mr. tran hopes you have a great summer
time to talk about my last quarter at davis...i had only two classes and both were required for my genetics major and both were only offered one quarter out of the year...if i failed either one of them, i would have been in trouble...
my first class was principles of genomics...this class dealt less with the fundamentals of genetics and more with how genetics are actually studied today...so this included all the tests used to decode DNA, compare DNA samples, figure out which sections of DNA are being expressed in the cell, match up proteins to DNA and lots of other stuff i've already forgotten...since genomes are so large, we also looked at how all that information is collected, stored and analyzed, all of which require the use of computers...so while other classes went over information that was discovered years ago, this class had a more modern feel and gave us an idea of what the world of genetics would be like if we started working in the field today...
our professor was a younger guy who was around 30 years old...since he was young, he could relate to the students a little better and was more easy going and funny compared to the average professor...one time, he asked us what ethnicity we thought he was and no one guessed right...it was kind of a trick question though since he was half japanese and half white...he also said he had an identical twin...it's always weird when you meet one twin instead of the pair at the same time...it makes you wonder what the other twin is like and if they're like some strange doppelganger...our professor was also one of those rare handsome nerds...he rode a bike to class so he'd often show up wearing an orange helmet and an yellow reflective vest...but despite being geeky, he could probably beat you up and steal your girlfriend...he had a background in computer programming so there was likely a bias towards the computer side of things...he created a message board where we could communicate with him and each other about topics we had questions about...he stressed group interaction and gave extra credit to the most active students on the boards (not me)...overall it wasn't the most typical of science classes...one day we watched the movie gattaca and had a writing assignment about it...i ended up getting an A+ in the class, the last of my few A+'s during my collegiate career...
a lot of the students who have biological sciences majors complain about organic chemistry being too hard...i agree but i felt that some biochemistry courses were more difficult since they combined both organic chemistry and biology...however it wasn't until my last quarter of college that i ended up in the hardest class i ever had...this one had the unpleasant combination of biology and math and it's title was population and quantitative genetics...this class focused on genetics in large populations through many generations and how you calculate genotypes and phenotypes...it was like the punnett squares we used back in high school bio to cross pea plants but a hundred times more complex...to illustrate how tough the class was, for every test we were given a sheet with all the equations we would need so we didn't have to memorize anything and the tests were still hard...
i think what made it so difficult was that it was so foreign...o-chem is hard but you take three quarters of it so you get used to it...i never had a science class that involved so much complex math...after doing research for a few years, i know how important math is in science but i had never encountered it before in an undergraduate class...it also didn't help that i had this class early in the morning...that plus how boring it was meant that i fell asleep all the time...and i didn't want to...i would get mad at myself because the class was hard and i couldn't afford to fall asleep...despite all my efforts though, i still fell asleep for some span of time almost every day...what amazed me was that no one else slept during class...i remember many times groggily looking around the room after a nap wondering why no one else was sleeping...
the ironic thing was that despite sleeping every day, i had the highest grade in the class...the only reason this was possible was because we had homework due every week...if not for the homework, i would have had no idea what to expect on tests and how to do any of the problems...the homework was so difficult and time consuming that it forced me to learn everything...if there was no homework, i would have failed the class no question...or at least the first midterm...but then again, everyone else would have failed too...the class was hard for everyone...a lot of people made the mistake of not utilizing the discussion section...i think it was because our TA was a grad student from china so they assumed she wouldn't be that helpful but she helped me a lot...she sent out an email asking what people wanted/expected out of the discussions and i was probably the only one who responded so she liked me and sent me hints about how to do tough problems...i ended up getting an A in the class and likely wouldn't have been able to do it without her help...although i've done worse in other classes, i still think this was the hardest one i've ever had...it definitely didn't make my last quarter of school a breeze like i had hoped...
so that about wraps up my education in davis...i just have to write about the writing class i took and then i can do a final summary/retrospective on my undergraduate education...
my first class was principles of genomics...this class dealt less with the fundamentals of genetics and more with how genetics are actually studied today...so this included all the tests used to decode DNA, compare DNA samples, figure out which sections of DNA are being expressed in the cell, match up proteins to DNA and lots of other stuff i've already forgotten...since genomes are so large, we also looked at how all that information is collected, stored and analyzed, all of which require the use of computers...so while other classes went over information that was discovered years ago, this class had a more modern feel and gave us an idea of what the world of genetics would be like if we started working in the field today...
our professor was a younger guy who was around 30 years old...since he was young, he could relate to the students a little better and was more easy going and funny compared to the average professor...one time, he asked us what ethnicity we thought he was and no one guessed right...it was kind of a trick question though since he was half japanese and half white...he also said he had an identical twin...it's always weird when you meet one twin instead of the pair at the same time...it makes you wonder what the other twin is like and if they're like some strange doppelganger...our professor was also one of those rare handsome nerds...he rode a bike to class so he'd often show up wearing an orange helmet and an yellow reflective vest...but despite being geeky, he could probably beat you up and steal your girlfriend...he had a background in computer programming so there was likely a bias towards the computer side of things...he created a message board where we could communicate with him and each other about topics we had questions about...he stressed group interaction and gave extra credit to the most active students on the boards (not me)...overall it wasn't the most typical of science classes...one day we watched the movie gattaca and had a writing assignment about it...i ended up getting an A+ in the class, the last of my few A+'s during my collegiate career...
a lot of the students who have biological sciences majors complain about organic chemistry being too hard...i agree but i felt that some biochemistry courses were more difficult since they combined both organic chemistry and biology...however it wasn't until my last quarter of college that i ended up in the hardest class i ever had...this one had the unpleasant combination of biology and math and it's title was population and quantitative genetics...this class focused on genetics in large populations through many generations and how you calculate genotypes and phenotypes...it was like the punnett squares we used back in high school bio to cross pea plants but a hundred times more complex...to illustrate how tough the class was, for every test we were given a sheet with all the equations we would need so we didn't have to memorize anything and the tests were still hard...
i think what made it so difficult was that it was so foreign...o-chem is hard but you take three quarters of it so you get used to it...i never had a science class that involved so much complex math...after doing research for a few years, i know how important math is in science but i had never encountered it before in an undergraduate class...it also didn't help that i had this class early in the morning...that plus how boring it was meant that i fell asleep all the time...and i didn't want to...i would get mad at myself because the class was hard and i couldn't afford to fall asleep...despite all my efforts though, i still fell asleep for some span of time almost every day...what amazed me was that no one else slept during class...i remember many times groggily looking around the room after a nap wondering why no one else was sleeping...
the ironic thing was that despite sleeping every day, i had the highest grade in the class...the only reason this was possible was because we had homework due every week...if not for the homework, i would have had no idea what to expect on tests and how to do any of the problems...the homework was so difficult and time consuming that it forced me to learn everything...if there was no homework, i would have failed the class no question...or at least the first midterm...but then again, everyone else would have failed too...the class was hard for everyone...a lot of people made the mistake of not utilizing the discussion section...i think it was because our TA was a grad student from china so they assumed she wouldn't be that helpful but she helped me a lot...she sent out an email asking what people wanted/expected out of the discussions and i was probably the only one who responded so she liked me and sent me hints about how to do tough problems...i ended up getting an A in the class and likely wouldn't have been able to do it without her help...although i've done worse in other classes, i still think this was the hardest one i've ever had...it definitely didn't make my last quarter of school a breeze like i had hoped...
so that about wraps up my education in davis...i just have to write about the writing class i took and then i can do a final summary/retrospective on my undergraduate education...