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. 

Read More

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: 

Read More

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. 

Read More

MICB 306

MICB 306 (with Dr. Danielle Krebs, Dr. Francois Jean)

• Course Taken: MWF 12-1pm (September 2015 - December 2015)
• Format: Dr. Krebs lectures half the term, then Dr. Jean lectures the end. Dr. Krebs' section primarily focuses on general life cycles of viruses using certain viruses as case studies. Dr. Jean talks specifically about three viruses (Hep C virus, Dengue virus, Ebola virus) and goes into depth about how they hijack the host and what treatments are available.  
• Grading Scheme: 2 Midterms (20%, 25%), Final (45%), Online quizzes (10%)

• Textbook: Virology: Principles and Applications (J. Carter and V. Saunders), 2nd edition
• Class Average: 81% 
• Personal Experience: A very straight forward course with a decent amount of memorization, but nothing outrageous. The weekly online quizzes are easy, and mainly try to keep the students caught up with the material. It is essentially an extension of what was covered in MICB 202. The midterms and final are also extremely fair. Great course if you are interested in viruses. While Dr. Krebs is not as strong lecturer as Dr. Kion, she is able to still communicate the material effectively. Dr. Jean is much more knowledgable about viruses; however, his notes are very difficult to follow. Most likely, you will need to make your own notes. This is a required pre-req for MICB 406/407 (virology seminar courses). 

Read More

MICB 430

MICB 430 (with Dr. Kronstad, Dr. Hallam, Dr. Jefferies)

• Course Taken: Thursday 1:30 - 5pm (rarely went to 5pm)
• Format: Each professor "taught" for 1/3 of the course. Students present every other week about an assigned primary literature article in partners. One student will present the paper while the second student will present the implications & critique the paper. Thus, each student will present twice for each professor--once as a reviewer, once as a critic.
• Grading Scheme: Unsure, but I assume each professor's section is worth 1/3 of the grade. 
• Textbook: none
• Class Average: 92%
• Personal Experience: This course may be a lot of work depending what papers you get assigned, and how comfortable you are at reading primary literature. Often the papers are out of your field, so you would need to read one review to understand the significance of the paper. If you want weekly journal club on various papers, and work on your presentation skills this course is for you. While it may be a bit of work every other week, the benefit is that there is no midterm or final and most students do extremely well in the course. The class size is about 10 students since typically only Honours students take the course. 

Answers to readers' questions: 

• Can non-honours people take it? Yes, non-honours people often take it. My year we had 12 people in the course, and only 5 people were honours. Talk to Dr. Kion to register.
• Do you recommend it for people not familiar with primary literature, can you become better at reading papers/ presentations? This is a great course to get better at reading papers since it just forces you to read way more than you would otherwise read. When I did the course, we had to present fortnightly; however, this may have changed since then. This course does not “teach” you how to read papers, but it does make you improve. You tend to present the papers with a partner, so you and your partner can bounce ideas/ struggle through the paper together. If you get really stuck, you can always go to the prof. They tend to be super helpful, and easily approachable. One thing to remember is when you present, only present the figures which depict the main point(s) of the paper and not every single figure.

Read More

MICB 402 and MICB 412

MICB 402 (with Dr. Kenneth Harder, Dr. Georgia Perona-Wright)

• Course Taken: T/Th 9:30am (September 2015 - December 2015)
• Format: Dr. Harder teaches the first half, Dr. PW teaches the second half. Dr. Harder will mainly focus on innate immunity and ask you to read 6 primary literature papers on the topic (except for one cancer immunology paper)
• Grading Scheme: Dr. Harder's Section (25% in-class midterm, 25% take home), Dr. PW's Section (35% take home, 25% final)

• Textbook: none
• Class Average: 76% 
• Personal Experience: Given the class size is quite large, MICB 402 tries to disguise itself like a seminar course; however, at the end of the day, it remains a traditional lecturing course. Dr. Harder's section primarily focuses on experimental design & techniques. Although he suggests to pre-read the papers prior to class, he ends up going over each paper pretty slowly each class. Depending on how many questions people ask in class, he might run out of time before the midterm and you will be expected to read & understand the remaining papers. If you are comfortable reading primary literature, this course is not overly difficult. For Dr. Harder's midterm + take home, write FAST! Both tests are very long (not overly difficult but tedious), so plan accordingly. This year is Dr. PW's first & last year teaching MICB 402 (she accepted a position in Scotland), and previously it was Dr. Jefferies teaching the latter portion of the course. For Dr. PW, she typically used Tuesday to go over the background/ significance of the paper and Thursday to go over the experiments. Rather than focusing on experimental design, she emphasized immunological concepts & details. The papers she chose were focused primarily on the adaptive immune system especially Th2 response to helminth infections/ co-infections. Again, majority of her papers were not overly difficult but demonstrated key themes in advanced immunology. Her exam + take home was much more reasonable in terms of length and difficulty.
• Note: Dr. Perona-Wright has accepted a faculty position back in Scotland and will not be teaching at UBC next year. :( 

