Shit, I’m sorry – I’ve been too busy studying to update my blog for 2 years.
What happened after my most recent post, you ask?
2015W
I ended up failing CHEM 111…ugh, Dr. Gates was an abysmal professor. It didn’t help that the material we were learning was quite difficult and required a lot of allotted time to master it. He went off on constant tangents and squeezed hybridization/Valence Bond Theory into 2-3 classes, which SUCKED because they comprised most of our undergrad Chemistry knowledge moving forward.
I passed MATH 110, a year-long course, with a 54 and I’ve never been SO thankful to get a D. Ever. On the other hand, I got an A- in BIOL 153 (another year-long course), which felt great since I love biology. I also took CLST 105 and PSYC 101 as my non-science electives. Got solid B+s on those.
2016W Term 1
I retook CHEM 111 and passed, thank god! I had above average in the course, too! I was extremely determined to pass this time around and compensated for Dr. Gates’ mediocre teaching by watching Khan Academy vids. Hard work pays off. Now I understand Chemistry way better, and – I can’t believe I’m saying this – I happen to like Chemistry.
SOCI 200 was my non-science elective for Term 1, and oh my god: I loved that class. A lot. I’m not even joking. Prof. Neil’s British sarcastic humour, personal anecdotes, and modern teaching style of half lecture slides, half old-fashioned talking every lecture RIVETED me. Considering that I adore studying socioculture and investigating all the societal issues/norms that exist throughout history up to the present, I enjoyed the course immensely. Neil did this thing where he let us create ‘Critical Writing’ pieces, which were personal accounts that interweaved what we learned in class with our own experiences.
Needless to say, I got A+’s on every single one of them, including the two in-class midterms and final paper. I walked out with an A- in the course. *sigh* I find myself missing Prof. Neil more and more; I’ll definitely enroll myself in sociology courses that have him as professor again.
LFS 100 and FRST 231 (my equivalent course for STAT 200) I took online. I got an A- in LFS 100, which was an introductory course to Land and Food Systems. I found the course quite interesting, yet it was a magnificent pain in the butt since there were so many online assignments that we had to complete alongside the weekly quizzes (based on lecture slides posted to Connect). On the plus side, I was able to visit the UBC Farm for a group project.
I have no words to describe how horrible FRST 231 Distance Education was. It was a supreme giant of disastrous proportions and a terrifying mistake on my part. I have nothing else to say about it, other than the fact that our five biweekly assignments (I took photos of them and sent them via email) were worth 8% each, that our TA was technically promoted to Instructor (note: our online professor was bad. His notes were also useless. I don’t remember his name, either), and that there were no campus office hours other than Skype appointments.
It didn’t help that our TA was absolutely incompetent at explaining concepts to us. She would “answer” our questions on the Connect discussion board by reiterating what we already did. Her feedback was vague, she sometimes sounded condescending, and the course material wasn’t necessarily hard. She’s the one who made it difficult. I’m a visual learner, and a good chunk of us asked her to post pictures/videos of her worked solutions. She refused. What kind of TA refuses to listen to student feedback in order to enhance our learning?
Well, I walked into the open-book final exam (a whopping 60% of our final grade) with an 89 and walked out with a 65. I was overwhelmingly underprepared for it; our TA never properly communicated what was on it. We lacked the resources to prepare ourselves for the exam despite it being open book, and as a result I studied my assignments instead. I’m still hella salty from the drastic drop in my grade ):< Got a C+ instead of an A+, and I totally bitched the course out during course evaluations. The stress traumatized me. I’m never taking a Math-based distance education course again.
2016W Term 2
I took BIOL 112, CHEM 123 and FMST 210 for Term 2, yet decided not to take MATH 103 after lengthy consultation with my awesome academic advisors. The reason was that I wanted to take things slow for Term 2 after Term 1’s FRST 231 incident. There’s other reasons i.e. mental stress, but I ultimately postponed Calc II in order to pursue a lighter course load and plan to take it for 2017W Term 2. I finished my last final exam on April 18th and passed all my courses. Good news: I’ve been promoted to 2nd year!
The gist…
FMST 210: taught by Maria Weatherby. I loved the course content. A bit similar to SOCI 200/PSYC 101, we learned how children develop throughout the years into adults, develop attachments, and sustain deeply interpersonal relationships with each other. Taught over different developmental stages, we got to study the socio-psychological (and biological) elements behind adolescence, childbirth, parenting, adulthood, intimacy, emotions, etc. My favourite topic was gender and sexuality. Did you know that transgender people are commonly misunderstood as “extreme homosexuals”? If not, please go educate yourself on the blatant differences.
There were no papers or assignments, which saved me SO much time. Dr. Weatherby emailed you lecture templates/research studies: Word documents that you were expected to fill in during class. She also annotated any extra information we needed to know for exams. To be honest, I barely cracked open the textbook and studied solely off her lecture templates/research studies. She told you DIRECTLY what you were required to go over, with no exam surprises. I did very well on the final exam (as well as the previous two, except the first exam…Dr. Weatherby is PICKY when it comes to short answer questions, so be as concise as you can). There were four major exams in total (each one based on designated lecture templates/research studies) and overall I earned a B+ or 78. I was 2 percent away from an A-!
