Second semester was about 10x better than first.  During the later part like early April, I got the flu!  And I had never had the flu before so when I was on my bed feeling like the world was on fire, I was really confused/scared/pissed.  Mostly pissed because I missed the Blog Squad Party, and because I couldn’t study for my IHHS final and catchup with Micb like I planned.  I ended up sleeping a lot before my final, doing most of the reading like 3 hours before the final, and managed to remember everything luckily.  But That was very annoying.  I am now done my finals though, all five of them 🙂  Reviews are below.

IHHS 200

Going in order of finals, and this was my first one, it was actually on the last day of school. And I had the flu still, so it wasn’t fun the night before.  Now I took this course to lighten the coursework.  It’s pretty much a small class, my class had 50 kids, and its more on the gpa bumping side when it comes to difficulty.  I took this class for a reason, but it also turned out to be very interesting.  We watched videos (which I love, cause if you know me I watch a lottt of tv, and things I watch stick).  A lot of the lectures seemed more conversational, like we really got to know the prof.  As for the structure, its midterm, paper, participation, and final.  Now you can replace the midterm with volunteering, so thats a free 25% and then participation, and he said he is lenient with the paper, and the final was straight forward mostly.  So there you go, I expect a 90+ and nothing less than 86, 80s im guessing i completely effed up something im unaware of.  I advise this class to someone who wants to go to an interesting class every other morning, and not worry about doing poorly.  Technically you have no obligation to write notes for the first half of the course if you dont plan on taking the midterm, since the final isn’t cumulative…yet the way some girls would violently write, knowing they werent doing the midterm shocked me.  Like really…? *sideeye* Anyways, great class, AMAZING prof, as I’ve stated before, and I’m hoping to do IHHS 300 next year, wish I could minor in it but not available at UBC.

Chem 205

Still shaking my head at this course, which I had the most time to prep for..sorta, but managed to just screw up.  I didn’t care about the course too much going in, because the final was 70%, so I’m like, my midterm means nothing, and the quizzes are 15% im set either way, just gotta go nuts with the final.  I ended up doing good on the midterm, and getting 95+ on quizzes, so I was going in solid.  I had a day in between microbio and chem, and I was majorly behind in MICB, so I spent a lot of time reading instead of doing chem, by the time I was doing chem, it was too last minute, and I know I need time to be efficient.  I finished the problem sets, and I slept 6 hours that night (big mistake, shoulda done an allnigter) and during that final, there were many uncertainties, when I know its the kind of class where your just like ok do x, get y, do z get whatever.  Like I was unsure of some steps, and I changed answers on a few things, so I just dont know how it went. Coulda went great, could have went horrible.  Thing I thought would be hard (Spectroscopy) turned out to be the easiest.  Probably the most ignored course this semester, wondering if my grade shows it.. 🙁

Micb 202

Favorite class this term.  Immunology was a great introduction into the course, the topics were actually interesting.  Sometimes I feel like I am mindlessly memorizing, but the topics of this course were too interesting to not reflect.  I felt very prepared for the midterm, and got the average, 78, which was disappointing, but also showed how smart the kids in Microbio are wow (most of the class is I can assume..microbiology students).  After reading week, I pretty much stopped my routine, there are a lot of factors that contributed to this, but before I know it, Micb readings piled up, luckily I read Bacterial Diseases, but I still wasn’t even halfway of Virology when finals started.  Regardless of me stressing and cramming, the material was great, the final was good, some sneaky tricks, but what else can you expect from UBC Science.  I ended up remembering things I did a long time ago(weeks-months) better than things I did 1 to 3 days before, I’ll make sure to keep this in mind for next year. Overall I think I did well.  Because I left Biology (best decision of my life) this course was what I pretty much chose.  I chose it over Micb 201, and I’m glad because Micb 201 seems like such a bore.  I think I disliked Bio program so much because it felt more like Animal Biology than Human, and of course the way exams are structured.  There are 3 different profs for this course to teach the 3 different sections.  Immunology was my favorite, Virology the easiest, and Bacterial Diseases the most straight forward but long.

Eosc 326

I took this course as part of the whole Combined Major scheme, and switched out of CPSC, probably ended up being a good decision.  There are 2 midterms, one 15%, and one 20%, two labs each 10%, and a final 45%.  I studied hard for the first midterm, did really well, slacked for the second and did not so great.  The class is online, so the midterms are open book, but timed.  And trust me, doesn’t matter if you have everything typed on a word doc and your fingers are glued to CTRL-F, it just doesn’t work out.  Luckily the labs are not timed, so its easier to do well.  The final isn’t open book, so this can be a huge jump if your used to the online midterms and labs being open book to suddenly being expected to memorize everything.  I pulled an allnighter for this final, well I slept 2 hours, survived on digestive crackers, coffee, and pepsi.  The final was a 7pm final, so I slept 5am-7am that night, and blazed on till 6:30pm and walked to the final.  It went well, it was 50% multiple choice, which I killed, I kind of like multiple choice I’m seeing that now, big change from high school. There was fill in the blank, and I know I got 8/10 on that, and the last part was just explaining some aspect of a nautolid shell…but one of the things I memorized, so I’m feeling good about this class, glad I switched in.

Bio 201

Last final I took!  You can imagine, I was ecstatic when I finished this, well not too ecstatic, I had a day to study between this final and Eosc, and had maybe 2 days before eosc.  Overall, I felt time was thin for this final, and I under-estimated how much time I would need (i always do this).  People pace when they are nervous, I write out a schedule, to almost assure myself, things can get done.  I think I gave myself 2 hours for each problem set, and somehow it dragged onto 4 hours, so at that point I knew, I’m not sleeping for this final (12pm).  I really liked Bingle, but ended up skipping a lot of the later classes because of at first just tiredness, but then when I got sick, I didn’t go.  I’m hoping I luckily still get all my clicker marks.  The final was better than I thought it’d be, I thought itd be some mindcrunching, confusing, tricky headache, but I was going really slow, managed to finish, and even understood the part I thought I wouldn’t.  So I’m excited to see my grade for this class as well, won’t be as high as I wanted I’m sure, but still higher than like 4/5 of my classes last semester…smh.

OVERALL:  Best semester yet, around a 20% jump from last semester to this semester is my guess.  Last Year it was a 6% jump between semesters, so I don’t know what it is with me and first semester.  It might be the weather, weather affects your mood, and the weather is very depressing first semester. Not sure, but I hope the good grades, continue I need to work hard the next 2-3 years to rejuvenate my average so I have a chance at med school.

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ALSOOOO some good news on the side, that I will elaborate on later –>  got a job for the summer and onward, at a hospital.  I will be part of the first ER Scribe program in Canada (and its limited in the States), if you want to know some of what they do google it  :).  I will be doing training first, and need to go read a Medical Terminology for Dummies book (cens 202 will definitely help) but I am so excited.  Having that firsthand experience and exposure is priceless!

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UBC First year student. :)

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