Hey so my course selection is happening tonight and I'm still not decided on my electives haha. I'm thinking of taking the following courses but they have NO course reviews (or have not even been mentioned on MacInsiders at all) :

MOL BIOL 3A03 - Current Topics in Molecular Biology and Genetics
MOL BIOL 3M03 - Fundamental Concepts of Development
MOL BIOL 3Y03 - Plant Responses to the Environment

I'm pretty decided on 3A03, but trying to pick between the last two. Any upper year mol bio people out there (jhan? haha) wanna give me some advice/first hand experience. I'd really appreciate it.

Out of curiosity, anyone going into 3rd year mol bio like me, what are you taking for electives? Most of our courses are pretty well set in stone (Mol Bio 3H03, 3O03, 3II3, 3V03, Bio 3S03.....) so I'm finding it tough to choose wisely. Is it a bad idea to take all Bio/Mol Bio courses?

I'm in mol bio, just to clarify we're picking at midnight tonight?

And im pretty much taking as many mol bio courses as possible like yourself.

Yep, midnight tonight! But I'm not attempting to get on solar till 3:30 am haha.

Okay good. I wasn't sure if it would be too stressful to take all Mol Bio courses, but to be honest nothing else interests me.

I just took molbio 3y03 this past semester. I'd definetily recommend it if you liked plant bio and genetics. Dr. Cameron teaches it and she's a lot more effective in a small setting (about 40 people). She gives midterm and exam questions before hand (she'll give say 7 questions and ask 2) but you have to really know the answeres through and through to get full marks. There's also a group project worth 25% that's virtually impossible to get lower than 80% on. Overall you can do well while putting in a modest effort

I'm taking 3M03 as well, as well as a Health Science course on Virology - 3K03. Aside from that, I have to take Stats 2B03 and I'm taking an Origins elective in 3B03 (Origin of the Elements), to go along with Origins 2LU3 (Life in the Universe) which happens to be on the Mol Bio course list! I'm planning on minoring in Origins research so all my electives from here on out will be Origins classes :p

3M03 was quite interesting for me. You learn the development of many model animals (Sea Urchin, Frog, Chicken, Drosophila). Starts form the basic sperm meets egg and all the mechanisms required for them to meet. Then you learn about stuff like gastrulation, the blastula, cell movements, cell differentiation. At the end you learn more about neuronal development, the brain, the movement of neurons and what's required for it. Campos can be hard to understand though, I ended up skipping a lot of classes and just learning the material on my own. The book is an easy read in my opinion, I did well just learning out of it. But I think it's still important to go to class, I believe I could have done better had I done so.

Didn't take the other two courses. I don't think 3A03 was offered in my year and I was not a big fan of plant bio in second year so I didn't pursue 3Y03.

Also, don't worry about taking too many Mol Bio courses. As long as you can manage your time you'll be fine. I think I took, 3H03, 3HH3, 3II3, 3M03, 3O03 and 3V03. I also took another 2 third year bio courses.

3Y03 is actually more work than you'd think: there's a PBL project and critique along with the midterm and final. The class size is small and the material is not terribly exciting unless you really enjoyed 2D03. I had hoped there would be a larger focus on transgenics and new research but she pretty much used the same slides from 2D03 to talk about that stuff.

3M03 had a promising lab component but some of our animals died before we had a chance to do the labs. There is one major lab project involving Dros. embryos that was worth quite a bit. Dr. Campos can be confusing sometimes and embryology can be a bit of a bore. However you do learn some important pathways and concepts that are useful in some other courses (3II3, 3HH3).

3A03 and 3CC3 were not offered last year but I am taking 3CC3 second term...has anyone taken it before? What's it like?

Originally Posted by dhyong

3Y03 is actually more work than you'd think: there's a PBL project and critique along with the midterm and final. The class size is small and the material is not terribly exciting unless you really enjoyed 2D03. I had hoped there would be a larger focus on transgenics and new research but she pretty much used the same slides from 2D03 to talk about that stuff.

3M03 had a promising lab component but some of our animals died before we had a chance to do the labs. There is one major lab project involving Dros. embryos that was worth quite a bit. Dr. Campos can be confusing sometimes and embryology can be a bit of a bore. However you do learn some important pathways and concepts that are useful in some other courses (3II3, 3HH3).

3A03 and 3CC3 were not offered last year but I am taking 3CC3 second term...has anyone taken it before? What's it like?

Oh right, the lab component of 3M03. That was kind of disappointing but the chick embryo stuff I found pretty cool.

Mol Bio 3M03 and 3V03 are being offered in the same semester this year. Do you think it would be really difficult having to balance the lab work between the two? Or is it doable.

Also for both courses, are the labs every week, or every other?

Thanks for the replies!

Originally Posted by marcie

Mol Bio 3M03 and 3V03 are being offered in the same semester this year. Do you think it would be really difficult having to balance the lab work between the two? Or is it doable.

Also for both courses, are the labs every week, or every other?

Thanks for the replies!

It's doable, I don't recall there being real lab reports. You just had to answer some questions. There was just one "lab report" which is just a project on drosophila development in terms of 2 genes.

I can't remember for M03, we missed some labs because of problems with the animals. The only thing I really remember from the labs were drosophila phenotypes, chick embryo, and drosophila development (the project). We did do reviews and stuff during lab-time though.

For 3V03, there are 2 labs every week. Sometimes you have to go in on other days to take cultures out of the incubator and put them in the fridge, or to check on your cultures and take notes.

For those that have taken it, did you enjoy MOL BIOL 3M03 more or 3HH3 more? Or which did you find to have a lighter course load (I'm overloading in 2nd semester)? I am registered in both of them but might drop one of them should I get into KINE 1YY3

Originally Posted by fishballs

For those that have taken it, did you enjoy MOL BIOL 3M03 more or 3HH3 more? Or which did you find to have a lighter course load (I'm overloading in 2nd semester)? I am registered in both of them but might drop one of them should I get into KINE 1YY3

I enjoyed 3M03 more than 3HH3. 3M03 took a lot of my time compared to 3HH3.