General UG rant of the day...

[bcurtis]

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So my genetics class has 9 people in it. I would like to think that everyone in there are well above average when it comes to student achievement.

We had our first test yesterday that covered 7 chapters; and was mostly essay questions. When we got into class today, everyone was worried (all 9) and not a single person thought they passed. When we asked the professor about the test her reply was "... Idk what happened, they were all awful."

I'm sorry, but if I was a professor and 9 very well rounded, driven students bomb your first test, I would wonder what was wrong with me before I wonder what's wrong with the students.

So now there are several people wanting to drop because they had no idea it was going to be this bad. Is genetics really this hard or is the professor just making it harder than it has to be? If med school is this difficult I might as well just go be a janitor (not really).

Has anyone else had a similar experience.

 

[AlteredScale]

So my genetics class has 9 people in it. I would like to think that everyone in there are well above average when it comes to student achievement.

We had our first test yesterday that covered 7 chapters; and was mostly essay questions. When we got into class today, everyone was worried (all 9) and not a single person thought they passed. When we asked the professor about the test her reply was "... Idk what happened, they were all awful."

I'm sorry, but if I was a professor and 9 very well rounded, driven students bomb your first test, I would wonder what was wrong with me before I wonder what's wrong with the students.

So now there are several people wanting to drop because they had no idea it was going to be this bad. Is genetics really this hard or is the professor just making it harder than it has to be? If med school is this difficult I might as well just go be a janitor (not really).

Has anyone else had a similar experience.

Some genetics professor our notorious for making exam really hard. Does your school curve?

 

[bcurtis]

To be honest I don't know. My chemistries and biologies were never curved. I sure hope she curves, if not I guess we're all doomed. Why do you say genetics professor are notorious for that?

Some genetics professor our notorious for making exam really hard. Does your school curve?

 

[AlteredScale]

How many students were in your chem and bio courses?

Well I know some just want to make very difficult word problems and essay-style questions. At UCSD there's a good handful of genetics professors who are like that and the average is like 40-60% on each exam haha.

The thing is is that it's a class of 400 so there has to be a curve. They can't fail 400 students. (technically they could but that would be insane.)

 

[bcurtis]

I can't remember an exact amount, but I do know that the most students I've ever had in a class with me was ~40ish. My Bio and Chem classes were less than that.

How many students were in your chem and bio courses?

Well I know some just want to make very difficult word problems and essay-style questions. At UCSD there's a good handful of genetics professors who are like that and the average is like 40-60% on each exam haha.

The thing is is that it's a class of 400 so there has to be a curve. They can't fail 400 students. (technically they could but that would be insane.)

 

[BactiDoc]

My genetics class has 18 students and our first exam is next week.....I'll let you know how it goes. Oh and the syllabus clearly states "no curving"....awesome.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

They probably curve at the end. So everyone is failing all of the tests so the class average is say a 40% or something. But then they add on 40% onto the final grade. So the average becomes a B. 4/9 people get a B, 1 fails, 2 get a C, 2 get an A. Thats about how it went for Pchem and Biochem at my school. Ask around to your upper classman about it.

 

[bcurtis]

Oh $&@#! Let me know how it goes lol

My genetics class has 18 students and our first exam is next week.....I'll let you know how it goes. Oh and the syllabus clearly states "no curving"....awesome.

 

[BactiDoc]

Oh $&@#! Let me know how it goes lol

Will do. We have about 3-4 quizzes per week as well, no one has mentioned how they are doing on those.

 

[bcurtis]

Ok thanks for the advice, I'll keep you guys posted on how it goes.

They probably curve at the end. So everyone is failing all of the tests so the class average is say a 40% or something. But then they add on 40% onto the final grade. So the average becomes a B. 4/9 people get a B, 1 fails, 2 get a C, 2 get an A. Thats about how it went for Pchem and Biochem at my school. Ask around to your upper classman about it.

Hopefully those quizzes will overlap to the test!

Will do. We have about 3-4 quizzes per week as well, no one has mentioned how they are doing on those.

 

[Goro]

This is exactly what I think when I see results like this. The problem is indeed with the Professor, or the test, and not the students. Is the Professor a rookie? Will she go over the exam????

I'm sorry, but if I was a professor and 9 very well rounded, driven students bomb your first test, I would wonder what was wrong with me before I wonder what's wrong with the students.

 

[bcurtis]

She isn't a rookie at all. I talked to some students that took the same class with her last semester and they said the tests were ridiculous. She will probably go over the test Friday so I guess we will see the damage. I just hope there is some sort of "justice" for us haha

This is exactly what I think when I see results like this. The problem is indeed with the Professor, or the test, and not the students. Is the Professor a rookie? Will she go over the exam????

