Science TR071

NeuroCat

1sparkey wrote: »

I have been told that I will not need a dissection kit for first year biology, by a student who just completed first year. Also , I have not received my timetable , I presume everyone is in the same situation

It's true you probably wouldn't need one per say, it's nice to have your own though. They don't supply that many spare ones for use in the lab, especially not in first year. (When the only dissection is of a shrimp if memory serves.)

bscm

Old Person wrote: »

so are the timetables for science out yet?

and if so, is there a way of wirelessly viewing them?

I know some are available from the Science Course Office, ours got put on Facebook (2nd Year). Labs have yet to be split and tutorials aren't on it either

1sparkey

NeuroCat wrote: »

It's true you probably wouldn't need one per say, it's nice to have your own though. They don't supply that many spare ones for use in the lab, especially not in first year. (When the only dissection is of a shrimp if memory serves.)

Thanks , looking forward to that.

Glitter_star94

is anyone else not like the lectures so far?

NoHarm1994

Glitter_star94 wrote: »

is anyone else not like the lectures so far?

I see where you are coming from they are a little slow to get going but I'd say as soon as the Labs start and we get to know the courses a little better they will become more enjoyable Well hopefully anyway! :rolleyes:

leaveiton

Glitter_star94 wrote: »

is anyone else not like the lectures so far?

Chemistry is pretty dull, but biology and maths are grand enough. All the introduction stuff in biology is a bit tedious alright but I suppose it has to be done :P

Lawliet

Its slow for the first couple of weeks, after that the lecturers will assume everyone's up to speed and they'll pick the pace

Scrappychimow

Where is the room GLAB please?

Scrappychimow

How much for a white lab coat?

whendovescry

Can someone tell me where CHSCLT is located?

thanks

Lawliet

whendovescry wrote: »

Can someone tell me where CHSCLT is located?

thanks

The science theatre? In the chemistry building, go through the doors on the left and up the stairs, through the glass door and its on your right

nommm

any former sf chem students want to help me with a question about one of the experiments?

nommm

nommm wrote: »

any former sf chem students want to help me with a question about one of the experiments?

I can't remember anything from SF chem, but you'll probably have a better chance of getting help if you post the question.

TheFrizz

true-or-false wrote: »

I can't remember anything from SF chem, but you'll probably have a better chance of getting help if you post the question.

How hard do they mark the lab reports? As in if you make a slip in calculation in a titration q? Also some of the qs are a bit ambiguous and may have a general answer or a number of possible answers, do they only accept specific answers?

Lawliet

TheFrizz wrote: »

How hard do they mark the lab reports? As in if you make a slip in calculation in a titration q? Also some of the qs are a bit ambiguous and may have a general answer or a number of possible answers, do they only accept specific answers?

How hard they're marked is down to the demonstrator. There's probably a marking scheme but I've never seen it, and since we changed demonstrators every week there wasn't an opportunity to ask them where we'd gone wrong on the reports.

TheFrizz

TheFrizz wrote: »

How hard do they mark the lab reports? As in if you make a slip in calculation in a titration q? Also some of the qs are a bit ambiguous and may have a general answer or a number of possible answers, do they only accept specific answers?

I'd agree with Lawliet, it's largely down to who your demonstrator is.

About the calculations, if you just give an answer, and it's wrong, you'll get no marks, but if you make sure you've made it clear how you got your wrong answer, you can often get marks for method. So just in case, always show a clear working for your answers.

As for ambiguous questions, it's true, there are loads of them. I'd always try to make my answer as clear as possible. However, with things like organic synthesis, there can be loads of ways to get your product but you should only show one. I had a lab partner for organic chemistry who was very smart but he'd put every single route he could think of, and I think the demonstrator got quite frustrated with having to read all of them. On one occasion he got marked down for writing too much (but he had written a hell of a lot).

I think the demonstrators usually appreciate something short and sweet that's easy to read and mark.

Lawliet

Would anyone who did the core concepts in immunology module last year happen to have Luke O'Neill's lecture slides? They're not by on the biochem website and when our class rep emailed him he mistook us for JF biology for some reason >_<

TheFrizz

Anyone in second year or higher who did second year chemistry:

I'm finding that maths is getting more complex and time consuming and I'm considering changing to maths methods. I only intended to do one semester of maths anyway. I was talking to an older student who advised me against it because 2nd year chem would be very difficult to understand without having done mathematics in 1st year because of the notation used. Is this true? Surely they'd make you do maths to do 2nd year chem if this was the case?

Need reply ASAP because I want to change in a day-ish!

nommm

I'm in second year at the moment and we've already done stuff that involved using the maths we did last year. But you'd probably be able to pick it up yourself.

One thing I would say is that everyone found maths really, really difficult last year but it's actually the subject that most people did well in. The questions on the exam are basically the tutorial question but with different numbers. You'll be surprised by how easy you find the first semester of maths by the end of the year. I'd advise you to stick with it. I don't think anyone found maths methods to be much help unless they had done ordinary maths for the leaving cert and hadn't done integration.

