On an End-of-Semester Eval Spring '13

I've been wrapped up in mcat studying so I apologize for this incredibly late post!

This past semester I took IB 113L, IB 132, IB 132L, Soc 189, and IB 191

IB 113L- Paleobiological Perspectives on Ecology and Evolution taught by Professor Charles Marshall. This class was great, albeit very dense. The professor lectured through a packet of material each day (no need for books/readers) that he posted online the night before. Each packet contained around 50-60 slides and it was PACKED with material/charts/graphs/data/etc. I think this scared off a lot of students from taking this class because not only was there a lot of foreign/new material, but it was somewhat difficult to grasp as well. However, the professor did a great job of explaining the concepts and applying the concepts to real life examples. Like I mentioned in a previous post, Professor Marshall was one of the best professors I've had at Cal- he was extremely enthusiastic about teaching the material, and did a great job of bringing the concepts to the students' levels (a lot of the lectures were from his publications and his peers' publications, so you can imagine the level of detail and difficulty). But don't be scared if you want to take this class! His midterm + final tested the broad concepts, the overall idea of what the slides were talking about, and he was very approachable in OH so go to those right from the start! There's no need to memorize the small details, but make sure, if you take this class, that you understand the graphs/charts/data tables. This class also came with a 3hr lab - which was a rotation of stations and a packet of questions (worked in groups of 3-4), which, since no one knew how to answer anything, the GSI was in extremely high demand. I believe most people got close to 100% on the lab packets. On the other hand, I thought the lab practical was difficult (~15% of your grade I think...). If you've taken the bio 1AL lab practical before they changed it, that's what it was like- a rotation of stations and questions for each station that you had to answer in 1min 30sec... But other than that, I highly recommend taking this class!

IB 132- Physiology taught by Professors Lehman & Kaufer- typical physiology class with 2 midterms and 1 final. The professors didn't go too far from the lecture slides (compared to Marshall, who really explained his slides in detail instead of reading off them). I think the best way to study for these is to just read the book to get a better grasp on all the details, pathways, and how everything is connected. Also, there were some questions on the exams where knowing fine details was required so look through the lecture slides carefully. The exams were not too incredibly conceptual- I think they were more memorization/fact based- but these were for Lehman and Kaufer specifically.

IB 132L- Physiology Lab taught by various GSIs. I really enjoyed lab- my GSI was great and the experiments were interesting and fun to do. With that said however, be warned, this class is not that as easy as it seems to get an A in (or at least not to me and the other members in my group). We worked in groups of 4-5 and did questions separately to be turned in at the beginning of the next lab period. The work gets more and more lab report based as the semester goes on, whereas in the beginning, it's mostly answering a set of questions pertaining to the lab. In the end, we ended up writing 2 formal lab reports on 2 independent investigations + a presentation for each independent lab. All the work seemed to be graded pretty harshly, and not just for my GSI- I've talked with people from other labs and they agreed- the GSIs took off points for very small details/mistakes/wording error/etc. So that's the reason why I say it's hard to get an A in the class (it's not curved)- not because the lab itself is difficult, but because the GSIs are picky with their grading (especially for the lab reports!). Nonetheless, I'm a big fan of physiology, so I enjoyed the chance to see how it all applied outside the text. :)

Soc189- Global Elites taught by Professor Ivester- this was a great class- 2 midterms + 1 final. The professor gave us a set of questions beforehand (essay questions) where she picked one for the exam. This was the first time that Global Elites was taught at Cal, so I'm not sure if it'll be here again next year or not. But if you get a chance to take a class from Ivester, I highly recommend that you do- she's a fantastic teacher- very witty, funny, and laid back. There were a few times where she cancelled class because the weather was so great haha. There's iclickers for this class, but it's just based on attendance- more like opinion polls to foster discussion. The 3 exams were all weighted the same (20points each) and 40 points for attendance (iclickers), making up the 100 points for the class (no curve).

IB 191- Lab for a letter grade- for the final grade for 191, we had to do a "final project", which was anything you wanted to count for as a final project- I decided to do a powerpoint. Word of advice- don't procrastinate on this! I thought I had a lot of time to do a powerpoint so I put it off until about 3 weeks before it was due. I ran into a lot of problems, not only with trying to finish collecting data, but having my postdoc revise my powerpoint was a pain.. so start early!

I know I left out a lot of information still about these classes, but these were the most important points I thought to include! On a side note, I ended up getting all A's in these classes and got on the Dean's Honors List! (first time at Cal!- very proud! :)

If you have any questions about any of the classes or anything else in general, please don't hesitate to comment below!

Next blog post topics: mcat prep, 2015 mcat changes, plans for senior year~

Have a great summer!

-K