<p>I am a senior pure chemistry major and will be going to graduate school this fall in a biology department, hopefully working on biochemistry. I am in my final semester and am taking a basic genetics course (a class that biology majors take in fresh/soph year). I haven't taken a basic biology class in college before. </p>
<p>I'm having a hard time with the way that the concepts are taught and put into practice on exam problems... it's interesting, to be sure, but the "way things are done" is VERY different from my chemistry courses. (The way things are explained, the approach on problems, etc) On one small level, I am worried about being able to do well in this course. On a more important level, I am worried about presuming that I was going to be able to fully integrate well into a biology program- where everyone else I talked to had been biology majors in college. I'm getting discouraged by this... what if I can't adapt? I'll have to sit in on several basic biology courses (cell bio, mol bio, etc) with undergrads when grad school starts, but what if it just gets worse and I find myself unable to learn biology correctly? </p>
<p>I've done plenty of biochemistry and molecular biology in the lab, but the concepts were informally taught and learned by practice. Has anyone else been through something like this and can give me some advice? What a time to get cold feet about the field I'm going into! (Not to mention doing worse on the midterms than all the haughty sophomore pre-meds in my class who glare at me whenever I ask a very basic question... )</p>
<p>Genetics does have some unique approaches but I guess that is true of every field. Genetic approaches didn’t click for me until I did an independent study credit in a bacterial genetics lab. In fact my grade went from the lower cusp of C to the highest in my 250 person lecture over the two semesters of genetics. The ideas of primers, sequences, genomics, reverse genetics, screens and selections are somewhat esoteric until you actually use them yourself. If it isn’t possible to take on a side project using the technology you are learning about, try just reading some literature in the field.</p>
<p>What kind of basic genetics is this? Molecular genetics or are you referring to classical genetics? Or a mix of both?</p>
<p>I think in your situation jumping into classical genetics class and doing a basic molecular bio course at the same time then doing molecular genetics afterwards would make the most sense.</p>
<p>Jumping right in can be a bit tricky. But once you rlly get it, it is a blast. I get all hot and bothered when I think about my first real experience with molecular genetics when I was in my 2ndyr of undergrad.</p>
<p>Hmm, I believe it depends on what is really troubling you about these classes. I am of the opinion that Genetics (atleast how it is taught here) requires much more critical thinking than that of a basic Cell Bio class. </p>
<p>With what sort of things are you having trouble? I assume it’s not memorizing of details etc. Perhaps there are some umbrella misconceptions that have stopped it from “clicking” so to speak.</p>
<p>Genetics is about learning the rules of the game and then playing the game over and over in your head (or on paper) until you can confidently predict the result just by seeing the players.</p>
<p>Ok, enough of the silly analogy. Basically you need to create inside your mind a functioning model of genetics so that you can quickly plug in whatever information is given to you and be able to quickly say what more information you require, or if you have it all, what your expectations are. It’s more a way of thinking than a set of facts to memorise.</p>
<p>When I started on my current project which uses extensive Drosophila genetics, I was pretty much lost. Manipulating genotypes on 2 chromosomes simultaneously and figuring out the expected phenotypes is not easy, but after a lot of practice I can now almost intuitively work it out.</p>
<p>I am of several minds here. I also found genetics perplexing until the same material had been thrown at me four or five times. I can’t really identify an epiphany moment, but I think, as belevitt says, it had to do with actually performing techniques to the point that I could understand them more viscerally. My feeling is that this kind of knowledge needs time to percolate into your brain.</p>
<p>In terms of grad school, it wouldn’t trouble me too much – classes are not that terribly important in grad school. You’ll probably take classes your first year, you might have the opportunity to pick the kinds of classes you’d like to take, and after that, you’ll probably be in the lab. In the lab, you’ll have to figure many things out for yourself, but it’s fundamentally unlike class learning, I think.</p>
<p>I’m interested in hearing more about this – I took the class ymmit is talking about (as a non-haughty sophomore :)), and I definitely found it difficult, but I didn’t find a big conceptual difference between the biology classes I took and the chemistry classes I took. I guess maybe the biology tests are more problem-based and the chemistry tests are sort of proof-based? (I’m thinking of 5.60 and 5.12 here, p-chem/thermo and organic chem.) Is that what you’re thinking?</p>