Answers from readers' questions:

• Was tutorial mandatory? What is tutorial like? Tutorial was not mandatory for us in the sense that attendance was not taken. I think we were highly encouraged to go, but most of us did not. Tutorial was going over methodology used in the papers we talked about in the course, and how to interpret data. However, I think the course may have changed since I took it with Dr. Harder & Dr. Perona-Wright in 2015/2016.

MICB 412 (with Dr. Pauline Johnson, Dr. Kenneth Harder)

• Course Taken: T/Th 9:30am (January 2016 - April 2016)
• Format: Dr. Johnson teaches the first half, Dr. Harder teaches the second half. Dr. Johnson focuses on the balance between our microbiota and maintaining homeostasis. Dr. Harder will mainly focus on cancer immunology. This course is a seminar-based course which means students are assigned a topic and are required to present ~15 minutes, 10 minutes questions on that topic. 
• Grading Scheme: Dr. Johnson's Section (35% class presentation, 10% participation, 5% written report), Dr. Harder's Section (35% presentation, 10% participation, 5% written report)

• Textbook: none
• Class Average: 88%
• Personal Experience: This course used to be 18 - 20 students; however, this year the course had around 25 students. Given the time constraints, students will present one 15 - 20 minutes presentation for each professor + 10 minutes of questions. Dr. Johnson prefers presentations that focus on content (based on reviews) while Dr. Harder prefers presentations that thoroughly explain one or two primary papers' methods + results. Besides presenting, you are expected to participate during the rest of the classes by asking questions. Finally, near the end of each half, you are expected to write a ~3 page summary of the topic, synthesizing all the talks. 
• Advice: If you are uncomfortable with presenting, I highly suggest practicing beforehand to ensure your presentation falls within the time limit. In addition, if you are unsure what areas to focus on, you can ask the professor. 

Read More

MICB 447

MICB 447 (with Dr. Dave Oliver)

• Course Taken: Tuesday 8am, Tuesday Lab (September 2015 - December 2015) You end up going into the lab regardless of lab day though.
• Format: Working in groups of 3/4 for the entire term where you design and carry out an original research project. There are weekly lecture and team meeting. At the end of the course, you will publish a primarily research article in JEMI or if your paper is really good, JEMI+. 
• Grading Scheme: Multiple schemes depending which gives you higher grade (depends on primarily lab notebook, midterm, project proposal, lab report)

• Textbook: Optional Lab Book $10 (also posted online for free)
• Class Average: 86%
• Personal Experience: You learn a lot from this course from experimental design, lab techniques, to working in a team. Pick a group you work well with not necessarily your friends. Even the simplest project will often take triple the amount of time expected, so perhaps consider a less ambitious project. Do not trust any reagent you did not personally make yourself! Remember that this is a course, and mistakes will happen but that is how everyone learns. If possible, do not take directed studies with this lab course since this course will take A LOT of outside time. A rough estimate will be 16 hours per week for each team, and possibly more at the end of term. When deciding a project, it might be easier if your project did not ask a question where the experiment either worked or did not. 

Answers from readers' questions: 

• Choose a good group to work with. I think groups work best if people have different lab experiences and strengths (ie. organization skills, writing, experimental techniques, troubleshooting). Also, ensure that everyone has time to come into the lab outside of the course time.
• When you choose/ design a project, choose a project where at no point it hinges on a “yes/ no” answer. For example, what are the effects of caffeine vs does caffeine do this? Cause when it comes to writing up, it is easier to talk about the broader question than a yes/no question. If you can work on multiple parts of the project at the same time, it will save you time. For example, optimizing both protocol A and B at the same time before combining the two for your proper experiment. You can see the projects people did in previous years here: https://www.microbiology.ubc.ca/undergraduate/jemi
• Read as much as possible before you dive into your project. The more pre-planning you do, the less troubleshooting you’ll probably run into.  

