Autumn Quarter 2010 Preliminary

I've got my schedule mostly signed up for.  The only thing that's left is figuring out section/lab hours and office hours, but most of those are signed up in class.

The main difference this year is the lack of SLE.  Rather than spending half my time picking up novels and literature, all of my time will be spent over textbooks and p-sets.  There are many.  Here's a synopsis of what each class will be, to see if I can't be prepared for them.


BIO 41: Genetics, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology
CourseRank Reviews:

"the tests create fake scenarios that don't happen in real life and you have to figure out which real scenario they are talking about then answer the questions about the fake scenario."

"GO TO SECTION/harass the TAs. The wording on problem sets is pretty terrible and confusing, and TAs will clear them up."

"The only drawback was my TA, who failed to give clear explanations. My solution was to ask another veteran TA all my questions."

"While studying for the final, I realized that she really didn't teach us anything complicated about replication and transcription, it was just that she taught so slowly."

"Be prepared to have to memorize seemingly unimportant details of lecture for exams - the exams are written by TAs, and in my opinion they sometimes test trivial information."

"to do get an A, you have to get above 90% on all the exams....which is very difficult, since they are very nit-picky about grading and seem to take off large numbers of points for relatively small errors and, in "discussion" questions, not using the exact key words they're looking for."

"I would say you have to put at least 5 hours a week for pset, and at least 20 hours a week for tests."

This is my main focus for the quarter.  Find a good TA, understand each scenario and find how a new scenario is similar and apply it, since most likely the same concept manifests itself differently.  Love the material or you'll miss nuances.  I'm scared of this class, but I'll do my best.


BIO 141: Biostatistics

If you can avoid this class, I would. The teaching was awful, and the course relied heavily on R (the computer program). There's not much explanation on how to use R, and it's not listed as a pre-req. You therefore really have to learn both statistics and R, and that was both overwhelming and confusing. The course had two take home midterms (which both took about 20 solid hours, no joke) and a final. The year I took it, the final was written by Boik after very little exposure to him. His style was totally unexpected and impossibly difficult, and not one person finished the final in the three hours allotted. Office hours were completely unhelpful (with both TAs and Professor Rogosa). Professor Rogosa is a really nice guy, but he really can't teach, especially if you don't have at least some experience in BOTH statistics and basic programming.

Unexpected, but I'm hoping a 4 in AP Statistics and minor interest in programming will help.  Start early on the midterms, give yourself plenty of time.  Spend a fair amount of time playing with R.  I still need to figure out what's the textbook for this class.


CHEM 35: Organic Monofunctional Compounds

"Some people only took notes in the coursereader, but I would recommend copying down what Huestis writes on the blackboard into a separate notebook."

"if you know the reagents and do all the practice problems that the TAs have on coursework, it helps a lot."

"Keep on top of the reactions and you will do great. The reactions seem very memorization based, but there are patterns/reasonings--you'll see them on tests. Make sure you dedicate time to memorization though."  According to another reviewer, there are about 50+ reagents and reactions.

"he puts up practice exams that are very similar in format to the real exam (i.e one mechanism, a few synthesis, etc etc),"

"get the Klein Ochem 2nd semester book. It has a lot of problems (they're easier than exam problems but they are great practice for getting key concepts ingrained in your head. Applying these concepts is up to you + more practice problems). practice problems are key!"

"there are a lot of ways to do synthesis! you can double amount practice problems by trying one synthesis pblm two different routes."

"the best advice I can give is to study a little bit each day and do practice problems! I can't stress that enough!"

"It helps to make a consolidated list of reactions you learned because it's most likely gonna come back and haunt you."

"For many of the reactions, the mechanisms are either "too hard to undestand" or not yet discovered."

Remember the tricks you've learned in Chem 33 and 31A/B and apply them this time.  Question concepts, and don't create long, convoluted questions that sound like lawyer talk.  I'm also afraid of this class, having been burned by previous Chemistry classes, but perhaps looking at it a second time, with previous experience and muscle memories, will help.


PHYSICS 21: Mechanics and Heat

"I would recommend doing your problem sets early on and going to the Physics Tutoring Center to ask any questions you might have."

"Material was easy. Exams were somehow very hard. Good preparation for the MCAT."

"Extremely poorly taught - people simply stopped coming. In a class of over 200, I rarely saw more than 40-50 on any given day."

PHYSICS 22: Mechanics and Heat Laboratory

"I loved that there were no write-ups to do after the lab. Overall, the course is hardly any work."

This sounds like Math 20's, where working on it gives you a break from working on your other classes.  Probably best to save this work as the last thing before bed.


Save hardest stuff for first thing in the morning, when you're fresh.

That should be it, for now.  Thinking about my workload this quarter is making me nauseous.