Hollzy

I did Maths Methods and I really regret it. One of the lecturers (who we persistently had multiple times a week) was really bad and I'm worse at Maths now than I was before I did the module.

bscm

JF Maths first semester wasn't too bad. If the Linear Algebra lecturer is the same, then their section of the exam is easy enough, it's the same standard as tutorial questions with no surprises. Lots of people did quite well in the exam. They give attempt marks, so if you at least remember the formula or how to start the question, you can get

Glitter_star94

Whats the difference between normal maths and maths methods in terms of courses to pick in 3rd/4th year and career oppurtunities?

NeuroCat

Glitter_star94 wrote: »

Whats the difference between normal maths and maths methods in terms of courses to pick in 3rd/4th year and career oppurtunities?

There is virtually no difference unless you're taking Physics.

fishtastico

Glitter_star94 wrote: »

Whats the difference between normal maths and maths methods in terms of courses to pick in 3rd/4th year and career oppurtunities?

That's adorable

Iceuil

Hey i have a question in relation to 2nd year biology modules. Im a bit unsure which modules to pick for the 2nd semester. Could anybody please give any feedback on by2206, by2209 and by2210 modules? I chose to do by2209, but I looked through the lectures and it looks like a very difficult and demanding module. Thanks

Morgase

Iceuil wrote: »

Hey i have a question in relation to 2nd year biology modules. Im a bit unsure which modules to pick for the 2nd semester. Could anybody please give any feedback on by2206, by2209 and by2210 modules? I chose to do by2209, but I looked through the lectures and it looks like a very difficult and demanding module. Thanks

I did 2209 - that's Infection and Immunity, right? There's a lot in it, but if you keep up with it from the start you'll be fine. There were a few different lecturers but most of the stuff was linked.

If you have Campbell and Reece, read the relevant chapter in that and see if you like it. Cliona O'Farrelly (if she's still giving the course) recommends the first chapter in some book which is also really good.

Tbh, I don't think there are any easy modules, but if you get the basics of immunity and build on that, you'll be grand. Don't leave it all until exam time because that just won't work for this module.

Lawliet

Iceuil wrote: »

Hey i have a question in relation to 2nd year biology modules. Im a bit unsure which modules to pick for the 2nd semester. Could anybody please give any feedback on by2206, by2209 and by2210 modules? I chose to do by2209, but I looked through the lectures and it looks like a very difficult and demanding module. Thanks

I only did Infection and Immunity out of those, it was one of my favorite modules in second year, it's a nice combination of microbiology and genetics, and you will have done an introduction to the immune system in the micro module, so a lot of it is expanding on things you've already covered. Have a look at the first chapter of Janeways Immunobiology, and it has pretty much all of the immunology you'll do in second year.

DancingQueen:)

Iceuil wrote: »

Hey i have a question in relation to 2nd year biology modules. Im a bit unsure which modules to pick for the 2nd semester. Could anybody please give any feedback on by2206, by2209 and by2210 modules? I chose to do by2209, but I looked through the lectures and it looks like a very difficult and demanding module. Thanks

I did both 2206 and 2210 and they were two of my favourite subjects last year, bearing in mind I ended up in Zoology though
The class sizes were pretty small in comparison to the other modules, in particular in bio resources, there were only 20 or so of us. It made it easier to concentrate although the 9am lectures were very small! Labs were pretty interesting and there were field trips to Bull Island and The Botanic Gardens in Ecosystem and Global Change. Trying to think about how I was assessed.. there were lab reports for Global Change which we handed in at the end of term and for bio resources, we filled in sheets in the lab so hand nothing to do when we left.

If you have any more questions or anything, feel free to pm me! I thought they were good subjects but just make sure you don't need some of the other modules as pre-requisites for next year because I know a few people who made that mistake and were then limited with their choices!

Jammyc

Iceuil wrote: »

Hey i have a question in relation to 2nd year biology modules. Im a bit unsure which modules to pick for the 2nd semester. Could anybody please give any feedback on by2206, by2209 and by2210 modules? I chose to do by2209, but I looked through the lectures and it looks like a very difficult and demanding module. Thanks

I only did 2209 of those three. It is one of the tougher modules of the year I found. If you're going into one of the life science moderatorships like Biochem/Immunology/Neuro/Physiology/Micro etc. I'd reccommend it. You've no idea how often specifics of the immune system come up in these things.

Morgase

Morgase wrote: »

Tbh, I don't think there are any easy modules

The Ecosystem one (if it's still the same as 2 years ago) is pretty easy. You can do the exam pretty much just based on the labs, and there was a really handy MCQ to bump your marks up even more. I was really glad I was doing it when everyone else was stressing about Immunity.

That said, immunity seems to be more enjoyable for the people doing it, and even though I'm doing Plant Science now, there's nothing that I really took from the ecosystem module in terms of usefulness to my mod subject (which there really should be considering my subject).

So I guess if you can handle the workload maybe immunity would be better, but if you're stressed maybe try one of the others.