A Biology Student, UBC

BIOL 301 - Biomathematics  class average = 81 The course covers mathematical models used in biological systems - you learn about Single variable models, multi-variable models (2x2 Matrix) and a little bit of probability models to account for stochasticity. I took it because I wanted to learn more math than 1st year calculus (and also has high class average!). At first I was intimidated because it had weekly assignments from pre-reading(usually one chapter a week) + programming (for Mathematica) + many students with much more MATH background than MATH 102/103. I was actually considering dropping the course, but it turned out that the professor covers much of the topic in class anyways and the assignments aren't too difficult either(you can always get help form the TA). Weekly labs are just for participation marks too. Moreover, you don't need much background in mathematics to do well in this course; in fact, I did pretty well even though I didn't remember much calc...

E-mail: Anonymous asked how to prepare for the EOSC 118 Final exam. I'll begin with how I prepared for the EOSC 118 final exam. Frankly speaking, I didn't prepare much, all I did was to read over the notes that I had taken over the term, and went over all the quiz questions. To tell you the truth, this wasn't enough.  (I couldn't give much time as I had BIOL 200 exam on the same day!) The exam was 100 MC questions - I answered 60 questions with confidence and guessed the rest of the 40 questions.  I think they scaled the final exam -  because I ended up with 90.  I guess  this is why Science students say EOSC 118 is a booster because in other words, if I could answer more questions, then my mark would have been way higher. (My friend actually got 100 so there you go)  I don't really remember what was on the exam, but what I can  advise you to do is to try to understand the diagrams and science behind the lectures.  There are only few lectu...

BIOL 336 - Fundamentals of Evolutionary Biology  class average = 75 The course material doesn't deviate much from what you learned in BIOL 121. Having studied Genetics, I was hoping to gain more knowledge on population genetics but contrary to my expectations, this course was barely quantitative. There are some topics that I found interesting, but like BIOL 121, the concepts are still broad and doesn't really have defined answers . However, I would recommend taking this course in the summer because they don't make you write what's called the "Short Opinion Papers" - which they make you do in the winter sessions(this means less work!). Textbook is required as you have pre reading quizzes. Midterm and final wasn't easy as they mark with scrutiny and look for key words(like Ecology Exams), but they were doable and the marks you get from tutorials + clickers + prereading quizzes compensate for the loss. Work load was manageable - I was working part-time,...

BIOL 260 - Fundamentals of Physiology  class average = 74 It was a good course. All I had to do were attend the lectures, understand all the concepts and the questions proposed in class. The instructors have passion in teaching and were very effective in demonstrating the course material. This course has 2 midterms and a final exam, but if you do better on the later exams, then they will omit the exams that you did poorly on - so you always have a chance to do better. I learned much about the introductory level understanding of ion transport mechanism and the action potential. The only bad thing about this course is that all the questions are written - my wrist would hurt after the first few questions :( BIOL 335 - Molecular Genetics   class average = 69 This course has two parts. The first half you learn about techniques and the later half you learn about developmental biology. The course is really interesting but it is really different from what you would expect from B...

BIOC 302 - General Biochemistry  class average = 71 This course deals with metabolism of Fat/lipids/ nucleic acids. Frankly speaking, I was reluctant to take this course. Apparently, this course was notorious for being one of the difficult courses offered at UBC. However, it turns out that I enjoyed it a lot. It is partly because other courses that I've been taking were not of my interest but also the whole metabolism pathway was pretty interesting and even applicable too! I think people who enjoye CHEM 233 (Organic Chemistry) or BIOL 201 (Intro Biochem) will love this course. It is true that the difficulty of the exams are quite high, but if you pace yourself well enough that you are able to solve the tutorial questions on your own beforehand, I think you are pretty much set. There is much stress due to how the mark is distributed (MT 50% + Final 50%), but you can always make up on the final exam! I've heard many people saying that the nucleic acid portion that Dr.Maurus is ...

CAPS 390 - Introduction to Microscopic Human Anatomy  class average = 80 I would highly recommend taking this course in the summer. Not only Dr.Alimohammadi tries his best to make the course interesting but the exams are pretty straightforward. You just have to write down everything he mentions during the lecture and memorize all the contents that are on the slides. If you put decent amount of time into studying, you will definitely be rewarded. Also this course helped me a lot in understanding the basic human physiology.

CHEM 205 - Physical Chemistry I personally don't like Physical Chemistry, especially the Thermodynamics part. At least for me, physical chemistry isn't as intuitive as other Chemistry courses. I really had difficult times trying to understand everything, but my tip is that you shouldn't. I wasted many hours reading textbooks and reading lecture notes, but honestly, if you are not a chem major, then knowing how to do the problem sets and quizzes will help you the most getting a decent mark. The midterm was easy, I think the avg was 87%. Final exam was a bit challenging, but I would say that the spectroscopy and kinetics part made the course more interesting towards the end. This course is divided into 3 portions - Thermodynamics, spectroscopy, and kinetics. CHEM 235 - Organic Chemistry Laboratory Because I struggled many hours in the first term with CHEM 211 labs, this lab was a joke. You learn about basic techniques like distillation, synthesis of organic chemicals,...