I'm sorry, but if I was a professor and 9 very well rounded, driven students bomb your first test, I would wonder what was wrong with me before I wonder what's wrong with the students.

 

[Goro]

If she's a hard test giver, best to figure out exactly what she wants from you.

She isn't a rookie at all. I talked to some students that took the same class with her last semester and they said the tests were ridiculous. She will probably go over the test Friday so I guess we will see the damage. I just hope there is some sort of "justice" for us haha

 

[bcurtis]

Yeah lol I guess we all have to decipher this before the next exam. Just another hoop to jump though I suppose 😀

If she's a hard test giver, best to figure out exactly what she wants from you.

 

[PlaqueBuster]

Genetics is not hard. Probably the professor made the tests hard. Did you recognize any questions from textbook or class practices? Many times the questions on tests should not be things you have never seen before, but different versions of those you have worked on.

 

[bcurtis]

Some things we've all seen a million times, but the question was way too broad. Ex: compose a well written essay on RNA. And Write a well written essay on tumor suppressors.

I could have talked all day about both of these, and she has the audacity to say that our answers were too general.

Lol see what I'm saying?

Genetics is not hard. Probably the professor made the tests hard. Did you recognize any questions from textbook or class practices? Many times the questions on tests should not be things you have never seen before, but different versions of those you have worked on.

 

[BactiDoc]

Some things we've all seen a million times, but the question was way too broad. Ex: compose a well written essay on RNA. And Write a well written essay on tumor suppressors.

I could have talked all day about both of these, and she has the audacity to say that our answers were too general.

Lol see what I'm saying?

Ewww, essays?! Our last class the prof told the entire class that the exam is going to be hard, about 13-15 pages, and that usually the class average is between a 50-65. Wednesday can't come fast enough.

 

[bcurtis]

Now that the semester is coming to a close, how's your genetics class been?

Ewww, essays?! Our last class the prof told the entire class that the exam is going to be hard, about 13-15 pages, and that usually the class average is between a 50-65. Wednesday can't come fast enough.

 

[BactiDoc]

Hey! Not so bad actually. Labs are cake and because there were so many snow days we ended up with an online exam for our second exam. 75% of the class failed the first exam but I'm holding an A. So far so good.
How is yours?

 

[bcurtis]

So far so good. The test I wrote this thread on was given back to us in two parts and we all did WAYYY better the second time around. I'm holding a low A~high B right now. We all have a huge paper on gene expression coming up so hopefully that'll put me in A range.

 

[BactiDoc]

Awesome. We have a paper on genetic linkage and stuff. But he broke it up into sections so at the end we just have to price it together.

 

[bcurtis]

Doesn't sound too terrible. Well good luck on everything, hope you end the semester with an A!

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

My 4th year behavioral neuroscience lab was like that. 12 ppl and long classes and tests entirely driven by asinine lab work. Our test was designed to not be passable and time constraints unreal I.e no one finished the last question and every question was design in detail an experiment for proving a particular postulate.

When I got my test back my professor gave me a 50% because he claimed he couldn't read my handwritting.

I basically told him outright you gave me an unreal time constraint and then claimed that you're unhappy that my writing is a bit rushed?

I inevitably dropped the course however. I genuinely realized that it was such a catastrophic class and that I wasn't learning anything. It genuinely made me no longer want anything to do with behavioral neurosciences

Some classes are just a catastrophe and others are more tolerable. That's just the way UG is.

 

[bcurtis]

Oh my... I think I would've jumped off a bridge after dealing with that. At least genetics isn't THAT hard lol

My 4th year behavioral neuroscience lab was like that. 12 ppl and long classes and tests entirely driven by asinine lab work. Our test was designed to not be passable and time constraints unreal I.e no one finished the last question and every question was design in detail an experiment for proving a particular postulate.

When I got my test back my professor gave me a 50% because he claimed he couldn't read my handwritting.

I basically told him outright you gave me an unreal time constraint and then claimed that you're unhappy that my writing is a bit rushed?

I inevitably dropped the course however. I genuinely realized that it was such a catastrophic class and that I wasn't learning anything. It genuinely made me no longer want anything to do with behavioral neurosciences

Some classes are just a catastrophe and others are more tolerable. That's just the way UG is.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Oh my... I think I would've jumped off a bridge after dealing with that. At least genetics isn't THAT hard lol

I essentially should have jumped from that course the first day of lab. It wasn't worth it and it wasn't valuable.

