Tag Archives: Courses

BIOL 340: Introductory Cell Biology Laboratory (Review)

Endless reports and hours in the lab; the bane of all Biology major’s existence: BIOL 340. As its name suggests, BIOL 340 is an intense lab that teaches different cell biology techniques, from fluorescence microscopy to SDS-PAGE.

format of the course

BIOL 340 is a 3 hour weekly lab course with a separate 1 hour lecture portion. However don’t be fooled, often most of the class were unable to finish on time and labs ended up being on average 4-4.5 hours long. Since each lab featured a new lab technique, pre-readings were very dense. There were also in-class pre-reading quizzes, so memorizing every little detail was crucial (imagine spending hours reading about the different steps in SDS-PAGE, but then being asked what SDS stands for…).

These labs were usually done in a group of four of five (random partners), and I was lucky to be in a good group. Each group was given a different mutant yeast strain to practice on using the lab technique of the week. In the later parts of the course, we had to run an independent study on this same yeast strain, which was by far the most stressful portion of the course. Continue reading

PCTH 325: Rational Basis of Drug Therapy (Review)

Ever wanted to learn about drugs, but in a stress-free course? Well PCTH 325 is the course for you! PCTH 325 is a pharmacology course at UBC, targeted towards life science students. The goal of this course is to inform students about the common drugs used to treat illnesses in different body systems, as well as give a glimpse into how new drugs make it to the market.

Format of the course

I found the format of this course to be more unique than your average science course. There is no single lecturer in this course, instead, there is a new lecturer every two or three lectures. The backgrounds of these lecturers are incredibly expansive, ranging from an anesthesiologist to a statistician, who are all experts in their portions of the lectures! I came out of this course feeling more informed and appreciative of the pharmacology field. Continue reading