<p>Genetics is one of those things that seem inexplicable until one day suddenly everything ‘clicks’. Keep studying it - get your hands on extra texts, attend recitation sessions/office hours, go see the professor and ask for suggestions on how to study - and sooner rather than later you’ll be saying ‘aha, that wasn’t so bad after all!’</p>
<p>Don’t worry too much. If you can ‘get’ chemistry and biochemistry, you’ll be able to ‘get’ genetics for sure. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice, everyone! Mollie- I think you are right about the proof-based nature of chemistry classes. I’m much more used to solving problems with the proof and purpose laid out in front. Like with quantum mechanics-- these are the specific theories leading up to the hydrogen atom, now you can solve for all the solutions to the Schroedinger equation for those particular models. Now apply it to these similar systems and derive stuff after thinking critically about similarities, etc. Even 5.07 and 5.08 (biochemistry classes) were very system-based, (i.e. these are the proteases)-- and technique-based (i.e. this is the quench flow method, here’s what we do to find binding kinetics). </p>
<p>With genetics, as soon as I’d even gotten used to the idea of homologous recombination, we were making Hfr’s P1s and F’ factors and calculating co-transduction frequencies with 5 different kinds of antibiotic resistance on one guy, and then in comes another mutant that does this and that, then all of a sudden it’s yeast, and all the lines are blurry because it’s all the same thing anyway, let’s map all these genes with info about phage headfuls by drawing these squiggly lines between your favorite genes that you want to recombine, and OH now we have an exam about all those things. Let’s also throw in some tetrad analysis… not to mention all the different conventions for indicating different genes and alleles that I’d never seen before that are always interchanging… And somehow everyone else seems to be okay with this- is the most frustrating part. </p>
<p>I go to all my classes and sections, I go to office hours… only to come out more perplexed and insecure than before. I suppose this was more of a rant than anything, but I’ll take all this valuable advice from all of you and try what helps me. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Hahaha, thanks Phanta, very entertaining I do admit I was met with the same type of anxiety that Doug experienced while reading the geneticist’s methods. Maybe there is hope for me too. :p</p>
<p>this is why i’m done taking undergrad biology lecture courses – they’re usually not well taught, the material is deathly boring and usually irrelevant, and in the end you only remember a few concepts that you probably will never use again. i actually think it’s best to learn biology by reading primary literature…</p>
<p>I can guarantee that many of the people sitting around you in the class feel just as lost in chemistry as you do in genetics.</p>
<p>An 8th grade genetics elective got me totally hooked and I’ve been with it ever since (though I switched to evolution in college, which is just the other side of the same coin). I’ve taken all kinds of genetics and genetics-based classes, but when I got to organic chemistry, the world ceased to make sense. I was one chem class short of the chem minor and refused to do it because I just didn’t think I could figure any of it out. </p>
<p>When you’re feeling dumb and lost, if nothing else, you can take comfort in knowing that you have a whole different skill set. Where people like me didn’t bother to take the classes we think are too hard, at least you’re there and trying to understand it. Those freshmen and sophomores only have smug looks on their faces because they haven’t stretched themselves or put themselves out of their comfort zones. I say kudos for sticking with it and trying to come out a more rounded scientist.</p>
<p>Depends on the school and the instructor. I loved all but two of the undergrad biology lecture courses I took. (And I took a lot of them as a Bio major!) The two I didn’t love were still okay, I just thought they might have been taught better. I was fortunate to have an excellent genetics professor, though. He was a terrific lecturer and was always willing to see me and provide suggestions and references when there was something I was having trouble understanding.</p>
<p>I’m at a loss as to how anyone could find the material “deathly boring and usually irrelevant,” though. I don’t think that reading the primary literature is a good way for learning undergrad-level biology.</p>
Man, I hear that. Organic was this big black box for me – I understood that we were putting molecules in and getting different molecules out, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand how to get from point A to point B. But I was happy as a clam in all of my biology classes, although sometimes I was an overworked or confused happy clam.</p>
I do admit I was met with the same type of anxiety that Doug experienced while reading the geneticist’s methods. Maybe there is hope for me too. :p</p>