Microbiology

[paperaeroplane]

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Has anyone taken this course? How hard is it (I know it depends on your professor, but is the material itself very difficult?)? I ask because I am thinking of taking at as a one month long summer course....However, I haven't taken Biology I, just Biology II and A&P 1 and 2, so I am familiar with physiology, but not as familiar with cellular and molecular biology. Would you recommend me taking Biology I before taking this course, or is it not necessary?

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

How'd you take a&p without bio 1. Well I think microbiology is considered one of the easier sciences, but that being said. Without a good grasp of cellular biology you'll without a doubt be screwed.

 

[paperaeroplane]

At my school, you can take A&P I and II without taking Bio I, you just need Bio II (bc our Bio II is mostly physiology)...I couldn't take Bio I before Bio II because to take Bio I you had to have taken Gen Chem and I was taking it while I was taking Bio II. Lol, sorry if that confuses you, it confuses me too, but I am guessing now that Bio I is integral to doing well in Micro (although the only prereq you need is either A&PI or II, or Bio I or Bio II).

 

[CookDeRosa]

Has anyone taken this course? How hard is it (I know it depends on your professor, but is the material itself very difficult?)? I ask because I am thinking of taking at as a one month long summer course....However, I haven't taken Biology I, just Biology II and A&P 1 and 2, so I am familiar with physiology, but not as familiar with cellular and molecular biology. Would you recommend me taking Biology I before taking this course, or is it not necessary?

>>


I'm just finishing microbiology and I loved it. I had taken intro bio which was the prereq for AP1 and then AP2, so I also didn't have general bio behind me. Totally don't need it. (I'm finishing with 97%, so clearly gen bio sequence not necessary) I'm doing my general biologies this fall/spring. Enjoy!!
*I would say this isn't a class for the squeamish lol, it's awesome though.

 

[MidnightSun32]

I absolutely loved this class. I didn't think it was difficult. I took a ten week session with a professor that assigned a lot of extra work and still don't think it was hard. Usually I learn best with flash cards, but for this class I just read the chapters/ class notes and learned from the labs. I wouldn't say that I needed the bio sequence for this class, but it was at least helpful! I took this class at the same time as A&P and I would say A&P was more difficult than microbiology.

 

[TFS]

memorization heavy.

 

[CookDeRosa]

I absolutely loved this class. I didn't think it was difficult. I took a ten week session with a professor that assigned a lot of extra work and still don't think it was hard. Usually I learn best with flash cards, but for this class I just read the chapters/ class notes and learned from the labs. I wouldn't say that I needed the bio sequence for this class, but it was at least helpful! I took this class at the same time as A&P and I would say A&P was more difficult than microbiology.

>>

I agree, my AP2 was brutal (?) but I found this class kinda fun. Ours wasn't memorization heavy, so my experience was diff than TFS.

 

[Azrie]

Basic Microbiology? That's pretty easy stuff. (I might be biased -- I was a Microbiology major.) Plenty of memorization, which can be problematic if you're not good at that. Taking biology first may make the class a bit easier, though. Then again, from what I remember, General Biology was a generally useless class..

It really depends on the professor teaching the microbiology course. I'd ask some former students what they thought. 🙄

 

[smarttee88]

Has anyone taken this course? How hard is it (I know it depends on your professor, but is the material itself very difficult?)? I ask because I am thinking of taking at as a one month long summer course....However, I haven't taken Biology I, just Biology II and A&P 1 and 2, so I am familiar with physiology, but not as familiar with cellular and molecular biology. Would you recommend me taking Biology I before taking this course, or is it not necessary?

As you stated, the difficulty of this class depends heavily on your professor. My friends from other schools say this class was one of the easiest sciences that they have taken thus far. However, at my school (a community college), everyone that I have ever asked about micro told me that it was extremely difficult and most students don't complete the course with anything higher than a B (most with a C). I haven't yet taken the class myself, but I plan to do so in the spring.

 

[mitchlucker]

One of my hardest classes. Really memorization heavy. Usually I get away with knowing some facts but how to use them, how they interact, but this was just stupid. Like, not important stuff either, tests were hit or miss. On one of our tests we had 2 questions (out of 40) asking us to identify the correct bat (as in animal) that 2 viruses were likely to be found in. Like: This virus is most commonly found in this species of bat. When these notes were literally one line of about 20 of a specific virus, when you were tested on genetics of a virus, pathology, etc. It was absolutely dumb. All memorization. Class proved NOTHING as to how intelligent you were, just how much time you had to study. I'm pretty bitter because it yielded my first B+ of my college career just due to the amount of inane memorization that my professors tested.

 

[Poliscidoc]

Microbiology

Lab= fun not to bad a **** load of gram staining

Class= shoot me please, memorization is the key

 

[xPersephone]

I would ask students who took micro at your school, it depends on the professor. I'm surprised people are saying it was one of their easiest classes, because it was one of my hardest. In my class, we constantly had projects that left me in the lab working late. Exams and lab reports were brutal.

 

[Hydrogen5040]

Mircro was definatley difficult at my school. The class was really memorization intensive. All the materials for the final for one semester could barely fit in a 4 inch binder (and my notes were typed). Labs got out really late. At my school you can't take mircro without Bio I or Cell/Molec, but it would probably be possible to do well in micro without either of these classes if you put some extra time in.

But the good news was it was a really interesting class. Good luck!

 

[Practitioner]

Depends more on you than professor. I feel like anyone could have taught me the material and I would have done well in it.

Although memorization is not my preferred method of studying, and micro required a lot of that (had several tables memorized, none of which I can recall now), the material was interesting enough for me to do well. The lab helped a lot too and was very fun (I was trying to grow stuff from my toothbrush, pencils, hair, urine, anything I could think of.)