) health sciences course that I took during my undergrad.

The course (during the fall 2007 semester) was taught by four professors, each offering a slightly different approach to their teaching and injecting their own style into the curriculum. Personally, I found having an alternating set of professors to be quite refreshing. A few of my classmates, however, felt that this upset the 'flow' of the material. Although they were not mandatory, the tutorials were helpful and the TAs were good at reiterating concepts and clarifying doubts. Moreover, Podcasts were available subsequent to each class - definitely worth listening again to segments where I zoned out or couldn't keep up with the writing.

Over the course of the semester, students are introduced to the concepts of innate immunity, adaptive immunity, how these two are interdependent and function together. There is definitely a lot of rote memorization although the emphasis is on the 'big picture'. To do well in the course, it is essential to understand the concepts and have a decent grasp on the specifics.

The grading scale is as follows: 10% tutorial, 2 midterms and a final. If I recall correctly, the midterms were 20% each and the final was worth 50%. The tutorial assignments were graded on a pass/fail basis and a complete rating on all three assignments is equivalent to a full 10% on the tutorial component.

If you've ever been curious in questions like:
1) How do allergies come about?
2) Why are auto-immune disorders so devastating?
3) What are memory B cells and T helper cells?

Then this course is definitely worth your time and enrollment.

[naimaa]

Hi
I'm enrolled in this course but having second thoughts.
Is it possible to get 10/11/12 in this course?
So if you work hard and do all the work is it manageable?
btw I'm a 3rd year life science student
Thanks

[emtee10]

Originally Posted by naimaa

Hi
I'm enrolled in this course but having second thoughts.
Is it possible to get 10/11/12 in this course?
So if you work hard and do all the work is it manageable?
btw I'm a 3rd year life science student
Thanks

If you make an effort to keep up with the course material, the course is very manageable, and it is definitely possible to get a high grade.

[Cory]

I really want to get into this course but it is full :(

[Fight0]

Originally Posted by Cory

I really want to get into this course but it is full :(

Join the club.

[Tanya_33]

does anyone know about virology 3k03??

[dds j]

3k03 is as easy as immuno if not easier

[ladyh]

Probably the best course I have taken at McMaster. I am in Biology, but this course was open to non-FHS students.

This year, there were two midterms, two assignments that were marked for completion, a PBL group project, and a take home exam.

Midterms
The midterms were extremely, extremely, extremely fair. In fact, I would say that they were the fairest midterms I have ever written at McMaster. Basically, as long as you studied well and knew your stuff, you could easily get over a 90% on the midterms. The questions were very straightforward, in my opinion. They didn't throw any evil/unfair tricks, like they sometimes do on biology midterms. As long as you studied, you could do extremely well.

Assignments
They were marked on completion. If you got a "complete", you got 100%, and if you got "incomplete" you got a 0. As long as you put in the effort, you'll easily get 100%, and they are very useful since it helps you to learn the material before the midterm. Although it's easy to get 100%, I think it's still important to utilize the assignments, take them seriously, and apply what you have learned on them, to practice using the concepts before the midterm.

PBL Group Project
We were assigned into groups, and assigned a topic for the project (my project was about influenza, H1N1 vaccines, what happens to your immune system when you get influenza, etc. .. almost all the topic were very interesting). I guess how people found this aspect varies on their group. I was left with a very small group (just 3 of us) but we all worked together well so I enjoyed my experience, whereas others had a terrible experience. One person made a presentation to the class and two TAs (and possibly the professor) and the other members are responsible for answering questions posed by the TAs. The hardest part was definitely answering the questions, which depending on the TA, could be really hard to answer. A lot of people struggled with this. Luckily, the TA I had asked my group fairly simple questions (we were able to answer them by applying what we had learned about the topic), but it could have been worse .. we were lucky. It is important to know ALL the material for the project inside out, since you could be asked anything. Make sure you know the lecture material well as well, since the questions they ask often link lecture material to the project. The group shares a mark for the presentation and you also get an individual mark for your ability to answer questions. In addition, there is a peer evaluation aspect from the rest of your group members.

Take home exam
It was pretty tough, and although I thought I did fairly well, I ended up with a slightly lower grade than I was expecting. The average was fairly low for it, apparently, and a lot of people who usually get 90s in everything got 40s .. so definitely take the exam seriously and start it EARLY! Out of everything, this definitely brought my mark down.