It was a waste of my time and it genuinely threatened my chances of getting into medical school.

 

[bcurtis]

I feel your pain. Genetics has single handily made me question if I even want to attempt medical school :-/

I essentially should have jumped from that course the first day of lab. It wasn't worth it and it wasn't valuable.

It was a waste of my time and it genuinely threatened my chances of getting into medical school.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I feel your pain. Genetics has single handily made me question if I even want to attempt medical school :-/

Meh, in my case it made me want to do medical school even more to avoid dealing with asinine models of random crap. I don't care about how an insect feature detects and it's implications. Sorry, not sorry.

 

[FCMike11]

Hey! Not so bad actually. Labs are cake and because there were so many snow days we ended up with an online exam for our second exam. 75% of the class failed the first exam but I'm holding an A. So far so good.
How is yours?

Didn't know if this was universal or not. My lab is a total cakewalk, especially compared to organic. The lecture is some intense molecular bio though. Didn't really anticipate that coming in. Second test average was 69 (made an 87 myself, very surprised)

 

[gabbieR6]

I got a C in genetics the first time around. I took it again three years later at the same school and got an A. They changed the teaching method inbetween my first and second try because too many kids were failing. The year I got a C, 20% of the class failed and that was AFTER the curve. Genetics sucks.

Having said all of that, if I had the opportunity to do it all over again I would have dropped the course the first time and taken it with a better teacher. I can't imagine a genetics exam that is all written. Only half of my exams were written and it was emotionally exhausting.

The lab portion was ridiculously easy though!

 

[BactiDoc]

I feel your pain. Genetics has single handily made me question if I even want to attempt medical school :-/

I actually enjoy genetics.....I know....weirdo. 🙂

 

[BactiDoc]

Didn't know if this was universal or not. My lab is a total cakewalk, especially compared to organic. The lecture is some intense molecular bio though. Didn't really anticipate that coming in. Second test average was 69 (made an 87 myself, very surprised)

Are you in my class?? Lol.

 

[bcurtis]

Yeah, we're three tests in at this point and every single one of them have been ~10 multiple choice and ~10-15 essay questions. We take our tests in lab because no one can finish in time during normal lecture time.

I got a C in genetics the first time around. I took it again three years later at the same school and got an A. They changed the teaching method inbetween my first and second try because too many kids were failing. The year I got a C, 20% of the class failed and that was AFTER the curve. Genetics sucks.

Having said all of that, if I had the opportunity to do it all over again I would have dropped the course the first time and taken it with a better teacher. I can't imagine a genetics exam that is all written. Only half of my exams were written and it was emotionally exhausting.

The lab portion was ridiculously easy though!

 

[FCMike11]

Are you in my class?? Lol.

Don't think so, no written portions of tests in my class! (Thank god, that'd be a b*tch)

 

[FCMike11]

Yeah, we're three tests in at this point and every single one of them have been ~10 multiple choice and ~10-15 essay questions. We take our tests in lab because no one can finish in time during normal lecture time.

My teacher is RIDICULOUS. We have our exams, always > 60 questions, and we do them in lecture time. Which is only 50 questions. Only class I've ever taken that I've felt a time crunch on exams.

 

[BactiDoc]

We take ours during lab and some questions are so lengthy that they are worth 25 points! BS! Of course we have lab after which makes for the longest class ever!!!

 

[bcurtis]

Very similar to mine. Sucks big time!

We take ours during lab and some questions are so lengthy that they are worth 25 points! BS! Of course we have lab after which makes for the longest class ever!!!

 

[Oh_Gee]

How many students were in your chem and bio courses?

Well I know some just want to make very difficult word problems and essay-style questions. At UCSD there's a good handful of genetics professors who are like that and the average is like 40-60% on each exam haha.

The thing is is that it's a class of 400 so there has to be a curve. They can't fail 400 students. (technically they could but that would be insane.)

Fellow triton! Who'd you have for genetics? I had Dr. Yelon and got a C+. Retook it 2 years later with Dr. Smith and got an A. Sigh. Yelon was mad hard IMO. or maybe I was just too immature at the time

 

[AlteredScale]

Fellow triton! Who'd you have for genetics? I had Dr. Yelon and got a C+. Retook it 2 years later with Dr. Smith and got an A. Sigh. Yelon was mad hard IMO. or maybe I was just too immature at the time

I did take Yelon! She was a beast. Didn't expect much less from someone who graduate from Harvard and does a post-doc at UCSF haha.

