This is just a general quesion. I want to know how second year of univeristy is.
how are the lectures
are the profs/TAs more strict with marking
do all tests consist of essay and short answer format
level of difficulty (some say it's harder as you go up but others say it's easier)

btw I'm in sciences. any genral information will help thank you

What program are you going into?

For Life sci:

Courses get more difficult if you take things like orgo, genetics, more math, and even cell bio courses and so forth.

Bird courses become more bird IMO, especially in comparison to the regular more difficult courses. So if you balance your schedule out it should be similar to first year.

Some people might find it harder, a lot find it easier due to the fact that they've finished "adjusting". I personally found the material harder but my marks went up a bit (mainly due to luck).

It really depends on the courses your planning to take..

I found 2nd year ECE pretty easy...

im going to life sci and my courses mostly consist of bio courses like cell biology and a few ecology related courses. I don't have any math, chem, orgo. also, what would you consider to be bird courses for 2nd yr?

Originally Posted by luna

im going to life sci and my courses mostly consist of bio courses like cell biology and a few ecology related courses. I don't have any math, chem, orgo. also, what would you consider to be bird courses for 2nd yr?

Maybe list all of your courses and how they're divided up per term? Second year can vary a LOT especially since there's much more freedom when picking courses.

these are the courses I took:

Term 1: History 2T03,Biology 2F03,Biology 2D03,Life Sci 2D03,Religious Studies 2G03

Term 2: Life Sci 2A03, Biology 2B03, Environment Sci 1A03, Origins 2LU3, English 2F03

i have a lot bio related courses but that's cause i find bio really interesting.

Term 1: History 2T03,Biology 2F03,Biology 2D03,Life Sci 2D03,Religious Studies 2G03

Bio 2D03: Very easy, more focused than Bio 1A03. I found this to be the easiest course that I have ever taken at Mac yet. Its simple to the point and you get a shit load of Bonus marks. I loved it.

Life Sci 2D03: Very easy, a bit boring when it comes to how many times the course talks about Natural Selection. Its really the theme of the course. So it might get redundant. but honestly, its a good course.

Biology 2F03: I heard its ok, but i heard that the prof focusses on the guest lectures. But I d k.

I dont know anything about the other courses.


Term 2: Life Sci 2A03, Biology 2B03, Environment Sci 1A03, Origins 2LU3, English 2F03

Life Sci 2A03: I will be taking it in september 2011, I heard its a really interesting course about cell differentiation and research. Some people said its a useless waste of money considering the patheticness of the topics. I am not sure thats what I heard but its a no exam course so yeah!

Biology 2B03: My favourite course in my undergrad so far, very smooth, very interesting, very logical and requires critical thinking yet its simple and not overwhelming. I love it.

Enviro Sci 1A03: Most boring course ever, its easy but meh so boring and very stupid. Dr. Luc is very hard to understand. His french accent is kind of irritating. So yeah. Labs are ok but they can be a bit annoying. Overall I was not impressed with this supposedly to be "bird" course.

I dont know anything about the other courses.

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To be honest, second year is easier than first year in sense that you will be able to focus on things, meaning that each course is more focused rather than a foundation. Like you have a full course on plant biology or full course on cell biology, so you have the ability to focus ur thinking on each topic and link them together making it easier for you to study. I loved second year more than first year, since I was able to link the courses old topics with the new topics, it made more sense to me than studying a random topic each week in first year.

However, second year can be more challenging when it comes to the level of difficulty of the topics, the required courses that can fcuk you up so hard (a.k.a organic chemistry) things like that. However, organic chemistry was my second favorite course since I loved the challenge, I studied daily and I felt challenged all the time, I felt like its a battle that I had to win

So yeah its very doable and you will honestly love it more than first year. I hated my first year. it was just very unchallenging, boring and very random, different topics each week which had nothing to do with each other.

Anywho sorry for the novel up there, Good luck

Originally Posted by luna

im going to life sci and my courses mostly consist of bio courses like cell biology and a few ecology related courses. I don't have any math, chem, orgo. also, what would you consider to be bird courses for 2nd yr?

If you don't have Orgo you're laughing you're way through the whole year. That class is a killer of time, hopes & dreams.

Overall, 2nd year really isn't *that* different. Like L'Etoile said, all your classes become more narrowed in focus. It definitely will help you realize what kind of material you truly like or dislike. As far as tutorials and labs and TA's go, there isn't much difference. IMO the quality of all tutorials and labs are always dependent on luck -- just how good a TA will you get? There are good TA's and bad TA's in every year.

For me, personally, I learned the value of time spent *outside* of class. Many people will tell you to attend *all* your classes (you're paying for them aren't you?), but in all honesty, in some cases it can be beneficial to skip classes where you find the pacing too slow, or if you need to dedicate your time to something else (lab reports, etc.) I think I skipped too many classes last year, but going in to 3rd year I think I have a good read on being able to determine how to use my time wisely.

Generally it gets easier because the difficulty only increases slightly while most students have matured a lot after making the 1st year transition. 3rd year is tougher because difficulty increases more than in 2nd year, and 4th year tends to be quite easy if you did things right the first 3 years

Originally Posted by L'Étoile

Term 1: History 2T03

How did you find this class? I took the second part and thought it was brutal. Iss 2TT3 equally as difficult at 2T03?

Originally Posted by lizziepizzie

How did you find this class? I took the second part and thought it was brutal. Iss 2TT3 equally as difficult at 2T03?

No I said I did not take History 2T03: I just stated what the OP said.

env sci 1a03 is also easy

I actually forgot that I took Enviro Sci 1A03 .... so I just updated the thing up there. This is how much I hated that course. ugh.