Hello,
I am an incoming freshman + prospective NBB major.
I was wondering if i should take bio and chem 141 at the same time in the fall. Both are weed out courses with labs and it would be very challenging to balance competency in those classes, and other classes + any other external involvement. I met with the pre-health advising office, and once I expressed this concern, I was advised to take bio over the summer to make up for it, however this would be costly and still entail a one semester gap between bio 141 and 142 where it might be difficult to retain information. The NBB department wants students to have taken intro chem and bio before there sophomore year because it serves as a prerequisite for a variety of their courses.
What should I do?
-lukenod
@Lukenod Biology is not a weedout lol. That is a joke. The lab can be challenging but the lecture is almost like playtime now-a-days (I’m sure basically all lecture sections have like B/B+ average…not hard). Chemistry lecture can be a little bit harder (they primarily just write exams that kind of challenge students so the course averages end up being more C+ to B area for lecture and then lab can push most average performing folks to B/B+. If the average of the course is not B-/B by the end of the semester, they scale grades upward to get it there…though some folks like Mulford now have abnormally high means apparently), but the lab is a joke. I would just take them together. I took ochem and biology together, and it was fine. Just feel them out and decide. I think you’ll notice that even though most of the line-up of biology teachers teach using a mixture of methods, including case studies and other non-lecture based activities, which you may not be used to (and perhaps are intellectually stimulating/challenging), the course content still moves pretty darn slow, and they give exams much easier than their activities and quizzes (a huge chunk of exams are MC, and usually they make 141 multiple choice questions kind of a joke and then maybe try to challenge some on the problem solving portion. Biology 142 is kind of the opposite. The problem solving portion becomes more predictable, but the multiple choice can get tedious because many are actually higher level questions that probably could and should be written as a free response problem. Good prep. for the MCAT I guess though, because MCAT writes similar level and length MC prompts).
Also they moved a lot of the more challenging quantitative genetics (like linkage studies, LOD scores, figuring out the metabolic pathway) to the beginning of biology 142 in a condensed kind of watered down version. Also, I do not advise summer biology at Emory. The teaching is not as strong as you’ll get during the year and it isn’t even easier than it would be. If worse comes to worse, you should be able to at least manage “competency” (a B grade average) over both courses. If one cannot do this and is looking toward an NBB major, there is a tough road ahead, because many of the NBB electives and even some cores are quite challenging and often you’ll have to take many together regardless of when you finish gen. chem and biology. Also, I wouldn’t want to walk into some of those NBB classes with a summer biol background, just saying. If anything should be taken during summer, it is physics because Bing teaches it (high quality), and is of sufficient rigor to help a little for the MCAT or your NBB 301 course.
For gen. chem and biology, it isn’t as much about keeping up with content so much as it is preparing for the exams, assuming you plan to take decent teachers.
Thanks @bernie12 , that cleared up a lot.
You’re like a superhero on this thread geez.
@Lukenod: you have a clue on who you plan to take for either or both?
I enrolled in chemistry for the first enrollment period with Michael C. Heaven @bernie12
@Lukenod : Will Llewellyn fit? I wouldn’t trust Heaven (or really hardly any tenure track faculty) with a freshman course. Let us just say, it is not uncommon for them to suck at teaching intro. courses
yes, and his class is open however i am already enrolled with Heaven.
@Lukenod : Whenever you get a chance to enroll again, see if you can get a Big 3 (Mulford, McGill, or Llewellyn). They aren’t that difficult (they challenge enough to teach important skills, but exam averages don’t dip into the 60s anymore as far as I know) anymore and they are guaranteed to be at least decent teachers to most students. Heaven hasn’t taught an undergraduate lecture class in years (maybe since like 2009) and it was pchem lecture. Tenure track instructors tend to give lower level exams, yet yield lower averages, so that kind of tells you what is going on there. Best to go with lecturers if you can.