Monthly Archives: January 2015

BIOL 112: Biology of the Cell

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Dr. Karen Smith was easily the most approachable instructor I had all semester. She’s super passionate about her bacteria, absolutely hilarious (I’ll never forget the ‘cell bio’ rap she performed on the last day of class), and is apparently great during her office hours. I did, however, have a problem with her teaching style. Her explanations seemed roundabout and, combined with my 9 a.m. section, had me lost the majority of the time. The second half of the course was a whirlwind of definitions and trippy clicker questions for me and I think many others took issue with the way Dr. Smith introduced certain topics, particularly bacterial transcription. Her lecture slides were by far the most useful resource offered for the course. Her personality is worth showing up to class for alone, but the course is passable even if you nap every lecture (like me. Oops).

How Life Works (UBC custom edition) was a brand new textbook, never used prior to 2014W. Access to the ebook was included with the mandatory Launchpad access, so buying the physical book wasn’t actually necessary if you just bought the code. I found the actual book a lot easier to use than its online counterpart (you can’t read the ebook and complete the quizzes at the same time unless you struggle with Launchpad for a while), though, and I think most of us ended up buying it despite the alternative being made perfectly clear. You’ll also need an iClicker every class.

This course is basically a review of Biology 12 (in British Columbia). Most (but not all) of the material is covered in much greater depth than it was at my high school, however, with an emphasis on eukaryotic versus bacterial functions. Protein synthesis, DNA replication, cellular respiration and photosynthesis were all covered in pretty good detail, though the first two suffered big differences between the lecture material and textbook content — do not skip any of the protein synthesis lectures as exams are based on heavily activities completed in those classes.

There were two midterms and a final exam. The first midterm was worth 15% and the second 30% — had I actually known about this disparity I would’ve studied a lot harder for the second one. You’re allowed to bring in a cheat sheet to both midterms and the final, and I personally recommend putting as many labelled diagrams and flowcharts on it as possible, especially re:cellular respiration, photosynthesis and even transcription. I didn’t find any of the exams much harder than the others, but that’s not saying much, because I found all of the exams pretty darn hard. The multiple choice questions are designed to trick you, with many similar options and confusing combinations of phrases.

  • Do the prereadings — not just because they’ll help you understand lectures (they didn’t help me much, honestly) but because the participation marks are a major grade booster. Same with the in-class activities. They worked really well for some people; not me. Point is, they’re marked on the basis of effort alone and putting in that extra bit of work will make up for that one question on the midterm you really wished you’d picked C for instead of E.
  • Do the practice midterms. They’re long and time-consuming, but this course is known to recycle its exam questions (rumour has it the final never changes, but I wouldn’t bet on that one) and they really help you think critically about the material.
  • Know your terminology. Part of the reason the second half of this course was such a mess for me was because I’d never gotten familiar with the vocabulary in the first place. Explanations went right over my head because I wasn’t sure what a sigma factor was, and I realize now I would’ve learned stuff a lot quicker had I figured out the basics at the start.
  • Watch the videos. Every week, you download a targeted reading document that goes over the pre-lecture work. It often includes links to videos, animations and online activities. Use those. Seriously. At one point I decided I was too lazy to click into them but boy was that a mistake. Visualization is so key here. Bless whoever came up with the lac operon animation that literally saved my life.

Long post, but let me know if you have any questions about the course and I’ll try my best to answer!

004 | The Other Side

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Hi, hello. Yes, hi there. How’ve you been? You’ve gotten taller. Some tea? I got this awful mango passionfruit blend the other day in hopes it’d keep me awake through my first day of second semester and I feel like I owe this poor blog at least that courtesy. In my defence, the last three months have been one blank space after another — of both the Swift variety and the sort that materializes in poor student brains after too many missed lectures and incomplete WebWork assignments. Emergency dance parties and cramming sessions definitely outnumber the chemistry lectures I sat through awake.

I never thought I’d ever compare my academic life to a trainwreck, but there you go. First semester was a disaster. Nobody’s going to look at my transcript and call me a joke of a student, but I’ve never been so disappointed in myself. I know I could’ve done better — and that seemed to be the general sentiment around campus earlier today. I’m so determined not to fall short of my own expectations again, and I think (key word there) I might even surpass them if I try hard enough.

For the second time now my physics professor opened his first lecture by asking us all what our goals are, and for the second time now ‘medical school’ far eclipsed the other options. I remember ‘pharmacy’ being the second most popular choice last semester, seeing as I gave that answer myself — but I think my goals have changed, and today has been such an eye opener. I’ll be honest; first semester was like a slap in the face. Somehow calculate the collective volume of the sweat and tears that have run down my face since September 3rd (with integral calculus — thanks, Professor Doebelli) and it’ll probably come to the conclusion that I’ve cried enough damage to equate a literal slap. I realized what I’m good at (not chemistry), what I’m terrible at (chemistry) and what I no longer want to major in (biochemistry). I realized I’m capable of attending six hours worth of class on just two hours of sleep, but not two nights in a row and certainly not three.

I don’t mean to sound upset, because I’m not really, but first year has thus far done a great job of teaching me about my limits and how far I can push them for academia’s sake. It’s done a genuinely terrible job of teaching me about chemistry, but I’ll get to that. I’m jumping on the bandwagon with course reviews while my workload is still light — though I’m hoping I’ll be better at keeping up with this blog this semester than last.

To finish off, quick bullet points re:stuff I learned last semester that’s mostly irrelevant but oh-so life-changing:

  • Professors smile a lot during office hours. A lot. They genuinely want you to show up and  regardless of the usual demeanour will (generally) become the sweetest person alive upon your arrival.
  • Using the facilities prior to sitting down alone in a library will save you the hassle of struggling to find someone trustworthy to look after your stuff later.
  • It is possible to walk out of a physics lab halfway to buy a Blue Chip cookie across the street.
  • Buchanan D is the one with the fountain.
  • Strange stuff happens when you live directly above a parking lot — ie. someone may get arrested about four floors down from you and your open window will be the equivalent of a front row seat.
  • Pizza is never a bad idea. Seriously, order a medium pizza and eat it all by yourself over the course of a few days (or one day, if that’s your style). You’ll feel better for it. Trust me.

xx