Read More

MICB 322 & MICB 323

MICB 322 (with Jennifer Sibley)

• Course Taken: M 1pm, W Lab (September, 2014 - December, 2014)
• Format: The course is pretty relaxed, and Ms. Sibley is more concerned about everyone understanding concepts than getting "perfect" results. There are not a lot of lab reports except for the couple at the end. Be prepared to have to go in on one or two days after your lab day for simple things like moving your bacteria to the fridge, or counting colonies. 
• Grading Scheme:  Midterm, Lab Reports, Final
• Textbook: Lab Book from MISA (around $30)
• Class Average: 80%
• Personal Experience: The TAs and Ms. Sibley are great at making sure no one feels stressed. The final was surprisingly harder than expected, but other than that the course is quite low-stress. Labs typically do not take the entire 4 hour period especially if you work quickly. Make sure you have 30 min the day before and after your lab period to set up / finish your experiments (ie. inoculate bacteria, count colonies) or beg a friend. For MICB 322, the lab work is done in pairs (the person sitting next to you) and the lab reports are done alone. However, you share the data so you typically end up working together.

MICB 323 (with Ehleen Hinze)

• Course Taken: M 1pm, T Lab (January, 2015 - April, 2015)
• Format: The course involves lots of partner work especially for lab reports, so I suggest pick a partner beforehand to ensure you will be able to work well together. There is a weekly lecture beforehand with in-class assignment (for participation). Ms. Hinze is a bit pickier than Ms. Sibley, but overall the class is still relatively relaxed compared to the 1st and 2nd year CHEM labs. 
• Grading Scheme:  Midterm (10%), Lab Reports (43%), Lab Technique (5%), Data Quality (2%), Lab Book (3%), In-class participation (2%), Final (35%)
• Textbook: Lab Book from MISA (around $30)
• Class Average: 80%
• Personal Experience: Marking tends to be a bit inconsistent and it really depends on how nice your TA is. There are slightly different expectations between MICB 322 & MICB 323 especially in terms of figure captions. The final was also harder than expected, and the amount of work for lab reports is slightly greater than MICB 322. 

Read More

MICB 325

MICB 325 (with Dr. Thomas Beatty)

• Course Taken: MWF 10am (January, 2015 - April, 2015)
• Format: Flipped-classroom style where readings are posted beforehand and lectures are devoted to iClickers. The first half of the course is devoted to essentially understanding plasmid maps, cross-overs and blue-white screening. The second half of the course is a month and a half long case study on how one could determine the signalling pathway of a microbe (Cartenoid synthesis in R. capsulatus). Unfortunately, while the course content is extremely interesting, a lot of people did not feel prepared enough going into the exam because we only saw one case study and did not get a lot of practice. There is homework due twice a week online, but we did not get feedback even at the end of the course. 
• Grading Scheme:  35% Midterm, 50% Final (Note: if you miss the midterm even with an excuse, your final will be 85%), 2% Homework Participation, 7% Homework Accuracy, 6% iClicker Participation 90%+ and with up to 2% bonus if a certain percentage is correct
• Textbook: None
• Class Average: 78%
• Personal Experience: Overall, while the content is interesting I found the lecture style not conductive to learning. Dr. Beatty tends to get confused with his own iClicker questions or his questions are poorly worded, so in a 50 minute lecture you will only do about 4 questions. The way midterm marks are distributed was not ideal where 4 long-winded true and false questions were worth 40% of the midterm while a short answer was only worth 5%. However, this was fixed for our final despite the final being longer than expected. The final was difficult especially if students have not been exposed to cloning schemes before since most of the questions were "explain this unexpected result". 
• Advice: Practice problems are your friend especially the plasmid map questions. 

