4th year Term 2 Review
BIOL 458 - Developmental Neurobiology class average = 79
This course deals with the brain development from the neuralation all the way up to neural degeneration & aging. Simply put, this course has both developmental biology and neuroscience aspects. Many topics are covered through out the term - the topics include, neurotrauma, behavioral development, congenital disorders, neural refinement, axon outgrowth, differentiation, migration and neural tube formation etc.
As you can expect from the list, many topics are covered and a lot of the materials are directly from the cutting edge papers making the course material dense with knowledge. Too much of the information are thrown at you and at some point you start worrying how you would study for all this information. However, Dr. Steeves will tell you what will be on the exam during his review session - everything that he mentions that day will be on the exam, no more, no less. So you just have to attend lectures, enjoy what he says about the slides, take home whatever you want from the lecture, but attend the review sessions(the lectures are quite interesting too!).
This course is 25% MT I 25% MT II and 50% essay. Instead of having the final exam, there is the essay that you have to write(10 pages double spaced). The final essay was really painful, but the average for the essay was actually pretty high(~80).
I learned a lot from both the lectures and writing a paper - I really enjoyed the developmental biology aspect of it. However, if you don't want to stress out before the due date, make a head start on your final essay!
FRST 302 - Forest Genetics class average = 81
It was interesting to learn how genetics is applied in the field of Forestry(to name a few, breeding, seed orchards, clonal forestry etc). However, it was quite difficult to comprehend everything without much forestry background. There is no final exam for this course (25% assignments, 75% quizzes that are non-cumulative). The non-cumulative nature of the quizzes makes it less stressful, and there are 5 of the quizzes and assignments (worst quiz mark dropped). Assignments can be a little tedious, but they aren't too difficult and only takes couple hours if you have a good genetics/biochem textbook with you.
Dr. El-Kassaby tries his best to give students informed lectures as well as good grades. I honestly think I would have enjoyed the class more if I had more forestry background, and maybe it's not a coincidence that most of the students there study forestry. I don't really have anything else to add, but a little bit of population genetics background may help you for the first two quizzes!
GERM 433 - German for Reading Knowledge class average = 85
This course goes hand in hand with GERM 100 - if you have taken GERM 100, you will find yourself at an advantage than others with no background. This course is about being able to translate a German Text with the aid of a dictionary. The course requires a textbook, but I didn't find it necessary as the professor teaches you all the necessary grammar in class anyways. Just focus on what the professor teaches you, and do all the sample exams as they are very similar to the actual ones. This course is probably the course that I put the least amount of effort in throughout my years at UBC - easiest A+ ever.
GERM 100 - Beginner's German I class average = 84
Elementary German for beginners. German wasn't easy to learn, but if you put daily effort in doing the online "my German lab," and daily homework, you will probably do well(It's similar to mastering physics in PHYS or sapling in CHEM 233). There are much more vocabs to memorize compared to CHIN 101, but they were a piece of cake compared to the amount of memorization that I had to do for anatomy or pharmacology courses. Also, there's no scaling down like Chinese courses, so if you put effort, you will definitely be rewarded.
ISCI 311 - The Size of Things class average = 86
I honestly don't know what to say. I took this course even though I'm not an ISCI major, hoping that this course would boost my GPA a little. However it turns out that taking this course was probably the biggest mistake I made this term. This was a pilot course where the instructors constantly revised the syllabus and confused students. Too diverse of topics were covered and studying for the final exam was a real pain. Moreoer, it's really hard to say for certain that I learned anything in depth during the lectures(just bunch of factoids), but it was kind of nice getting experience in doing all sorts of presentations now that I think about it. However, if you are not an ISCI major, don't take ISCI classes (don't be fooled by the class average!). The work load (amount of prereading, preparing for multiple presentations, assignments) was quite heavy, and compared to the amount of time spent, my mark wasn't as great.
This course deals with the brain development from the neuralation all the way up to neural degeneration & aging. Simply put, this course has both developmental biology and neuroscience aspects. Many topics are covered through out the term - the topics include, neurotrauma, behavioral development, congenital disorders, neural refinement, axon outgrowth, differentiation, migration and neural tube formation etc.
As you can expect from the list, many topics are covered and a lot of the materials are directly from the cutting edge papers making the course material dense with knowledge. Too much of the information are thrown at you and at some point you start worrying how you would study for all this information. However, Dr. Steeves will tell you what will be on the exam during his review session - everything that he mentions that day will be on the exam, no more, no less. So you just have to attend lectures, enjoy what he says about the slides, take home whatever you want from the lecture, but attend the review sessions(the lectures are quite interesting too!).
This course is 25% MT I 25% MT II and 50% essay. Instead of having the final exam, there is the essay that you have to write(10 pages double spaced). The final essay was really painful, but the average for the essay was actually pretty high(~80).
I learned a lot from both the lectures and writing a paper - I really enjoyed the developmental biology aspect of it. However, if you don't want to stress out before the due date, make a head start on your final essay!
FRST 302 - Forest Genetics class average = 81
It was interesting to learn how genetics is applied in the field of Forestry(to name a few, breeding, seed orchards, clonal forestry etc). However, it was quite difficult to comprehend everything without much forestry background. There is no final exam for this course (25% assignments, 75% quizzes that are non-cumulative). The non-cumulative nature of the quizzes makes it less stressful, and there are 5 of the quizzes and assignments (worst quiz mark dropped). Assignments can be a little tedious, but they aren't too difficult and only takes couple hours if you have a good genetics/biochem textbook with you.
Dr. El-Kassaby tries his best to give students informed lectures as well as good grades. I honestly think I would have enjoyed the class more if I had more forestry background, and maybe it's not a coincidence that most of the students there study forestry. I don't really have anything else to add, but a little bit of population genetics background may help you for the first two quizzes!
GERM 433 - German for Reading Knowledge class average = 85
This course goes hand in hand with GERM 100 - if you have taken GERM 100, you will find yourself at an advantage than others with no background. This course is about being able to translate a German Text with the aid of a dictionary. The course requires a textbook, but I didn't find it necessary as the professor teaches you all the necessary grammar in class anyways. Just focus on what the professor teaches you, and do all the sample exams as they are very similar to the actual ones. This course is probably the course that I put the least amount of effort in throughout my years at UBC - easiest A+ ever.
GERM 100 - Beginner's German I class average = 84
ISCI 311 - The Size of Things class average = 86
I honestly don't know what to say. I took this course even though I'm not an ISCI major, hoping that this course would boost my GPA a little. However it turns out that taking this course was probably the biggest mistake I made this term. This was a pilot course where the instructors constantly revised the syllabus and confused students. Too diverse of topics were covered and studying for the final exam was a real pain. Moreoer, it's really hard to say for certain that I learned anything in depth during the lectures(just bunch of factoids), but it was kind of nice getting experience in doing all sorts of presentations now that I think about it. However, if you are not an ISCI major, don't take ISCI classes (don't be fooled by the class average!). The work load (amount of prereading, preparing for multiple presentations, assignments) was quite heavy, and compared to the amount of time spent, my mark wasn't as great.
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