Category Archives: Course Reviews

Interested in learning a new language, or looking for a chill arts course to fulfill your arts requirement? Consider RUSS 101, a 3-credit course that teaches you the basics of the Russian language.

FORMAT OF THE COURSE

There were daily in-class quizzes, weekly online quizzes, homework questions, and a final. That may sound like a lot to do, but it’s not time-consuming. The quizzes and homework exercises were fairly short and simple to do.

Veta was an easy-going instructor and she created a learning environment that felt safe and non-judgemental, which really helps when students have to practice speaking out loud in a foreign language. For those of us who are more timid: don’t worry, there were no presentations. We simply practiced reading textbook phrases out loud/starting simple conversations with our peers.

GPA 🙂 OR 🙁

This course was a booster (A+), and it didn’t require a lot of effort – you would still need to review and familiarize yourself with the vocabulary and grammar, but it usually only took me 1-2 hours per week.

Check out the grade distribution below from Winter 2018:

VERDICT? TO TAKE OR NOT TO TAKE

If you want to learn a new language but also can’t afford to dedicate a chunk of time to it, I recommend taking RUSS 101. This course should be a breeze for you, especially if you’re good with languages, or have learned French.

For more information on this course, visit the course website.

If you’re interested in how life on Earth came to be, take BIOL336! Through this course you’ll be able to solidify your understanding of how evolution works.

FORMAT OF THE COURSE

There is a lecture and tutorial component to the course. Each lecture was filled with detail, and we were also asked to memorize phylogenetic trees for the exams.

Wayne and Jeannette were nice and approachable profs who always answered our questions. Wayne gave each lecture as if he was telling a story, which was enjoyable and entertaining.

During our weekly tutorials, we went over important concepts taught in lecture, and worked on in-class worksheets to be submitted for grading by the end of each tutorial. There were also pre-tutorial and post-tutorial assignments related to the assigned weekly literature.

All this practice with the literature prepared us for the SOP (short opinion paper) that was due at the end of the term.

GPA 🙂 OR 🙁

At first, BIOL336 felt daunting with all the tutorial assignments; however, as I got more used to the rhythm of the course, everything felt more doable.

I was worried that my tutorials, which were marked more harshly, would severely impact my final grade. Thankfully, the tutorial mark only counted for a portion of the final grade.

The lecture content was quite easy to follow, and the midterm was on the easier side while the final was trickier.

Take a look at the grade distribution below from Winter 2018:

VERDICT? TO TAKE OR NOT TO TAKE

I wouldn’t take this course as an elective as quite a bit of effort is needed for the tutorials. But even if BIOL 336 is a requirement for you (like it was for me), the content isn’t too difficult to grasp, so it is still a decent and manageable course!

Want exposure to all different types of chemistry and their associated lab techniques? If yes, this is the course for you! CHEM 315/335 are courses where you learn the laboratory fundamentals of inorganic, organic, physical, and analytical chemistry!

format of the course

CHEM 315/335 is a course where you have lots of freedom in that you can choose the types of labs you want to do. The lab is a weekly 4-hour block, however I usually found myself leaving on average at the 3 hour mark. The reason I’m discussing both 315 and 335 at the same time, is because these are the exact same courses, with 335 being the continuation of 315 (you still choose from the same set of experiments – just the ones you haven’t done yet).

how to choose your experiments

As I mentioned earlier, there is four types of chemistry experiments you can choose from. CHOOSE THEM WISELY!

My favorite type of experiments by far were the inorganic ones. The pre-lab quizzes were super easy (and worth 1/4 of your lab mark)! They took 5 minutes to complete and consisted of 5 multiple choice questions testing you on oxidation numbers and chemical disposal. The labs are interesting and the most stress-free. In fact, I managed to finish the inorganic labs 1.5-2 hours almost every time.

The organic chemistry labs were my second favorite. The pre-lab quizzes were long, but most of the concepts were stuff from second year organic chemistry (around 30 mins-1 hour of pre-lab prep was suffice). I found these labs to be more stressful, because you are expected to know almost everything that is going on upon reading the lab instructions. This isn’t entirely unfair, as CHEM 203/245 (prerequisites) were both organic labs – so you are expected to have the fundamentals down. I’ve never finished early for these labs.

The analytical chemistry labs weren’t hard, but they were INTENSELY stressful. The pre-lab quizzes were much harder than the organic and inorganic ones – I often spent 2-3 hours just trying to understand the lab instructions. Half of your laboratory mark hinges on the accuracy of your results, so there’s absolutely no room for error in terms of technique. Your results also will vary on the helpfulness of your TA, especially for the experiments where you’ve never operated the lab equipment before.

The physical chemistry labs were the WORST. The pre-lab quizzes were unnecessarily difficult, it took me many hours to prepare for those. The lab instructions felt like they were written in another language (telling us to self-learn difficult concepts with no prior exposure and then performing an experiment that applies these concepts is asking a bit too much). In my opinion, these labs need a do-over to make them more student-friendly for those that aren’t familiar with physical chemistry. Avoid these labs at all cost!

GPA 🙂 or 🙁

This course is more of a GPA equalizer. There’s a high average, but the standard deviation is tight and it’s only worth 1 credit. Your GPA in the course is also largely dependent on your experiment selection. General rule of thumb: Avoid labs with lab reports AND AVOID THE PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LABS (I would rather do a lab with a lab report than these). There’s also no final exam/midterms. Here’s the grade distribution from 2018 winter.

CHEM 335 grade distribution. Credits: ubcgrades.com

Verdict: To take or not to take

If you want to gain more lab skills, definitely take this course. It’s not very time consuming and will only take up 5-6 hours of your week 😀

This will probably be the first university chemistry course many of you will take! CHEM 121 is a first-year chemistry course that introduces the basics of chemical bonding theories.

format of the course

The course is very much similar to CHEM 123. There are canvas quizzes, midterms, and final exams. The teaching style of the lecturer will vary (mine used a chalkboard). Sometimes the concepts they teach are sort of abstract, this was one of the courses where I often sat in the lecture not knowing what was going on. However, the textbook for the course is really well designed and will simplify many of the difficult concepts presented in class

There is also a lab portion for this course (I’m a TA for this portion :D). This just consists of biweekly experiments, which is not that stressful. However, the 10 minute quiz at the start of each lab is an unnecessary pain in the butt.

gpa 🙂 or 🙁

This course will probably have a neutral effect on your GPA. It’s not extremely difficult. The exams consist of multiple choice and written answers, and as with most first-year science courses, the multiple choice will drop you a significant amount of percentage points with each wrong answer. If you follow the textbook very closely, you can do well! The average for my class was 71. Here is the distribution for winter 2018:

CHEM 121 grade distribution. Credits: ubcgrades.com

verdict? to take or not to take

If you’re into chemistry, I would take the course, as this is a prerequisite to many higher level chemistry courses. If not, I probably wouldn’t take this course.