Read More

MICB 418

MICB 418 (with Dr. John Smit)

• Course Taken: T/Th 11am (January, 2015 - April, 2015)
• Format: Traditional lectures where he does not use slides or post notes, and he simply talks and students have to take notes. Dr. Smit does record all his lectures in case you miss a day or you missed a setence, and provide packages of all the diagrams he describes. Tutorials (optional) are used to review material and the TA is great. The exams are short answer, definitions, and T/F. People tend to find the T/F tricky because it is based on extremely detailed points, and if you get it wrong you get -1. Each T/F tends to be worth 3 points each. 
• Grading Scheme: Option 1 (Final-70%, Midterm 1-30%) or Option 2 (Final-50%, Midterm 1-25%, Midterm 2-25%) if you decide to hand in Midterm 2, your mark will count regardless if you did poorly or not
• Textbook: None
• Class Average: 73% 
• Personal Experience: Overall, I found this course very interesting, but it was also the most content dense course I have taken so far. The topics covered include classic biotechnology (beer, wine, bread making with sampling!) and modern biotechnology (antibiotics, drugs, antibody production, R&D methods, patent and clinical trial process). Be prepared to spend a lot of time with this material to do well. Dr. Smit is a great lecturer and he structures each of his lectures very well and simple to follow especially when you take notes. I would recommend taking this course, but only if you have time to study/ keep up with the material otherwise consider taking it as a Credit/D/Fail course. 
• Advice: Definitely an interesting course, but it is extremely content heavy and lots of memorizing. Do not take this course if you are looking for an easy elective. 

Read More

CPSC 301

CPSC 301 (with Dr. Ian Mitchell)

• Course Taken: T/Th 9:30am (January, 2015 - April, 2014)
• Format: Lectures are relatively slow-paced, and only goes through "tricky" aspects rather than teaching how to code. All his lecture slides are posted on his website. The course first uses Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) and then uses Python 3 + BioPython. Lectures typically are used to only clarify concepts and not teach, and Dr. Mitchell expects students to read the textbook to get the basic concepts. There are a lot of iClicker and in-class group worksheets for participation marks. The labs are done in pairs, and are the most helpful part of the course. Often it will take the entire lab section to finish the lab, and some people need to finish the "after-lab" section later. The lab worksheet + the programs you write will be due the next Wednesday online, and the TAs typically mark and return the labs 1.5-2 weeks later. The TAs are extremely helpful. 
• Website: https://sites.google.com/site/ubccpsc301winter2014/
• Grading Scheme: Midterm (20%), Final (40%), Lab Exam (Must pass to pass course, 0%), Labs (20%), Class Participation (10%), Best Score among midterm, final, labs (10%)
• Textbook: Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python 3 (Paul Gries, Jennifer Campbell, Jason Montojo)
• Class Average: 82% 
• Personal Experience: Overall, I found this course relatively easy and fulfilled its purpose of introducing students to basic programming. Scratch is very intuitive to use and is a good introduction to students who have never programmed before. The course uses Python 3 with Anaconda distribution (which already has many packages including BioPython and PIL). In the lab, the goal is to get the same output as the problem set. However, in the midterms & exams, it is expected that you understand what each step does and what the computer will end up remembering. The in-class worksheets are a good reflection on what to expect on exams. Dr. Mitchell can be difficult to understand when he lectures especially if you are not up to date on the readings. 
• Advice: If deciding between CPSC 110 and CPSC 301, it depends on how much more CPSC you want to do. CPSC 301 primarily focuses on Python which is extremely useful and immediately applicable to many research fields. The course is a great introduction to programming for students with a biology background. CPSC 110 uses Dr. Racket which can be a tedious program and not directly applicable to use outside CPSC courses; however, it teaches good programming habits. You will need CPSC 110 to take more advanced computer science courses. 

Read More

MICB 301 & MICB 302

MICB 301 (with Dr. William Mohn)

• Course Taken: MWF 10am (September, 2014 - December, 2014)
• Format: Lectures with topical readings + group assignments, and one bioinformatics project. He has a lot of iClicker questions throughout the term for participation marks (no answers posted). Dr. Mohn writes his own notes and the class uses them as the "textbook". Make sure you stay on top of the readings, otherwise the iClicker questions are completely meaningless. He allows for a lot of discussion in the class, and occasionally people ask relatively off-topic questions which is annoying. The readings can sometimes be quite long, and the topical readings + group assignments are relatively easy once you figure out what they are looking for. The exams (midterm, final) are cumulative and primarily memorization based. The bioinformatics assignment is essentially a walk-through guide in how to align various DNA sequences to determine what microbes are present from that sample, and the computation is very very simple. 
• Textbook: None 
• Class Average: 76%
• Personal Experience: Dr. Mohn's course is interesting because he tries to facilitate discussion. However, he is often quite vague on what he is looking for especially in the bioinformatics assignment where we had to write a 500-word "abstract". Make sure you memorize the course notes and answer tests with exactly the same wording. He does not hold regular office hours, so if you need help email him to book an appointment. 

