<p>Luckily for premeds, many upper level bio classes here are inflated. What’s weird is that most people here say biochemistry here is harder than orgo (even for those that took Weinshenck or Jose). My understanding is that it’s like bio 141/142 when it was hard on crack, and that the organic/chemistry part is tough due to the large amount of memorization required. And then, not only are you required to learn material in the book, but you must learn what seems to be random material (if you are pre-med, which I’m not) through research articles. So it’s a mixture of traditional lecture style and research-based courses. Many are not used to the latter depending on when they take biochem. Also, the class is a single section and is extremely large even for a science course here. It’s close to the size of the Arab-Israeli Conflict which generally ranges from 150-175. That could make for a distant learning environment which, again, is unusual even for the sciences here. It thus encourages frequent truancy. I guess I’ll see how the restructured format is when I take it in the fall.</p>