Interest
This course was so interesting! It was so interesting that I want to do my 4th year thesis in an immunology lab, and I want to take the 4th year immunology courses. I think everybody should take it! It's amazing how complex our immune systems are, and how complex the result is when we are infected by pathogens. There is a fair bit of memorization involved though (like memorization of cytokines, chemokines, etc.).

Professors
I had Dr. Ashkar, Dr. Kaushic, and Dr. McCoy. Dr. Rosenthal did a guest lecture. Ashkar was kind of hard to understand but he was still a good lecturer, he just expected us to memorize a lot. Kaushic is a great lecturer, though she is very intimidating to ask for help from, even if it is just over learnlink. She made me feel like an idiot a few times. Dr. McCoy was also a fantastic lecturer though I'm not sure if she'll still be teaching the course next year.

Textbook
SUPER useful for the assignments and the final exam. It's paperback (phew) and very clearly written.

Overall Easiness
As long as you go to lecture, keep up with the material, take the assignments seriously (don't just aim to get a quick 100%, actually think about what you're doing and do the assignment yourself), and take your PBL project seriously, you can easily get an 11 or 12 in the course. It's not a bird course, but it is a VERY FAIR course where as long as you put in the work, you will get a good mark. It is included in the biology course list so if you are in bio I definitely recommend taking it. In my opinion, it is FAR more interesting and far easier than a lot of the other 3rd year bio/biochem courses on that list.

[saeeds5]

I took this course last semester. There were different 3-4 different profs that taught the course. One of them, Dr. Kaushic was pretty bad. The other profs were relatively better. Also, it was apparent that they made the take home harder because the averages were really high and on average most of the students dropped around by 18-20% after the final. Dont ever take this course or any other course taught by Dr. Kaushic.

[SciMania]

Originally Posted by saeeds5

I took this course last semester. There were different 3-4 different profs that taught the course. One of them, Dr. Kaushic was pretty bad. The other profs were relatively better. Also, it was apparent that they made the take home harder because the averages were really high and on average most of the students dropped around by 18-20% after the final. Dont ever take this course or any other course taught by Dr. Kaushic.

the take home exam was complete and total bull...

their marking was so f*ed up, and when i tried to contact dr. kaushic i got the most absurdly RUDE response

UGH, i despise this course.....and more so dr kaushic

you have to love how in the beginning they say last year >50% of people got 10 or higher...so what, this year they decide to screw with us just for the hell of it?

i agree, do not take this course, if there is one TOTAL and complete and unfair exam, it's this one

[saeeds5]

Originally Posted by SciMania

the take home exam was complete and total bull...

their marking was so f*ed up, and when i tried to contact dr. kaushic i got the most absurdly RUDE response

UGH, i despise this course.....and more so dr kaushic

you have to love how in the beginning they say last year >50% of people got 10 or higher...so what, this year they decide to screw with us just for the hell of it?

i agree, do not take this course, if there is one TOTAL and complete and unfair exam, it's this one

Word SciMania.....WORD
So many people tried to contact Dr. Kaushic and most them got extremely negative response regarding the final exam. She was HORRIBLE beyond my imagination.

[SciMania]

Originally Posted by saeeds5

Word SciMania.....WORD
So many people tried to contact Dr. Kaushic and most them got extremely negative response regarding the final exam. She was HORRIBLE beyond my imagination.

ughh what pisses me off is i was less than 1% away from the next grade level and i didnt get bumped....IF THEY WERENT SO DAMNNNNNN UNFAIR with the marking....

[iki_31]

If I am in honours life science, who do I email to be enrolled in this course, since it is a health science course, I need to have permission??

[jhan523]

Originally Posted by iki_31

If I am in honours life science, who do I email to be enrolled in this course, since it is a health science course, I need to have permission??

I'm not quite sure what the requirements are right now since the undergraduate calendar is down. If there is a requirement that you do not meet, such as enrolment in Health Sciences (But you should note that not all health science courses are limited to health science students), then you will have to e-mail the department of health sciences explaining your situation, why you want to take the course and ask for a waiver.

[SciMania]

unless things have changed, you do not need to be in health sci to take this course.