• Advice: If you do not have to take this course for your degree, I do not recommend taking this course as an easy elective. 

MICB 302 (with Dr. Tracey Kion and Dr. Pauline Johnson)

• Course Taken: T/Th 9:30am (September, 2014 - December, 2014)
• Format: Typical lecture-style course with no homework, but lots of in-class iClickers. The course is split up into 2 sections. Dr. Kion covers the basic "facts" about B cells, T cells such as class-switching while Dr. Johnson emphasizes how various aspects of the immune system gets activated. The exams are typically short-answers and very memorization heavy despite there being case-studies. Often it is best to memorize the wording/ phrases from the professors' notes to ensure the TAs will mark it correct. There is quite a bit of content, and especially Dr. Johnson's section it can get a bit confusing. There are weekly tutorials, and the TAs are typically quite helpful with clarifying pathways.  
• Grading Scheme: Dr. Kion's Section (2 Midterms, 25% each), Dr. Johnson's Final 50%
• Textbook: The Immune System (Parham)
• Class Average: 77%
• Personal Experience: Dr. Kion as usual is extremely knowledgable and a great lecturer. Her notes cover exactly what you need to know, and the textbook is not needed if you understand her lectures. Dr. Johnson is definitely more experienced with research than lecturing, and her slides often reflect the vast amount of information in the field rather than what she expects students to know/ understand. Given the nature of her section where various pathways and how the immune system "talks" to each other, there is a lot of jumping around and it can get confusing. It is often helpful to go to tutorial and do the worksheet to ensure you keep on top of the course. 

• Advice: This is a very dense and intricate course if you are curious about the details of immunology. Drawing out pathways always help. Pre-reading may not be helpful, but reviewing afterwards definitely is. 

Read More

BIOC 302

BIOC 302 (with Dr. Justin Lee, Dr. Robert Maurus, Guest Lecturer: Dr. Adeleke Aguda)

• Course Taken: MWF 8am (January, 2015 - April, 2015)
• Format: Dr. Lee lectures about central metabolism (carbohydrates, amino acids) during the first half of the course, and Dr. Maurus lectures about DNA during the second half of the course. Dr. Lee posts extremely detailed notes while Dr. Maurus' only posts a basic set that needs to be annotated during the lecture. The midterm covers only Dr. Lee's material and the final only covers Dr. Maurus' material. There are tutorials each week that go through weekly problem sets (not for marks) which are helpful to ensure you are staying on track. 
• Grading Scheme: Midterm which is essentially a Final (50%), Non-cumulative Final (50%) 
• Textbook: Principals of Biochemistry 5E or 6E by Lehninger (not required, but most people still own this textbook from BIOL 201). Personally, I found the online notes/ Power Points sufficient to study from. 
• Class Average: 70% 
• Personal Experience: Overall, I found this course to be quite dense especially the first half, the second half is easier since it also covers experimental techniques  which is more conceptual based learning. If you are interested in learning about how various lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids, nucleotide bases are made and broken down then this course is for you. Dr. Lee is an amazing lecturer with a great sense of humour (perhaps slightly too happy for my 8am brain), he talks at a good speed with great enunciation. He takes great care to develop clear course notes that use analogies and acronyms to help students understand and remember. I would definitely recommend any course taught by Dr. Lee. Dr. Maurus is difficult to understand during lecture especially if you sit at the back of a large lecture hall. While his material is easier to grasp, his handwriting and less detailed notes make this half of the course equally challenging. The tutorials are well run by the TAs and the worksheets are helpful if you have been keeping up with the class. Good way to study for the midterm/ final is by doing the tutorial questions and drawing molecules/ pathways. Definitely recommend studying A LOT for this course. 

Read More

BIOL 300 & BIOL 301

BIOL 300 (with Dr. Michael Whitlock)

