<p>can anyone tell me what it's like?
are there any lectures involved?</p>
<p>from what i've been hearing, it's basically a self study course
where you do your labs& take oral exams& written quizzes </p>
<p>how does everyone fare in this course?</p>
<p>I’d like to bump this post. I’m an incoming pre-med freshman who is planning to major in the humanities–not biology. That being said, I took the AP Biology course my junior year of high school and got a 5 on the exam. Advising seems a little ambiguous as to what someone in my scenario should do… can anyone help me out here? Should I take BIOG 1105 (Individual Instruction), or should I take a course like BIOG 1350 (Principles of Cell and Developmental Biology) for my first semester? I want to establish a firm foundation in biology but don’t want to kill myself with an exceedingly difficult course, though I am willing to put in plenty of effort to succeed.</p>
<p>I took the auto-tutorial and can honestly say that it is a doable course as long as you learn to manage your time. Typically incoming freshman underestimate the workload and its very easy to fall behind in the class. Many people prefer the auto-tutorial over the lecture because its more interesting. Most people found difficulties with the lab reports only because the grading is pretty harsh. However, after the first lab report you pretty much know how they want it done. There are lectures every tuesday that go over upcoming labs or unit material. The one thing I didn’t really like was the competitiveness.</p>
<p>joiedevivre1-
i asked a ex- cornellian (now a stony brook med student) on this-
and he advised against taking auto- tutorial- simply for the chance that it might ruin your gpa.</p>
<p>we got into this whole discussion about med school, and he stressed two and only two factors for getting into med school: MCAT and gpa.
yeah, you got your ec’s and essays and whatnot, but everyone is pretty much on equal footing on those factors, unless you find the cure for cancer or become a rapper with 60 credits while raising a kid (sorry, i was reading this weird article on stanford acceptees) </p>
<p>the reason why i wanted to take auto- tutorial is that i tend to be a person who generally learns best outside the classroom (sef- study)
it’s a bad characteristic, i need to learn how to focus in class :P</p>
<p>i think the best thing to do would be to just take the lecture, see how ppl do in auto- tutorial, and switch over during second sem.</p>
<p>i dont know how the new lectures are since they just changed the bio and got rid of the lecture serious 101-102… but 105 is a lot more work than 101!, i thought the 103 lab that went with 101 was very helpful and a great class but 101 was useless. i never listend to lecture, i slept through everything, i never took notes. all i did was read the textbook like 2-3 days before the prelims… so in the end 101 was all self studying for me =</p>
<p>yeah, i don’t know what to do now they’ve got rid of 101/102- 103/104
so we’ve got to take one of the specialized intro classes or just take
auto- tutorial?
v. confused, and i’m a bio major. uh oh.</p>
<p>if you don’t want to take auto tutorial, what are you supposed to take to fulfill pre-med requirements?</p>
<p>i assume any of the bio classes + find a lab class if they dont include it. ask the pre med advisor to be safee</p>
<p>You guys, it looks like we can take any two of the following classes to fulfill our one-year biology requirement as pre-meds:</p>
<p>BIOG 1105 - auto-tutorial (comes with lab)
BIOG 1350 - principles of cell & developmental biology
BIOG 1440 - introduction to comparative physiology
BIOG 1610 - ecology and the environment</p>
<p>There’s also BIOG 1500 which is a lab course–but do you guys know how it works? The non auto-tutorial courses do NOT come with a lab component and we need a year of biology lab to meet med school requirements. Is BIOG 1500 a year long lab course?.. otherwise, if we take it first semester, how do we fulfill our second semester of lab requirement? Do we have to find a non intro-level biology class with lab to take some time?</p>
<p>Also, AnbuItachi + Sarita1, do you guys think taking FWS, one of the intro bio courses, BIOG 1500 (lab), intro chem, and an additional elective would be overkill for first semester? CHEM 2070 includes lab but is 4 credits while taking an intro bio course + BIOG 1500 would be the equivalent of a 5 credit biology load. Is it better to hold off on bio lab until later?</p>
<p>There are plenty of other bio courses that can be used to fulfill the lab requirement. I especially recommend BioBM 4400 which is a pure lab course that teaches molecular bio/biochem techniques. Very useful in research, very easy, and not a huge time commitment at all for a 4 credit course.</p>
<p>Can you fulfill the lab requirement anytime? Can i take BioBM soph year and not take bio lab freshman year?</p>
<p>@joiedevivre1 no thats pretty much what every bio freshman does. That should put you around 15 or 16 credits which is good for your first semester. If you are really worried about the extra bio lab you might be able to hold off till spring semester when you have better time management skills. But im pretty sure the additional bio lab won’t too difficult</p>