The one thing I didn’t like about Dr. Weatherby was her prudishness. She tried too hard to make jokes regarding her mephew, and, when students would approach her for help, she came off as condescending and judgemental instead of encouraging. ((Perhaps that’s why she isn’t married yet #roasted))
I had two more excellent professors in BIOL 112 and CHEM 123!
BIOL 112: Took BIOL 112 with Dr. Marcia Graves, and the Biology fanatic in me rejoiced at her unique way of teaching. She would unload these weekly textbook readings, Launchpad quizzes (worth 9%), group activities [which coerced you into socializing], i-Clicker questions [participation marks], and helpful supplementary material i.e. animations onto us, which I found were super effective in enriching our knowledge for the course. Piazza was also invaluable: asking questions/discussing answers (especially during exam time) boosted my motivations and quite readily improved my mark. Tip 1: USE PIAZZA. If you want to pass the course, USE PIAZZA. If you’re stuck (trust me, the entire Cellular Respiration/Photosynthesis Unit will throw you for a damn loop no matter how Biology-proficient you are [like me]), USE PIAZZA.
Some students protested that Dr. Graves’ teaching style was ‘Kindergartener/High Schooler’ fresh, but I honestly didn’t mind it one bit. She exhibited this wholesome ease that made us strive to perform strong despite the difficulty of the course material. *Note: Dr. Graves loves Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, and Queen. She’s a self-professed classic rock fan. 10/10 in my book.
Anyway, you read right — BIOL 112’s curriculum seems to be standard at first glance. You’re probably thinking “dude, Grade 12 shit! Easy-peasy. I can just copy off my friend and get like an 89”. To spare you pain, I tell you now that all this “Grade 12 shit” tricks you. It’s beyond the scope of high school complexity. The course forces you to think about DNA, the cell, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, genes, etc. all in the CONTEXT of each other. BIOL 112 is one gigantic map. You must connect every concept in order to do well. Tip 2: master each concept before moving onto the next one. The material snowballs as you go. You’re allowed to create cheat sheets for each exam, but don’t let their policy fool you – pure memorization does not an A make. Understanding is passing. I used to be your stereotypical A+ Honours student in high school AP Biology, and I got a B *laughs*
Plus, BIOL 112 is a fucking ocean, man. There were, what, 350-400 students times 2 sections? Amounts to 700-800 BIOL 112 students! (UBC’s biggest classes are often Chemistry, Math, Biology, and Physics). I made a great friend though. She’s baller, and we met the first time Dr. Graves asked us to ‘Discuss i-Clicker Answers with a Partner’. Since we were both averse to talking to strangers every single class during this part of lecture, we decided to stick together the whole semester. She became my Study/ ‘Omg-What-The-Fuck-Is-This-Help-Me’/’How-Are-Classes-So-Far?’/’Dude-Same’ Buddy for both CHEM 123 and BIOL 112. Now we plan to take the same BIOL 200 and CHEM 233 classes next year. Tip 3: find at least one friend in a class and stick with them. They’re a treasure.
Alright, it’s June 5th — summer time — and I’m too lazy to extend this already long post even further, so I’ll wrap it up with:
CHEM 123: Finished with a C+ overall (a percent higher than what I got in CHEM 111) (Received an A- for CHEM 123 Laboratory, though…I love labs). Sigh, I was four points away from my first ever B- in Chemistry, but the final exam was worth 50% as well. I was prepared, but I guess the final exam’s format was so different from previous years and caught me off guard.
Bless Dr. Sammis. Take a class with him if you can. It’s the best choice you will ever make. I passed the course solely because I had him as professor. In my opinion Physical Chemistry (majorly math calculations e.g. Steady State Approximation) is tougher than Organic Chemistry (majorly structures, rules, and drawings; 2% calculations e.g. what percentage of an 80% optically pure chemical mixture [delta-G naught of mixture: 1.89 kJ/mol; S-Carvone: 5.6%] is made up of R-Carvone?), however O-Chem gets bad as soon as you hit the Stereochemistry unit.
Tip 4: For courses like Chemistry, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Do all the problem sets, Organic Workbook questions, practice exam questions — anything you can get your hands on until you’re breathing and seeing Chemistry. I spent the MOST time out of my Term 2 schedule studying CHEM 123 topics, practicing how to name compounds, and drawing cyclohexane chairs/Newman Projections/SN1 & SN2 reactions etc. (~80 hours total! Holy fuck). Seriously. Chemistry is HARD – it’s no walk in the park – but appealingly challenging and interesting *wow, I never imagined that a former Chemistry hater such as myself would say this*. To pass Chemistry, you have to practice.