• Course Taken: T/Th 2pm (September, 2014 - December, 2014)
• Format: Lectures are relatively slow-paced, but extremely clear. All his lecture slides are posted on his website ahead of time. The labs focuses on learning how to use JMP (a statistics program, trial is free for UBC students) and these are "optional". While all students are suppose to do these labs, they do not have to attend the scheduled lab sessions. There are two specific lab sessions that you have to attend in order to collect the data for the end-of-term paper. The assignments are relatively straightforward and the paper is as well. 
• Website: http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~whitlock/bio300/ 
• Grading Scheme: Midterm (30%), Final (50%), Lab (10%), Assignments (10%) 
• Textbook: The Analysis of Biological Data (Whitlock and Schluter). It is well-written with random, interesting information. Assignment problems are assigned from the textbook, but students could use either first or second edition because he would post the corresponding textbook question number for each edition. 
• Class Average: 80% 
• Personal Experience: Overall, I found this course relatively easy and fulfilled its purpose of introducing students to basic statistics. While the course covered what each test assumes, it does not go into detail regarding why these assumptions are made/ the math behind the statistics. Dr. Whitlock is a great lecturer with a very dynamic presentation style. My only criticism is that he tends to repeat himself a lot and elaborate on points that are straight forward. Good way to study for the midterm/ final is by doing the practice exams he posts on his website since his exams are quite similar.

BIOL 301 (with Dr. Sally Otto)

• Course Taken: T/Th 8am (September, 2014 - December, 2014)
• Format: The class is quite small, so Dr. Otto is able to learn every student's name. All of her notes are posted on her website, but in-class she systematically goes through the examples on the board. In order to gauge the class's understanding, she enjoys to randomly ask students to explain the next step. However, if you are uncomfortable/ unsure, students can just pass. Assignments are relatively straightforward and are often slight variations of the examples she worked through in class. You are placed in groups, so you can also ask team members for help as well. The project is essentially to design a model to answer a biological question. It is extremely open ended, and most students keep it simple. Dr. Otto is very helpful during her office hours and email especially near the project deadline. The labs are dedicated to learning Mathematica. Unfortunately, the lab computers have an older version of Mathematica so the TA is not as familiar with it. However, after some trial and error, Mathematica became a useful tool during the project. Midterm and final are open-ended, pretty straightforward and consistent with the practice questions she posts. There is roughly 10% of the exam based on Mathematica material covered in lab.  
• Website: http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~bio301/
• Grading Scheme: Homework (25%), Lab Participation (10%), Midterm (20%), Project (10%), Final (35%)
• Textbook: A Biologist's Guide to Mathematical Modelling (Otto and Day). Extremely well written for an audience not well versed in calculus and linear algebra beyond high school. Even though all exams are open-book, you do not have to buy a hard copy of the book. If you have access to an e-book, Dr. Otto brings a couple textbooks during the exam for students to share. 
• Class Average: 81%
• Personal Experience: Dr. Otto has a unique knack of making math make biological sense. Her ability to justify each step and make analogies to explain her logical reasoning makes her one of the best professors I have encountered thus far. I thoroughly enjoyed this class especially the end project; however, I wish we had more time on non-linear systems. For students comfortable with basic calculus and linear algebra, I suggest looking into BIOL 560. 

Read More

MICB 201 & MICB 202

MICB 201 (with Dr. Wade Bingle)

• Course Taken: MWF 9am (January, 2014 - April, 2014)
• Format: Lectures with occasional written homework assignments which he hands out in lecture. He has a lot of iClicker questions throughout the term (around 50) for participation marks. The exams (midterm, final) are not cumulative but there is still a lot of material. Both finals are all multiple choice with the very annoying “1 answer above is correct, 2 answers above are correct, 3 answers above are correct, all above are correct, none are correct” answers occasionally. 
• Textbook: UBC Coursenotes (bought from Microbiology & Immunology Student Association), it is quite dense and hard to read. Often, previous editions can be used...ask the prof to be sure. 
• Class Average: 71%
• Personal Experience: Dr. Bingle's lectures are not as in-depth as what he expects in exams. Make sure you study from the course notes. He does not hold regular office hours, so if you need help email him to book an appointment. He posts his completed lecture slides before each lecture. I found the way he explained some concepts such as REDOX reactions more confusing than it actually should be. 

• Advice: If you do not have to take this course for your degree, I do not recommend taking this course as an elective. 

