Honours degree or not?

Honours degree or not?

The requirements for Honours differ by major, for official information please refer to the UBC Academic Calendar (http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/Vancouver/index.cfm?tree=12,215,410,404).

What is an Honours (MICB) degree? 

Essentially it is a way for the university to acknowledge your focus in your specialization and relatively good academic standing during your degree. The blue requirements are the same across Science Faculty, but the exact requirements vary slightly per department. 

• Take at least 30 credits each year except for your last year and/or if you are on co-op
• Maintain a minimum 68% overall average every year
• Requires 132 credits to graduate compared to the 120 credits for Majors
• Take additional courses required for Honours (for MICB, this includes additional MICB courses of your choice including one seminar + MICB 430 + MICB 449)
• Complete a graduating Honours thesis (MICB 449). See http://microinquiry.blogspot.ca/2016/04/micb-448449.html for details.

For more details about MICB Honours, https://www.microbiology.ubc.ca/undergraduate/specializations/mbimhonours.

What recognition do I get if I do a Major (or Honours), but get really high grades?

When you graduate, if you achieve 85.0% average of 30 credits (varies on major, but typically a select list of 3rd/ 4th year required courses) and graduate with good standing, your degree will include a "with Distinction" designation. 

What are the benefits / advantages of doing an Honours degree?

• If you are planning on taking primarily courses in your department, you might as well get acknowledged for it.
• The opportunity to do a self-directed research project is a great experience. I highly recommend people to consider doing either a thesis or a directed study for Majors. 
• Some universities only allow those that graduate from Honours programs do direct-entry into a PhD program. However, some universities also allow students to enter a Master's program and transition into a PhD program after one year.

What are the challenges / disadvantages of doing an Honours degree?

• You need to take more courses (which will make your entire degree cost more) and unless you plan it carefully (ie. take more than 30 credits a year) or have AP/IB credits beforehand, it might take you more than 4 years of course work. 
• You MUST take a full course load every year except your last year. 30 credits per academic session (September - April) while is do-able, it is something to consider.
• Less flexibility when choosing courses since there are more required courses. If you are considering a minor, this will make it more difficult so plan very carefully. 

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MICB 401

MICB 401 (with Dr. Wade Bingle)

• Course Taken: Tuesday 12:30-2pm lecture, Wednesday 1-5pm lab
• Format: A typical lab course where you follow the directions in the lab manual. Make sure you have half an hour to go into the lab the day before and after your lab period to set up bacteria cultures/ wrap up an experiment (or have a really good friend). This course mainly puts what we learnt in MICB 201 into practice.
• Grading Scheme: 20% hand-in various projects in lab (ie. slants, plates), 30% written assignments/ calculations, 35-40% final exam (during exam period), 10-15% lab performance

• Textbook: MICB 401 Lab Manual (available in September, ~$20)
• Class Average: 81%
• Personal Experience: This is not a difficult course, but it does get confusing since you are juggling 4-5 different projects at the same time. The most difficult part is the final exam since you are expected to remember what you learnt in MICB 201 and apply it to the experiments we did. For example, for this type of media we used to grow bacteria, what could be the TEA/energy source/ C source etc. At the beginning of the course, you will also be asked to buy a lemon sole fish to cultivate luminous bacteria. The fish is relatively expensive ($15/fish), so it is advisable to buy the fish in groups 2-4. For the most part, the lab typically does not take 4 hours to finish. Most people tend to leave after 2 hours except for one lab day when you are extracting DNA via phenol chlorofoam. Compared to the other MICB labs, this is probably the easiest in terms of work load especially compared to MICB 447/421. 

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MICB 448/449

MICB 448/449 (Directed Studies/ Honours Thesis)

Course Taken: September 2015 - April 2016
Class Average for MICB 449: 95% (Note: there were only 5 students taking the course)
Format: Self-directed project (10 - 15 hours per week) that takes place in your supervisor's lab for one or two terms. At the end of the project, you are expected to write a 10-15 page thesis and present on your project. There is no difference between Directed Studies and Honours Thesis except perhaps the length of the "course". 

Requirements: 

• Contact eligible faculty members and discuss the possibilities of working in the lab of that faculty member. When there is a mutual agreement between the faculty member and the student then the student reports that agreement to the program coordinator and registers for the course

• Submit a written outline of the proposed research project to the supervisor and the course coordinator.

• Submit a written progress report to the supervisor and the course coordinator. 

• Finish lab work and submit a research article that analyses the project and the results to the supervisor and the course coordinator. 

• Defend the project and the report in a formal oral exam attended by the faculty supervisor and another faculty member.

Personal Experience/ Advice: If you want to work with a faculty member not in MICB, you will need to ask a MICB faculty member to be your co-supervisor. You may also need to justify how your project fits with microbiology & immunology. When choosing a project and a question, it is safer to choose an open-ended question rather than a "yes or no" question in case your project does not go as planned. A lot of students begin working in their prospective lab the summer before their official directed studies/ thesis starts to learn the techniques used in the lab, so that they can start their project right away in September. The biggest challenge with undertaking a self-directed project is staying motivated or at least motivated enough to optimize the assays required for your experiments. Remember to celebrate the small victories and ask other lab members for help!!

Grading Rubric: 

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MICB 406

MICB 406 (with Dr. Francois Jean, Dr. Marc Horwitz)

• Course Taken: T/Th 11-12:30pm (January 2016 - April 2016)
• Format: Dr. Jean lectures half the term, then Dr. Horwitz lectures the end. The goal of this course is to write a paper about viruses in the style of PLoS Pathogens PEARLS (http://collections.plos.org/s/pearls) for each professor. For Dr. Jean, the theme was "emerging and re-emerging viruses" while Dr. Horwitz did not have a theme. Dr. Jean's section asks students to present their proposed topic, but Dr. Horwtiz will lecture on a general topic (ie. vaccines) and ask students in groups to prepare short 10 minute presentations on a specific aspect of that topic (ie. subunit vaccines).
• Grading Scheme: Dr. Jean's section (5% abstract, 15% presentation, 5% participation, 25% paper), Dr. Horwitz's section (5% abstract, 5% outline, 25% paper, 15% participation)

• Textbook: none
• Class Average: 89%
• Personal Experience: This course may seem a lot of work at the beginning as you narrow down a topic, but it gets easier once you establish 4-5 questions you will address in your paper. The difficulty of the course depends on how hard you want to try and what topic you choose to write about (ie. papers about HIV will typically be easier given the amount of literature already published compared to Zika virus in 2016). Overall, if you do not mind writing two papers (1500 words and 3000 words) over the course of the entire term, this course is quite relaxed. MICB 406 is primarily a course that encourages self-learning. If you are not interested in learning about viruses by reading papers, you should probably consider MICB 407 (term 1) which has more lectures and focuses on clinical implications of virus infections. 

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