I’m so excited for the courses that I’m taking next year~ I’ve started reading the calendar more thoroughly and it turns out that I need to take 6 credits of Arts electives? Darn it, I should’ve registered for JAPST 100, but I really like my schedule, and there’s only one seat left in the lecture, so… maybe I’ll take it in second year? But I will definitely take it in the future, I really wanna learn Japanese 🙂
Anyways, I wanted to sum up and describe my first term courses and here and write my initial thoughts on it, just to see how they’ll compare when I actually write about how the courses go when I take them from September to December. I’ll also talk about the professors and what I’ve heard from them (according to ratemyprof) So here we go!
BIOL 116: Biology for Science Majors I
Professor: Melanie Jones
First of a pair of courses that introduce students to the biological concepts necessary to continue into second-year biology. Covers evolutionary theory and its underlying genetic basis, basic cell biology, plant and animal nutrition, and energy acquisition.
I obviously shouldn’t judge a course just by its course description, but it seems like a lot of this is stuff that I learned in Biology 11, but most likely will be taught in large detail – this is university after all 😛 I’m not too excited about the Animal and Plant Biology (I was always more into Human Biology) but it doesn’t seem too bad. The professor had a low rating on ratemyprof (as most of my profs in Term 1 do), but I prefered the prof for this section better than the other one (Peer-to-peer studying? In first year university? No thanks, I’m not gonna waste my money). Reviews say that she’s somewhat a good teacher, but the miderms are apparently very hard.
CHEM 121: Atomic and Molecular Chemistry
Professor: Rob O’Brien
Stoichiometry, atomic and molecular structure, chemical periodicity, gases, liquids, solids, and solutions.
I was never really good at Chemistry (I would get a good mark if I actually worked for it) in terms of marks, but I always found it to be interesting. The description doesn’t give much detail, but I like stoichiometry equations! Who am I kidding, it’s gonna be harder oviously :S The professor didn’t have very high ratings on ratemyprof, but what reeled me in was the fact that people said he would be extremely helpful in office hours, but a good mark is something you need to work and push for in his class.
MATH 100: Differential Calculus with Applications to Physical Sciences and Engineering
Professor: Rebecca C. Tyson
Derivatives of elementary functions, limits. Covers applications and modelling: graphing and optimization.
OMG MATH. I don’t even know… let’s just say I’m not a Math person. But thank goodness I took Calculus 12 (and kept my notes too, in fact) since I actually recognize all of these things in the course description. Derivates? Limits? Bring it on! Now if I can actually do them, that’s a whole ‘nother story. But I think that taking Calculus 12 will really help me be somewhat ahead than those non-IB and non-AP students in the class, since I’ll have a general idea of the concepts when I go into the course. The professor didn’t get a very good rating either, apparently she’s not very good at explaning things. It’ll help me learn how to do the concepts on my own? (My attempt at thinking positive LOL)
PHYS 112: Introductory Physics I
Professor: Teresa Krystyna Wrzesniewski
Algebra-based physics introduction for life sciences students or others not planning careers in the physical sciences or engineering. Basic concepts of mechanics, fluids, waves, and modern physics. Particle kinematics and dynamics, work and energy, momentum, gravitation and satellite motion, simple harmonic motion and sound, fluid statics and dynamics, and topics in modern physics.
This is what I love the most about UBCO Physics courses – even though I didn’t take Physics 12, I’ll still only have to take two Physics courses rather than three, which means that I can actually take the nursing school prerequisite courses I need during the summer. To be honest, I have almost no idea about most of the concepts described. But the words basic concepts seem comforting. Physics and I have a love-hate relationship, but I’m not too worried. I have nothing from ratemyprof on the professor, so I’m guessing she’s a new professor? I hope she’s good…
And that concludes my post about my intial thoughts Term 1 Courses! I’m so excited for university! I’ve done absolutely nothing but apply for Student Loans, since there’s so many things to do, I’ve absolutely confused myself and I don’t know where to start. But I’ll get it done… maybe in August? Or not, I need to start organizing and packing soon 🙂