MICB 202 (with Dr. Georgia Perona-Wright for Immunology, Virology & Dr. Tracy Kion, Bacteria)

• Course Taken: MWF 9am (September, 2013 - December, 2013)
• Format: Typical lecture-style course with no homework. The course is split up into 3 sections. The midterm covers the Immunology part while the final covers the Bacteria and Virology part only. The exams are all multiple-choice (BUT be warned, it is not easy). There is quite a bit of content, but I found it extremely fascinating especially the immunology part. 
• Grading Scheme: Midterm (32%), Final (64%), Participation online (4%)
• Textbook: UBC Coursenotes. If possible, buy it second-hand unless the notes drastically change. Ask the prof if you are unsure.
• Class Average: 73%
• Personal Experience: Both Dr. Perona-Wright and Dr. Kion are extremely knowledgable. Seasoned lecturers, they are great at presenting the material. They both post their lecture notes and final copies of their lecture notes. Be warned, the lectures never cover everything you need to know. It is important to know the Coursenotes extremely well since the exams are all MC. Some people preferred getting a textbook too, but I found just studying from the Coursenotes worked just fine. If you have questions, the discussion boards are monitored by the TA and both profs hold weekly office hours. Some students found Dr. Perona-Wright's Scottish accent difficult to understand, but often the vocabulary is up on the lecture slides anyways. 

• Advice: This is a great course if you are curious about the basics of immunology, viruses, bacteria not necessarily just for MICB majors. For immunology, it does not go into too much detail but it gives a great overview of the entire immune system. For viruses and bacteria, we focused on a couple specific types such as HIV and Polio. 

Read More

CHEM 233 & CHEM 235

CHEM 233 (with Dr. Gregory Dake)

• Course Taken: MWF 10am (September, 2013 - December, 2013)
• Format: Class time was used to complete worksheets and students were suppose to watch the online lectures on Connect before each class and do the corresponding reading quiz which had ~5 questions. The online lectures ranged from 15 minutes to 45 minutes. The optional Sapling homework (~10%) could be for marks if the homework grade improved your overall grade. At the beginning of certain lectures, there is a timed quiz. They are typically announced at the end of the previous lecture, but sometimes there are "surprise" quizzes. These quizzes are usually good practice for midterms in terms of difficulty & speed. They are great indicators if you are keeping up with the course. 
• Grading Scheme: In-class 10 minute quizzes (around 14 total), online reading quizzes, optional Sapling homework that can be for marks, 2 midterms, final
• Textbook: Organic Chemistry by Klein (I got my looseleaf + solution manual for $80); I did not use if often, if at all
• Class Average: 72%
• Personal Experience: Dr. Dake's in-class quizzes are excellent representations of the midterms & final especially the ones right before the exams. These quizzes always happen at the very start of lecture, so do not be late. Don't stress if you do poorly since they are not worth a lot of your overall grade. Dr. Dake realizes his quizzes are difficult, so the quiz marking scheme has a "participation" component to them as well. The worksheets we got in-class were useful, but only if you watched the lecture beforehand. Dr. Dake held weekly office hours. While I never went, I heard he is always willing to give extra practice questions to those who ask. He is also great with answering questions on Twitter (and making unhelpful, but amusing remarks about the exams such as "3000 characters on the midterm"). In lecture, he is quite sarcastic, and I found him hilarious. 

• Advice:  PRACTICE! This is not a cram-able course. If you do not understand something, clarify right away. Everything is built on concepts learnt before especially the first month. I suggest redoing your in-class quizzes especially those at the end of term because they are often great practice. Make sure you are used to working quickly since the exams are on the longer side of things. The online problem sets are also great to work through especially with a friend.  

• While it isn't an impossible course, a lot of people struggle with this course. This isn't a course about memorizing specifics, but rather recognizing and applying patterns. Also the new style of teaching (flipped learning) was a bit of a shock, and the amount of material posted online made the entire course feel a bit disorganized. This is definitely a course you should put more effort into. There is always the option of taking CHEM 233 in the summer, so you can devote 100% of your effort into it. 

CHEM 235 

• Course Taken: Wednesday 2pm (January, 2014 - April, 2014)
• Format: The first couple labs are used to teach you techniques and your final product does not count for marks. Basically this is the time for you to mess up and learn from your mistakes. Later in the term, the crystals you make will be judged for quality and ranked among your peers. Don’t be alarmed if your technique mark seems quite low (7/10 is the norm). The lab prep work and reports are extremely simple. There is a practical final (in-lab) and a written MC + open ended final (outside of lab time.
• Textbook: Lab manual available at UBC Bookstore. You need to rip out some pages to hand in. 
• Class Average: 74%
• Personal Experience: I enjoyed this lab. The TA's made the whole experience as stress-free as possible. If you mess up (spill your sample, your crystals won't form), your TA is your saviour. They have tons of tricks up their sleeves to help you savage what you can. 

• Advice: I suggest studying for the written final since there are a lot of specific details asked.

Read More