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Life Science 3F03

 
Life Science 3F03
......... get ready
Published by unman69
12-16-2014
Published by
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 22

Author review
Overall Rating
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2
Professor Rating
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1
Interest
60%60%60%
6
Easiness
30%30%30%
3
Average 30%
Life Science 3F03

So I am graduating life science this year so I want to post my reviews of courses I took to give a heads up for people thinking of taking them.

This course was hard. I took this course alongside orgo and physiology and I would rate that this course probably required more work then both. The prof, chow fraser gets a lot of heat for playing favorites, and in all honesty she does play favorites. She takes pictures of your face in the beginning to probably help her mark you when. But thats an assumption. She also seems unapproachable at times and acts condescending towards the students. The assignments are BRUTAL. They involve using statistical methods to figure out an answer to a rather broad question. They require LOTS of work. I had to start them a week and a half in advance and I would usually end up still lost towards the end... if it wasnt for the TAs then this course would be impossible.

Now theres two options that this course can take

A) Students dont take it seriously and do the assignments a day before and do poorly. or they just plain cheat. Chow fraser gives them a D or fails them on the assignment, students get mad and the whole cycle repeats. If you end up in this category dont expect to see above a 6.

B) You realize that your in your 3rd/4th year of university and thats its useless to try and "stick it to the man". You proceed to do the work necessary and start assignments early, you come to class, you don't argue and you don't cheat. You stay on the good size of the proff and you find that ONE idea that each assignment was looknig for. Youll get 10+. (by find that idea I mean find one of the TAs during their office hours and you ask them for the answer lol )


I ended up in high double digits basically b/c i knew that theres no point of arguing with the proff and stayed on her good side.

OVERALL : stay away if your looking for an elective. This course should not be taken unless you are willing to put in work and kiss lots of @s$$
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Old 12-17-2014 at 01:44 PM   #2
tigercatfan
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I am not saying this to be difficult but your post needs some clarification. Are you saying that this 3rd-year required course requires you to put effort into it making it a 'bad' course? Why aren't people more upset with the ridiculous courses that require no effort?
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Old 12-17-2014 at 10:33 PM   #3
pdel21
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I'm with you tigercatfan!
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Old 12-18-2014 at 04:44 PM   #4
unman69
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tigercatfan View Post
I am not saying this to be difficult but your post needs some clarification. Are you saying that this 3rd-year required course requires you to put effort into it making it a 'bad' course? Why aren't people more upset with the ridiculous courses that require no effort?
I encourage you to read what I posted again. All the answers are in the post. not really sure what your confused about? But I will spell it out so it won't be "difficult" for you.

1. Bad prof
2. Impossible assignments
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Old 01-08-2015 at 02:25 AM   #5
AnimeGamer31
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Life Science 3F03 Review
Professor Rating: Chow-Fraser is tough. The first day started off with "You learn to drive by driving, not by reading about it". From the get-go, she establishes that this course is a lot of group work and hands-on learning. As mentioned by the reviewer, this course is difficult. However, it is one of the few courses I have ever taken that has been seriously taught as a science course. We were as close to "real" research as possible. We were given real data collected locally such as Georgian Bay, Spooky Hollow, and Sulphur Creek. We had to choose what to focus on from the huge mass of data and to think about what questions to ask and how to answer those. Dr. Chow-Fraser is harsh and I think she does try to do so in the interest of her students but sometimes, her attempts may come out harsher than she intended to. I just wanted to put this out there because she does have a bad reputation as a prof sometimes but she is also very busy. She researches, teaches class, is the Life Sci Director and she also organizes volunteer run organizations. I think she is one of the few profs who goes out of her way to really teach science as a practice and that is a mission in itself. She takes our photos to try and remember our names in the case we ask her for a recommendation letter, she gives us a lot of feedback on our work, and she organizes a lot of assignments, projects, and field trips. The TAs she works with also go above and beyond because they really try mentor us and listen to our questions. The whole point is that it's not a walk in the park to pull off a course NOT based solely on midterms/exams. We had 5 assignments, 2 presentations, 1 take-home exam, 1 mandatory field trip, and she also scheduled about 3 other optional field trips for interested students. There was a trip to catch and take measurements from birds which is pretty cool in itself. The whole point is that I think students could give Chow-Fraser more credit for what she tries to do.

Interest: I initially had zero interest in ecology. When I got to work with macrophytes and saw crawfish for the first time in sulphur creek, I developed a strong appreciation for biodiversity. I do not intend to continue research in this area, but it was genuinely interesting to learn how to use QGIS program and to look at chironomidae under a microscope.

Easiness: I do not know how the previous reviewer took this course with orgo and physiology because this course required a lot of time and work. The assignments were vague and did not give a lot of direction which required a lot of time asking TAs for help. As mentioned, this course would have been impossible without the TAs. I seriously do not recommend this course if you are taking heavy courses such as orgo and if you are applying to professional school. It is difficult to predict the marks and could be more subjective in marking due to lack of midterms/exams. I'm not saying marks are everything, but for those that want high marks in the double digits, this course may be nerve-wrecking and I would suggest avoiding it unless you are interested in the course. I would recommend this course if you are serious about research. This course will give you a taste of what research in life sciences is like and it's rigorous in the way it is taught because you learn to use tools such as QGIS and the statistical analysis software JMP.

Overall Rating: I do not think this course is for everyone. I took this course because I liked the teaching style Chow-Fraser had and I liked presentations and group work. I also think that many students may be turned off by this course due to the lack of midterms/exams and that it is so demanding. There is no studying and it just requires you to problem solve and to inquire. This course is more application and experience-based than most courses. The plus side is that there are a lot of transferable skills that could be developed. You can use QGIS and JMP outside of this course for your own research or even outside of research. With this said, I thoroughly enjoyed this course even though I had a tough time in it.

Last edited by AnimeGamer31 : 01-08-2015 at 08:49 AM.

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