<p>Do any people who've already taken either or both of these two classes have any tips on what the classes were like and how to do well?</p>
<p>The amount of time you will need to put into these classes is largely dependent upon how good you are at memorizing, synthesizing, and recalling large amounts of information quickly. This is especially true for Bio1AL. </p>
<p>In general, though, don’t bother going to class for any of these if they are webcasted. I love biology, and I fell asleep through the vast majority of the handful of 1A/1AL/1B lectures I went to. It was never a problem, since I would webcast them later (download a program to help you watch them at an increased speed). In fact, it was especially helpful, since I could pause the video, write down notes or go look up something to clarify what the professor said, etc. then resume once ready. </p>
<p>If possible, try to keep up with the webcasts/lectures, then watch the webcasts ONE MORE TIME in succession when the midterms arise. This strategy works well for 1A/1B, but collapses for 1AL. </p>
<p>1AL is a different beast entirely. You will need to essentially memorize each week’s reading in the lab manual, more or less, depending on the toughness of your GSI. If you do not understand a lecture/manual concept, get help for it EARLY. The practice exams give fantastic insight into how the actual midterm is set up, so doing these EARLY will benefit you. Success in 1AL is dependent upon how much time you devote to actually understanding and memorizing the vast amount of info they throw at you, as opposed to pulling an all-nighter the night before and hoping to do well (conversely, this may actually be a viable strategy in 1A/1B if you’re good at memorizing).</p>
<p>You can find more info on the 1AL final exam by doing some searches on here for old threads.</p>
<p>What program do you use to watch webcast at higher speed? Would you have to download the video files?</p>
<p>Bio 1A: Take good notes, that’s all there is to it. If you can take good notes, then studying becomes really easy because you don’t have to go back to the webcast when you’re studying, you can just review the material straight off your paper.</p>
<p>Bio 1AL: Those weekly quizzes are a large portion of your grade. Study hard (like you would a midterm) for each of them. Other than that, go to Office Hours, and also try to get yourself into a smart section. </p>
<p>Bio 1AL = my least-favorite pre-med class. Beware.</p>
<p>Bio 1B = Get into a stupid section. lol</p>
<p>when are office hrs for the teachers?</p>
<p>office hours depend on the professors, but generally, they are right after lecture. they’ll announce them once class starts… GSIs have various office hours so you can attend any.</p>
<p>they’ll tell you when class starts.</p>
<p>thanks Audeat and Mech! that’s exactly what I was looking for and it was really helpful.</p>
<p>I was still wondering though, as far as labs and lab reports go, what did you have to do/what goes into them?</p>
<p>labs for both 1b and 1a just entail filling out worksheets. </p>
<p>the labs for 1AL don’t count in your point total. you do get some grade (out of 3) on them, but the point total = quizzes (1 dropped) + MT1 + MT2. doing well on the labs (consistent 3’s) can bump you up though if you’re on the border between grades, or so they claim. that doesn’t mean you should slack off on them though, working on them and doing a good job will help you on the midterms (especially MT2). </p>
<p>for Bio 1B, you’re going to split into groups of ~4 and work on the worksheets together. you may or may not have a formal lab report at some point during the semester; it depends on your GSI. basically, you go around looking at plants, etc. and just answer the questions. it’s really simple.</p>
<p>awesome. thanks!</p>
<p>For Bio 1B, I don’t know if she’s still teaching, but Torres is a hard as hell GSI. My grade dropped a full letter because of the low grade I got in lab. My friends had other GSIs and their work wasn’t as hard as ours. On the other hand though, I did enjoy the lab and Torres is a really good GSI. Just really hard.</p>
<p>^^coo coo</p>
<p>who are the good GSI’s?</p>
<p>Get Liz if you want a really really chill GSI. Probably makes you take the class too nonseriously though.</p>
<p>thanks. I’ll keep an eye out.</p>