 

[Oh_Gee]

I did take Yelon! She was a beast. Didn't expect much less from someone who graduate from Harvard and does a post-doc at UCSF haha.

I was not a fan 🙁
at least our exams weren't essays lol. I feel like that's more for Ph.D and MS programs, no? Or is UCSD undergrad not as hard as I thought it was
Congrats on your acceptance btw!

 

[AlteredScale]

I was not a fan 🙁
at least our exams weren't essays lol. I feel like that's more for Ph.D and MS programs, no? Or is UCSD undergrad not as hard as I thought it was
Congrats on your acceptance btw!

Most of the upper div. bio I've taken here at UCSD have been second order and MAYBE some third order...it depends on the course.

I would say Pharmacology, Immunology, and Medical Microbiology were the toughest courses I took based on exams.

Thanks a ton! Good luck with your application cycle and please feel free to use any and all of the resources here on the forum 🙂

 

[moonwake]

I had a similar experience in undergrad. Our genetics class at BYU is only 2 credits and I took 21 credits that semester. That 2 credit class required more studying than 2-3 of my classes combined. The multiple choice answers would be A-J and it would be really heavily math based. Answer choices would be like (after 20-30mins of calculations). Which is the answer?

A) .000312 B) .000314 B) .000321 C) .000324 D) .000333

Etc. basically if you did any rounding errors like you have in chemistry/physics with sig figs it would give you any of these answers. Not to mention the problems were just freaking hard to begin with. I'd rather take the MCAT again than do that class...

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I had a similar experience in undergrad. Our genetics class at BYU is only 2 credits and I took 21 credits that semester. That 2 credit class required more studying than 2-3 of my classes combined. The multiple choice answers would be A-J and it would be really heavily math based. Answer choices would be like (after 20-30mins of calculations). Which is the answer?

A) .000312 B) .000314 B) .000321 C) .000324 D) .000333

Etc. basically if you did any rounding errors like you have in chemistry/physics with sig figs it would give you any of these answers. Not to mention the problems were just freaking hard to begin with. I'd rather take the MCAT again than do that class...

There is major fault within the system when your tests are like that. It's not testing you on practical understanding and application of genetics to the greater body of biology. It is simply punishing the students for being in a class that inherently lacks whole intricate material.

I mean within science and engineering I think this really is becoming a major issue. You cannot continue to force departments to feel like they need to make tests harder just because it is seen to be more prestigious to have less As in your class. It's honestly no longer a genuine issue of grade inflation. It's an issue of the fact that kids are coming into classes already knowing significant amounts of material due to it being now far more 'common sense'.

 

[Vanillabeaneo]

.

 

[moonwake]

There is major fault within the system when your tests are like that. It's not testing you on practical understanding and application of genetics to the greater body of biology. It is simply punishing the students for being in a class that inherently lacks whole intricate material.

I mean within science and engineering I think this really is becoming a major issue. You cannot continue to force departments to feel like they need to make tests harder just because it is seen to be more prestigious to have less As in your class. It's honestly no longer a genuine issue of grade inflation. It's an issue of the fact that kids are coming into classes already knowing significant amounts of material due to it being now far more 'common sense'.

I totally agree. Conceptually I lost any love for the subject because of how tedious the homework and tests were. I liked genetics (when I took it as an elective at a previous UG that didnt transfer over).

But the school I went to had a lot of classes like that where they only wanted crazy people or people with a ridiculous amount of time to get A's in them. I unfortunately was neither 😳

You know, genetics at my school is notoriously known as the hardest biology class we offer, but I personally had trouble with immunology instead. I loved genetics and found it to be rather easy. My classmates were always freaking out about the next genetics test.

Genetics ended up being one of my interview topics, too. The interviewers were telling me classes they thought I should take and one of them was genetics so I told them I was taking it that very semester. They were pleased and asked me how I liked it. "I love it!" I said. Then their faces were so happy and congratulatory. It was funny. After the interview the dean of admissions shook my hand and said "Don't worry about a thing." Haha! Genetics memories...

I imagine if people went to Ivy league institutions few people would be like "I love this!" My cousin went Ivy league premed and still managed to graduate with honors but I heard him every week telling me the craziest stories about how their teachers were on power trips and had something to prove in a form of punishing their students. A completely different education experience if you ask me.

 

[FCMike11]

My professor is the type to squeak in as many freaking chapters as possible, including lab time and also the lecture immediately before the test. He also does a good bit of true/false/matching/--all or some or none of the above so he can include as much information as possible. Really draining and to have to complete his exams in50 minutes.