<p>this might be a dumb question, but how exactly do the lab classes work? is it different for each science (BCP)? and are the labs similar to HS stuff?</p>
<p>what do you do in labs</p>
<p>There is a lot of variability in lab courses b/w schools and even b/w subjects at the same school. Here are my experiences:</p>
<p>Intro bio lab: Generally BS labs with a few worksheets and a few quizzes to keep us honest. The main part of our grade was determined by a comprehensive 4-hour practical at the end of each semester. The frog anatomy station was the worst. They stuck 30 pins through a 5cm long frog. I couldn't even tell what pin was stuck through what.</p>
<p>Gen chem honors lab: The usual chem experiments. Nothing interesting. The lab for regular gen chem was held next to us. We used to laugh at them through the window, point, and make faces.</p>
<p>Genetics lab: Genetics might be the most notorious course at Cornell, certainly for bio majors. The lecture portion is pretty hard but the lab is what earns it its reputation. The first half of the semester is devoted to Drosophila genetics. This involves a lot of mating and counting. We had to score each fly for various characters (sex, eye color, wing shape, bristles, etc.). In all, each partner probably scored around 3000 flies. Since we had to etherize the flies to put them to sleep (so we can look at them under a microscope one by one), the room constantly smelled of ether and you were always sleepy. We also had to come into lab at odd hours to mate the flies and to collect virgin females (females mate approx. 6 hours after hatching so you had to collect them before then to ensure their virginity). I wrote a 30-page lab report and they dinged me 1-2 pts on each page. By the end, I was down to 60% or so and earned a grade of "fair" (one step up from "poor").</p>
<p>Biochem Lab: By far the most useful lab course. We learned a lot of molecular techniques: PCR, site-directed mutagenesis, Western, Northern, Southern blots, affinity purification, etc. We were graded on lab notebooks and written tests. For the final, each person had to give a talk on their results from the semester (the talk was structured like a seminar a researcher would give). The professor asked me to be a TA before the course was even over but I turned her down because I saw that the TA in the course got bombarded with questions every lab session. If you do research in molecular biology, you will use most of these techniques.</p>
<p>Orgo lab: We spent most of the semester learning various orgo chem lab techniques (distillation, crystallization, etc.). 90% of the grade came on the 2 practicals and 1 written test at the end. On the practicals, we were graded on yield and purity. For one of them, we had to synthesize isopentyl acetate (banana oil). Some idiot a few years back went to store and bought some banana oil to supplement his yield. He ended up with over 100% yield and got absolutely raped on the purity grade due to all the crap that's put in store-bought banana oil (the class mean on purity was 98%). </p>
<p>Evolutionary bio lab: We sat around talking about rocks we found by the side of the street. Pretty boring. I was a bio major and received at least an A- in every bio course, except one. This was it.</p>
<p>so from what i've gathered, HS labs are nothing compared to college, especially b/c generally HS doesn't have actual lab practicals/formal reports</p>
<p>That would be true, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Agree with the variability factor. On the whole though, college labs were cooler than HS labs because we were actually doing something for 3 hours a week.</p>
<p>Gen Chem - pretty lame. First semester our motto was "half ass it and go home". Weekly lab reports and short quizzes. The experiments usually worked the way they were supposed to, but I'm not sure I really learned anything. </p>
<p>Organic - I remember this mainly being really long - waiting for things to crystallize or distill often took forever. Experiments didn't always go as plan. I nearly set the room on fire when my partner for some reason put paper towels under our sand bath. </p>
<p>Physics - easiest labs - set up so that they were all contained within the allotted time frame each week - including the writing of the lab report, so no outside homework. We used to fudge our data a lot to get better results. The labs were tried and true, so they had really good explanations and setups for us, and we didn't have to worry about much. I think I probably learned some things from this lab.</p>
<p>Genetics - probably the coolest lab - actually felt like a scientist, and actually learned things by working through them in the lab. Did a lot with yeast, also had to do the drosophila mating, but not as extensive as NCG's experience. We didn't use ether though, just CO2 to temporarily knock them out. Our genetics lab also included blotting techniques and using plasmids and so on. </p>
<p>Bio 101 lab - never took it, but it was a killer at my school, one of the major reasons a lot of people dropped pre-med. Really long lab reports, a lot of busy work, boring experiments from what I'm told.</p>
<p>Ecology/evolution lab - this one we actually had to do some thinking and design experiments on our own (they gave us some loose framework though). But the results of the labs were actually unknown and so we were able to draw some conclusions about things rather than just make sure we did the lab correctly. Wrote some monstrous lab reports on this one. Coolest TA ever though.</p>
<p>
I'm in organic lab now, and two weeks ago, we had two trash can fires in the same lab period because people threw hot sand into the trash instead of back into the tub of sand. The first one was funny, and the second one was more of a "where were you when the first fire happened?" where the TA yelled at the student.</p>
<p>Bigredmed,
How did you get away without doing a bio lab? Isn't that required?</p>
<p>My bio lab courses were Genetics, Ecology/evolution, and Biodiversity. Those are courses offered by the school of biological sciences at my alma mater (BIOS 305, 314 and 205 respectively). Also I took Nursing Anatomy which also had a lab and was BIOS 214, but that was 2nd semester senior year, and I'd already applied and was soon to be accepted.</p>
<p>This brings up an important point - Course listings MATTER - med schools and AMCAS are not going to go through and research exactly what a class was or what it covered. If it's a Bios offering with a lab, that will cover your lab need regardless of the subject matter of the course. I'll give another example: If your school offers a course in technical scientific writing (a common upper level offering aimed more specifically for grad students who will be expected to be write journal articles/thesis/dissertation in the near future), but it's cross listed in Biology, English and Biochemistry - the way you register for that course will matter a lot. If you sign up for it with the Bio course heading it will likely count in your BCPM GPA, even though there wasn't a lot of science content. Likewise it could end up being very science heavy, but end up fulfilling an english requirement because you took it through the english department (even though other people in your class may be taking it through the biology or biochem departments).</p>
<p>That is some quality advice.</p>