Tyler's Blog Death of Destiny

End of Term Wrap Up

This is my End of Term Wrap Up for term 2 of Winter 2009 (following last term).

...hated this term, so more bitching than usual... ...remind me to never take 6 courses with final exams simultaneously ever again...

ASIC 200 - Arts and Science Interdisciplinary Courses 200 - Global Issues in the Arts and Sciences
Dr. David Ng, Dr. Allen Sens, Anne Dalziel (TA), David Semeniuk (TA)
Thursday
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Credits: 3

This course is unique in that it grants 3 Science credits to any Arts student, it grants 3 Arts credits to any Science student, it is the only course labelled with ASIC, and it accepts only 45 second year Arts students and 45 second year Science students (as in first, third, and fourth year students cannot register). The course had a lecture component and a lab component, the lab component occurring during class time on days that we didn't have lecture. The lecture was structured so that for each unit we'd get a couple of lectures from Dave on the science of the topic, and a couple of lectures from Allen on the global impact (arts) of the topic. We covered two units in the course: Climate Change and Genetically Modified Organisms. There were two labs: one in which we modeled the future based on present lifestyle choices (and ideal lifestyle choices), and another in which we did a PCR on our DNA to check for a certain piece of junk DNA on one of our chromosomes. There were also two papers for this course. One was a group initiative to design a project that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (my group did ours on waste management, though others did theirs on things such as biking). Another was an individual paper based on writing an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about a global issue of our choice, along with a creative component. One of my main complaints is that the assignments had a lack of structure/criteria, at least in my opinion. Some people may have liked the freedom and openness of the projects, but for me, the lack of knowing what was being looked for in the projects was a major stress source for me. The other main complaint I have is that I would have liked to have had more lectures by Dave and Allen (because their lectures are really interesting), though considering time restraints, I can see how this isn't possible without cutting out the labs. Anyhow, all in all I enjoyed the course--it was well worth the uber-late commutes home. Reminder to anybody considering taking it that your second year is your only chance to take it, and the course does have a reputation so it fills up quickly. More information can be found at the course website: http://www.terry.ubc.ca/index.php/asic-200-mainpage/

BIOL 201 - Biology 201 - Cell Biology II: Introduction to Biochemistry
Dr. Wade Bingle, Natalia Kolosova (TA)
Monday / Wednesday / Friday
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM (MWF), 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM (W)
Credits: 3

I think this course may have out-done organic chemistry. We pretty much got three things to work with throughout the term: a course material book (like a textbook), lecture material, and a small booklet of problems. So seriously, guess what isn't tested on ANY of the exams? Both the course book AND the lecture material! ARG! Well, either way, I spent a majority of my time not on the problem sets, largely because I expect the knowledge about biochemistry to be more useful for my future than how to answer the problems. I don't expect the knowledge of how to interpret BIOL 201 questions to be an important skill in my life. Oh, I guess I should note something about the people. Dr. Bingle was nice and stayed on topic during class; I feel sorry for him because every so often when he tried to ask the class something there would be dead silence--even after he just gave us the answer. Natalia was a good TA and dealt with the material well, though there was definitely too much material crammed into the tutorials--we were often rushing to get things done and finishing after dismissal.

CPSC 221 - Computer Science 221 - Basic Algorithms and Data Structures
Dr. Ed Knorr, Tomas Hofmann (TA), Lawrence Cahoon (TA), Vincent Woo (TA)
Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Friday
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM (MWF), 11:00AM - 1:00 PM (T)
Credits: 4

So, probably one of my favourite courses this term. Not because it's interesting--rather, because it was a course that I could understand without having to grind through tons of material. Yay for logic based courses. That being said, there isn't much to say about this course. Ed was nice and engaged the class when he could; on a side note, he is obsessed with hockey and many of his examples (including his PhD thesis, apparently) are hockey based. The TAs were helpful when help was needed, though the labs were more time consuming as opposed to difficult so that didn't always happen. Oh, two more quick notes. WHY DID YOU EMPHASIZE COUNTING SO MUCH ON THE FINAL?! BLAH?! That was like, 2 lectures' worth of material, and thus it was more of a "hey math kids, have some free marks" as opposed to a "hey comp sci kids, let's test what you've learned" type of deal going on there. Et aussi, dear Computer Science, please remove debuggers from your curriculum. They're always taught only in passing, and nobody I know actually knows how to use them properly (me included); the slightly longer but more understood method most people use is definitely the better alternative to the debugger the way it is being taught. Thanks :)

GEOB 103 - Geographical Biogeosciences 103 - Introduction to Geographical Biogeosciences: Water and Landscapes
Dr. Michael Bovis, Dr. Marwan Hassan, ??? (TA), ??? (TA)
Monday / Wednesday / Friday
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM (MWF), 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM (F)
Credits: 3

Before this year, I was apathetic towards rocks. Now I just plain old hate them. I understand it is a first year course, I understand that you expect your first year students to be stupid, and I understand that you know that all the Arts kids take first year GEOB because it gives them Science credits without thinking. But seriously, what a waste of my time. I do not care if this rock is pink, or if this rock developed deeper in the crust than that rock. Not only are you basing the entire course around memorization, but you're making us memorize useless things at that. I think I recall one test question that actually involved thinking. For that reason, that this course is pretty much free marks for all the students that are good at memorizing useless junk and not designed to get students ready for what university is supposed to be, I really disliked this course. The course started to look up during the second half when we actually started learning some of the physics behind the geography, but then we never ended up really using it. As for the profs, Dr. Bovis was a nice person, but he didn't always stay on topic during lectures (diagrams very often became road maps, and explanations often became stories about his life) and thus the content became uninteresting. Dr. Hassan stayed on topic and engaged the class when he could, but really, the amount of memorization and lack of thinking definitely killed this course for me.

MICB 202 - Microbiology 202 - Introductory Medical Microbiology and Immunology
Dr. Hung Sia Teh, Dr. Brett Finlay, Dr. Julyet Benbasat
Monday / Wednesday / Friday
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Credits: 3

Another one of my favourite courses this term, though that is probably a psychology thing. Anyhow, although Dr. Finlay's bacteria lectures were interesting, my favourite units were Dr. Benbasat's virology and Dr. Teh's immunology. Virology was my favourite (hence the probable psychology factor), though immunology was also interesting because of its immediate application to real life. That being said, there is a fair amount of material in this course, and the exams are pretty much entirely multiple choice, and not easy multiple choice, but usually they were the "here are four statements about X; how many are correct?" type of multiple choice questions. Nonetheless, it was an interesting course. The only thing I should note is that Dr. Teh has a pretty heavy accent. It was troubling for the first few lectures, but after a while you quickly get used to it :)

PHYS 108 - Physics 108 - Enriched Physics II
Dr. Janis McKenna, Shirin Hadizadeh (TA)
Monday / Wednesday / Friday
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM (MWF), 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM (M)
Credits: 3

As much as I suck at physics, this was probably another one of my interesting courses. I still don't like being the bottom of the class, and constantly being reminded about how much my math sucks, but I guess overall the course was interesting. I finally understand E&M, the units that I failed to learn sufficiently in grade 12 physics. Janis was a good prof and was pretty much willing to give up 25/7 of her time to helping her students. Shirin (who I also had as a TA for PHYS 107 last year) was again a helpful TA. I don't know: as much as I dislike this course for making me feel like a total fool, I guess it was good overall XD