I took this course during the winter of 2012. I really enjoyed it.

The professor for the course was Dr. Pincivero. I think that the class had mixed feelings about him. One one hand, he was a very engaging and interesting lecturer. On the other hand, he tends to go off topic...

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Originally Posted by celtics_fan

No, I'm pretty sure if you email them, they will allow you to take the course even if you're not in life sci.. quite a few people in honours bio were in the class this year

Are you sure about this? I asked to take this course last summer and was denied :(. Maybe three times just didn't cut it.

Who do we e-mail if we want permission to enrol in the course?

Try the life sci department :O. As I've said, I tried emailing them a few times last year, but they didn't allow me to take the course.

From the course calendar:
Prerequisite(s):
Registration in Level II or above of a Life Sciences Program. Priority will be given to students in an Honours Life Sciences program.
So I'm not sure how biology students were able to get into the course.

Anyway...
I took this in the Fall of 2012 with Dr. Westman, she's a great prof! A great lecturer and very approachable. I found the course to be very interesting and I liked that it's applicable to every day life.

We had participation marks (5%), 2 midterms (25%, 30%) and a final exam (40%), there was also an optional assignment where you recorded your diet for 3 days and then analyzed it and made suggestions on things you could change to improve your diet based on the material learned in class.

I didn't do the assignment because it seemed tedious and I did well enough on the midterms that I felt I didn't need the marks. The optional assignment was worth 15% and would lower both midterms and the exam by 5%. Dr. Westman was very lenient with the assignment and allowed us to choose whether or not we wanted it included in our grade after we received our marks, we just had to let her know before the final exam.

The participation marks were based on questions asked on avenue. After every lecture, Dr. Westman would post a question relating to the material we learned that day, and since its just a participation mark, you would get the mark even if you answered the question wrong. You can miss a couple and still get the full 5%.

The midterms were a combination of multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer - they were both written in class. The exam was all multiple choice.

There is a textbook, but it really isn't necessary. It's more of a resource you can use if you didn't understand the material in lecture, but everything if very straightforward and Dr. Westman would always stay after class to answer questions.

Most of the material is very easy. I would say it gets a little more difficult near the end because you learn about a lot of different vitamins and minerals, so there's more material to know. However, it was still much easier in comparison to other science courses, and it was very enjoyable. The lectures were also podcasted, which was nice. I got an 11 in the course with not much effort (studied a day before the midterm). I highly recommend this course!

Does anyone know where the podcasts are being uploaded? With the new layout on Avenue, I've been having trouble finding certain things. Is there a section by itself where the podcasts are, or is there just a separate website for them?

Will the powerpoints be posted on avenue? I just find that his notes don't really go along with the lecture recording.

Is there a podcast for the class on Sep 11th (wednesday)? I missed that class and it seems to have skipped straight to the 12th.

For anyone who had Pincivero, do you remember if the second midterm had any diagram labeling on it? Or was it all MC?

Second midterm will have diagram labelling

Did he mention what the cutoff was for midterm 2? Was it up to the end of carbs or does it also go into lipids?

I took this course with Dr. P and he was an amazing lecturer! His lectures are podcasted so it is completely fine to miss a class or two. His tests were very easy and if you took really good notes during lectures then it is very easy to get over 90 on his tests. His tests consist of mainly multiple choice question and 1-2 short answer questions. The short answer questions usually involve drawing graphs and fill in the blanks. There are also biweekly quizzes for this course and they were tricky, but still doable. Overall, this is an amazing class, i would definitely take it if you're looking for an easy and interesting elective!

What were the quizzes like? i.e structure, type of questions, online? Thanks in advance

They were online, ranging from 6-10 questions or so and I'm pretty sure they were all multiple choice. The first few quizzes we got 2 or 3 tries but the questions were the same on each try. People then complained that having multiple tries with the same questions was stupid so he only gave us one try on the remainder of the quizzes. They were very easy though and all the answers came directly from his notes.

Dear students who may consider this course in the future:

I took this course with Dr. Pincivero also and I have no idea what happened. This course is no longer anything close to what is described above. It is absolutely and by no means easy. I guarantee no one left this course with the grade they wanted. Dr. P himself seemed resistant to contact and myself as well as many others were never responded to. Instead of just podcasting the normal way, Dr.P uses his laptop which seems unreliable because some parts of lectures are missed and sometimes they aren't posted at all, in other words don't rely on the podcast. Also note that there is almost zero correlation between test content and lecture content. Something he mentioned for literally 10 seconds or less, he gave us as a 7 mark short answer question on. The quizzes were pretty much the only thing that was done okay.

The bottom line: if you're considering taking this as a grade booster, a bird or whatever, don't. This is no longer a "bird" course. Our class got especially slapped on the short answer sections of his tests which were nothing short of ridiculous. The average on the first was in the 50s, the average on the second was in the low 40s...... does this sound like a bird?

Originally Posted by lilrush

Dear students who may consider this course in the future:

I took this course with Dr. Pincivero also and I have no idea what happened. This course is no longer anything close to what is described above. It is absolutely and by no means easy. I guarantee no one left this course with the grade they wanted. Dr. P himself seemed resistant to contact and myself as well as many others were never responded to. Instead of just podcasting the normal way, Dr.P uses his laptop which seems unreliable because some parts of lectures are missed and sometimes they aren't posted at all, in other words don't rely on the podcast. Also note that there is almost zero correlation between test content and lecture content. Something he mentioned for literally 10 seconds or less, he gave us as a 7 mark short answer question on. The quizzes were pretty much the only thing that was done okay.

The bottom line: if you're considering taking this as a grade booster, a bird or whatever, don't. This is no longer a "bird" course. Our class got especially slapped on the short answer sections of his tests which were nothing short of ridiculous. The average on the first was in the 50s, the average on the second was in the low 40s...... does this sound like a bird?

That sucks, because last year, Dr. P's class was not cumulative in the exam, while Dr. Westman's was. However, short answer average for Dr. Westman's class was like 80+