<p>Are there extra tutoring services available, for a fee, if necessary for students who are having trouble with subjects? If there are learning centers and TAs, are they helpful? Do they actually explain the concepts well and help you to master them?</p>
<p>-there are TA and professor office hours that you can go to for help - in my experience, these tend to be very helpful
-many courses have sections/recitations where the TA goes through material more in depth and makes their own practice questions. these are helpful depending on the TA - some suck, some are awesome. in some courses, you have to go to your assigned TA, in others like 207, you can go to any section you want (not for lab though)
-for writing seminars, you meet with your TA every once in awhile
-there are "00" courses for courses like chem 207 (it would be chem 007). they are 1 credit pass/fail supplement courses based on attendence and give extra help - i never enrolled in one though, but it doesn't hurt too - chem 007 is on sundays though i think, which sucks
-in autotutorial courses (such as bio 105) there is a study center with many TA's with tons of open hours
-there's a writing walk in service where you can take papers to a student to review - did it once for a class, wasn't very helpful and ended up dropping the class anyway (philosophy 101 - thought it was gonna be great - ended up sucking)</p>
<p>in terms of helping and explaining concepts, it depends on the TA and the professor. in my experience, i ended up understanding everything and being able to master everything after talking with a TA, though you may have to "shop around" to find the right ones to talk to. honestly, coming into cornell, i thought it was gonna suck to have to get help from TA's, but now i realize that they are very helpful and very chill (depends on the TA though - some do suck majorly)</p>
<p>there's plenty of extra help at no extra cost.</p>
<p>I get you waffle. I am actually a transfer student. Would you be able to comment on the difficulty of the courses that I am planning and your current experiences with them, if any?</p>
<p>Fall- Evolutionary Bio, Gen Bio Lab 1, Orgo 1, Stats
Spring- Gen Bio Lab 2, Orgo, Orgo Lab, Animal Physiology Course or Biochem 2 or genetics</p>
<p>Can you also comment on the workload, please.</p>
<p>now i understand why in the other thread you're just asking about bio lab. sorry that i cannot be of too much help on courses, as i am taking some of the same ones anyway (ie ORGO!!!). best having someone else with more experience answer about those though. i will say this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I took evolutionary bio this semester - it wasn't too hard, but i hated it. the material itself is pretty easy, but tests can be challenging, with obnoxious point distributions, tests have a lot of writing. many ppl in my class felt screwed since the class was uncurved (mean was a B-, many complained) - the median is usually a B/B+ though. if you don't have clicker questions, then i wouldn't bother really attending lecture, though it depends on the professor. i think you have irby lovette - don't know much about him, he guest lectured though once. i would hold off on buying the book also until you get a feel for the course - in retrospect, i shouldn't have bought it since i barely opened it. there are 2 lectures and a mandatory section - section is worth a lot but you really just have to attend and do small assignments, not much work. overall, it's not a terrible deadly course, more like just an annoyance. i also tend to think my prof overestimated the class by not curving it - most profs curve it</p></li>
<li><p>genetics is hard</p></li>
<li><p>i noticed that for fall, you're only taking 12 credits - avg is 14-16 and you can't go under 11. have you thought about taking orgo lab in the fall instead? that'd get you to 14</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I am also taking a Communications course to fulfill a CALS writing req. I heard it was not too bad. Any recommendations on whcih one I should take. Btw, will you be a soph this yr?</p>
<p>i'm in CAS, so can't really help with a CALS writing req. yeah, i'll be a sophomore</p>
<p>This is at least a biology learning center with tutors to help for intro bio. When I interviewed for one of the tutoring position, they practically made me promise that I would tutor genetics as well so you should be able to get help for Bio 101-104, 105-106, and 281 (genetics) at the learning center. There are also 00 courses for many of the science courses (including intro bio, gen chem, orgo, etc.). 00 courses aren't courses but rather weekly review sessions. You don't even have to formally enroll in them.</p>
<p>
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i think you have irby lovette - don't know much about him, he guest lectured though once.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>He's terrible.</p>
