Anyone ever taken Microbiology at Wayne State University?

[Perseverance7779311]

Has anyone ever taken Micro at Wayne State that could give me some pointers/ study tips please? Thank you.

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[theseeker4]

Has anyone ever taken Micro at Wayne State that could give me some pointers/ study tips please? Thank you.

Don't underestimate the lab practicals. When they say you need to know the procedure and reagents for every single test you learn, you really need to know it all. You will get a bin of every reagent used during the entire semester and your unknown bacteria sample, and nothing in the instructions other than "perform xyz test." If your results are wrong, you get a 0 for that question. The practical is set up that way at numerous stations, some want you to look at slides and identify bacteria shape, some want you to identify a species based on some characteristic without pointing out what characteristic you should be focusing on, etc. The lab practicals are brutal, so make sure you take them seriously.

Lecture and lecture exams are comparable to other biology courses, so nothing special there.

 

[Perseverance7779311]

Don't underestimate the lab practicals. When they say you need to know the procedure and reagents for every single test you learn, you really need to know it all. You will get a bin of every reagent used during the entire semester and your unknown bacteria sample, and nothing in the instructions other than "perform xyz test." If your results are wrong, you get a 0 for that question. The practical is set up that way at numerous stations, some want you to look at slides and identify bacteria shape, some want you to identify a species based on some characteristic without pointing out what characteristic you should be focusing on, etc. The lab practicals are brutal, so make sure you take them seriously.

Lecture and lecture exams are comparable to other biology courses, so nothing special there.

Thank you so much for your input. I did good on the first midterm....i guess im really worried about the second one! Its the daily micro lab quizes that are killing me. i keep getting 3/5 on them. Is the lab curved in the end do you know? Thank you.

 

[theseeker4]

Thank you so much for your input. I did good on the first midterm....i guess im really worried about the second one! Its the daily micro lab quizes that are killing me. i keep getting 3/5 on them. Is the lab curved in the end do you know? Thank you.

I don't remember how the grading was broken down. I do know when I took it, the quizzes were an insignificant part of your lab grade, but the lab grade as a whole could hurt your final grade even if you did excellent on the lecture exams.

 

[Life Eternal]

Thank you so much for your input. I did good on the first midterm....i guess im really worried about the second one! Its the daily micro lab quizes that are killing me. i keep getting 3/5 on them. Is the lab curved in the end do you know? Thank you.

Lab grades are normalized for this class. Which may add 10-20 points to your grade at the of the class. The class is out of 1000 points so the normalization will do very little to your grade, so don't bank on it.

For the quizzes, does your TA only ask questions on that days experiment? My TA would ask questions from the experiments we were going to do did plus anything from up to 3 lab meetings ago. If this is what your TA does, you need to go back over some of the material that was covered in previous lab classes.

 

[Life Eternal]

I don't remember how the grading was broken down. I do know when I took it, the quizzes were an insignificant part of your lab grade, but the lab grade as a whole could hurt your final grade even if you did excellent on the lecture exams.

This is very true. One of my friends was getting 100% on all the lecture exams, but did very bad in lab. He ended up with a B

 

[Perseverance7779311]

I don't remember how the grading was broken down. I do know when I took it, the quizzes were an insignificant part of your lab grade, but the lab grade as a whole could hurt your final grade even if you did excellent on the lecture exams.

thanks you. I really appreciate your input!

 

[Perseverance7779311]

Lab grades are normalized for this class. Which may add 10-20 points to your grade at the of the class. The class is out of 1000 points so the normalization will do very little to your grade, so don't bank on it.

For the quizzes, does your TA only ask questions on that days experiment? My TA would ask questions from the experiments we were going to do did plus anything from up to 3 lab meetings ago. If this is what your TA does, you need to go back over some of the material that was covered in previous lab classes.

Yea, my TA asks us questions from what we are doing for the day's lab, and what we did on the previous lab. Its like ill study and he'll find some nit picky detail..so annoying! Thanks for letting me know about the normalization and your input. I appreciated it! Maybe i should start taking written notes for the quizzes, or something!