Contemporary Biology Lab · Biological Sciences
I learned a lot about pig anatomy and general histology, as well as some experimental methods often used in biology research.
Learned proper lab techniques for directions, gene editing and genetics.
Prof. Hazen: 9.5/10 Amazing professor. I skipped lab twice and made it up on a different day, it was so cool and unmessy... like on the first time I did it, she literally said, it's ok, the navy won't come looking for you if you don't attend lab on the right day! and then laughed in her own sweet manner. She's also so passionately proud that we still use and breed the same flies that Thomas Hunt Morgan (yes, THE THOMAS HUNT MORGAN, discoverer of sex-linked genes) and claims that our lab was also THG's lab. So that was so cute. The -0.5 was bc of her subsonic voice. sad. The class ------- Pig dissections: 6.5/10 If you've never dissected before, probably lower... but I always just tell myself that I should pretend I know what I'm doing and I should be fine. and I did. I also registered for this class after the first week of labs, so she was really flexible with Office hours and everything like it was so easy to catch up and do 'relatively' well on the practical exam. The practical was hard though. The avergae is usually 140/200. I got a 161 and my TA said I should expect an A. cool. A lot of the parts on the practical tests the views though, so if you're used to seeing the hyoid bone on the buccal area, dorsal or ventral, you might be tested on how it looks like after a saggital cut. The most painful part of the practical is the histology bc she'd give you a slide and ask you w…
Anatomy, histology and body pathways/functions.
Anatomy, histology, dna/ restriction enzymes, genes & inheritance
If you think you'll have 15-20 hours a week of free time around your orgs-bio finals go for it, but otherwise you should take it in the summer. You don't need Bio Lecture, you'll be fine jumping right into the lab.
Gross Anatomy and some pathophysiology of Fetal Pig
I found the experiments and dissections to be interesting, but hated the lab reports and felt they were huge waste of time and our TA's grading was harsh. I didn't feel that I learned anything more about Biololgy than I did from my intro course, I just spent allot of time doing calculations and trying to figure out how to make interesting pictures of plasmids on my computer. As someone who wasn't fond of the class I can say that the professor is probably one of the nicest I've had at columbia and made it allot less painful. I recommend taking it in the summer when it won't interfere with other classes. The lab reports are very time consuming and, of course, are heavy right before finals. If you have a cool TA, this class will be much better for you. But you're not going to find that out until it's too late anyway.
Anatomy of the pig & other enzymatic & genetic concepts
Leaned a lot about the anatomy of fetal pigs.