<p>He got decent ratemyprofessor ratings. Any advice norcal? It just seems that there are so many bad profs or am I just imagining things? Jon Njardarson for orgo 357, Salam Abdus for pam 210, and then this bio course. Any advice?</p>
<p>for evobio- irby lovette's lectures put me to sleep, every time, no question. Outside of class he's much more interesting. Although I took writing in the majors (which is the same course, but instead of lectures/exams, you have discussion sections and writing assingments)- and it was a much better experience.</p>
<p>My sophomore year was sort of similar:
Fall: Orgo, Orgo lab, Evo, Ecology
Spring: Orgo, Genetics + 2 easy humanities reqs</p>
<p>As far as orgo goes: learn it as you go, take a little time each week to go through the lectures, read the book if the professor recommends. If you try to cram it at prelims it will be much harder to keep the smaller differences straight, and that's what will be on the tests.</p>
<p>Also- I'd recommend taking genetics in the spring (any spring). I did and had a really good lecturer (prof. fox) and I hear the fall guy is terrible.</p>
<p>Do you write a lot and how hard is it graded?</p>
<p>I actually agree with what the ratings say: reading the textbook is useless (which I didn't like; I felt he didn't test anything meaningful or else the book would've been of value), everyone does tend to get the same grade (his multiple choice questions are super easy; everyone gets 100% on them and then there are 2-3 short answer/word problems that are usually poorly worded that drops everyone's grade); workload is low.</p>
<p>He didn't have the drop 2 prelims rule when I took the course. I suspect that's why he's now getting favorable ratings. I still think he's a poor professor that just reads off his notes and his short answer exam questions are poorly worded. Keep in mind, I took his course when it was his first time teaching (back in '04). Hopefully. he's gotten better.</p>
<p>Here is how I more or less planned out my schedule for my cornell tenure, feel free to comment. My issue is that it is either biochem 2 or genetics, for which both courses, such in a sense and kill your gpa.</p>
<p>Soph
Fall- Evolutionary Bio, Gen Bio Lab, Orgo 1, Stats (PAM 210?)
Spring- Gen Bio Lab, Orgo, Orgo Lab, Animal Physiology Course or biochem 2 or genetics</p>
<p>Junior
Fall- Biochem 1, Physics 1, Physics Lab
Spring- Biochem 2 or animal physiology course, Physics 2, Physics Lab, Biochem Lab</p>
<p>Senior
Fall- Animal Physiology Course, Animal Physiology Lab, Humanities Course
Spring- Genetics, Genetics Lab, Humanities Course, Mammalian Physiology</p>
<p>Biochem 332 is actually a very easy course, especially for someone with a lot of research experience, such as yourself.</p>
<p>Idk what is a lot to you. But I'd say we had 3 4-page assignments, and a final literature review which was 10-20 pages. I'm not sure how consistent that is from year to year bc mine was taught by a graduate TA in evolution and they probably change each year. Attendance matters, and just doing well on the papers is important. Its not graded harshly- as long as you earn a good grade you'll get it- no curve to beat or anything (same goes for the lecture class as far as I'm aware).</p>
<p>Is it like biochem 1 where you have a crazy amt of work w/ weekly quizzes and then prelims and a ton of work. Also what is covered in it and how are exams structured and how hard are they?</p>
<p>So for the writing class thingy, there are still lectures or no. Do you just meet in groups and discuss topics? Are the paper difficult to write, do you need to do a lot of searching of journals and stuff? Did it consume a lot of your time? Please discuss the final lit review, such as how much time you had for it, could you pick your topic and how flexible was it?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is it like biochem 1 where you have a crazy amt of work w/ weekly quizzes and then prelims and a ton of work. Also what is covered in it and how are exams structured and how hard are they?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know where you got the idea that BioBM 331 was a lot of work. There's only one midterm and one final and a few weekly quizzes. The weekly quizzes are ridiculously short (literally, taken during the first 10 minutes of class). They're just to make sure you are keeping up with the studying (which you'd have to do anyway for the midterm and final). If you studied, you can finish each quiz within 2-3 minutes.</p>
<p>To answer your question, BioBM 332 consists of 3 midterms (drop 1) and 1 final. A few too many tests for a 2-credit course and probably too much work for a 2-credit course but I don't think it was particularly hard.</p>