One does not truly know what a vertebrate is…until they’ve taken BIOL 204. BIOL 204 is a 3-credit course that teaches the phylogenetic relationship between vertebrates as well as their physiologies from a comparative point of view.
FORMAT OF THE COURSE
There is a lecture and a lab component to the course. The lecture content was easy to understand, but there was a lot of information that we had to know. Thankfully, Stella was a really nice and approachable professor, and she always took the time to answer our questions.
The lab enhanced my understanding of the topics we covered in class by providing the opportunity to examine structures in more detail; we even got to dissect a pigeon, a rat, and a dogfish!
There were lab quizzes (in the style of group discussions) at the end of each session, and two lab exams, where we circulated the room and answered questions related to structures on display.
GPA 🙂 OR 🙁
BIOL 204 definitely requires you to put in the effort, especially when it comes to memorizing the evolution of traits, or knowing the characteristics of vertebrate phyla.
While the level of difficulty of the questions were fair, the teaching team was picky with the wording of answers, so they would dock marks if we didn’t mention specific details. But we still made it out fine with a class average of 76%!
Take a look at the grade distribution below from Winter 2018:
BIOL 204 Grade Distribution (Credits: ubcgrades.com)
VERDICT? TO TAKE OR NOT TO TAKE
If you want to learn about vertebrates and are good with memorization, I would recommend taking BIOL 204. This was one of my favourite courses, and if you choose to take it, I hope you’ll enjoy it too!