Hey everyone, just wanted to give a detailed review UNE's online Medical Biochemistry that I just completed. I have many thoughts so hope this is helpful. I ended up with an A in the class.
First, I thought this class was a death sentence based on the reviews. Please don't panic. I was extremely intimidated by it. I had not taken a chemistry class in years and orgo was a complete disaster for me so I thought I was screwed. There are 4 Units. Graded stuff--Each Unit has a discussion board, written assignment, and 30 question MC quiz that is not proctored. There are 2 proctored exams- Midterm (Unit 1 & 2) and Final (Unit 3 &4) , 50 MC questions each. I will outline how I got an A in this class, of course many different learning styles so might not be what works best for you.
At first I was watching each video while taking notes, trying to answer the weekly objectives, and following study guide.. and I was looking up things I didn't know or terms during the videos. Total waste of time and took forever. This class is not hard AT ALL IMO. You just need to be strategic. Take the study guide while you watch the videos and write down stuff on the study guide that she mentions in the videos that aren't on the guide. A 7 minute video should take you 20 minutes. Try to understand the things on the video and go back to something if you get lost. Then with the objectives look for things missing from the study guide and include that. For example, random health conditions she wants you to know might be on objectives but not study guide. Know those conditions/deficiency's and their symptoms. The weekly quizzes (not graded) are exactly the same format on the Unit quizzes (graded) and midterm and final. You can also use quizlet to find more practice question examples from UNE MC. I spent probably 2-4 hours studying A DAY during Unit 1 & 2, and got a B+ on midterm. On Unit 3& 4 I maybe spent 4 hours A WEEK on the material. I still got a B+ on final. I received 100's on every other graded thing (High A's for Unit Quizzes though). Make sure your case connection written assignment is perfect- those probably took me 5 hours for each assignment. Work hard to get 100's or near 100 on everything and you can relax for midterm and final.
The first Unit I was completely panicking. It was definitely the toughest to get through mentally. I thought I was screwed. It was tough as someone with no previous memory of orgo/chem and there were a lot of background things I didn't understand. I got hung up on trying to figure out all that background stuff. Don't do that. Basically, you need to watch the videos for the entire week through. Sometimes the material doesn't make any sense unless you get through the entire week or Unit to put it all together. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do NOT get hung up on trying to figure out all the background things. Unit 1 included a lot of random crap like protein structure, hemoglobin, etc, catabolism/anabolism, covalent modifications... it was all very confusing. Much more abstract and thought provoking/conceptualizing than the future units which are mostly straight pathways. You seriously won't be using much of Unit 1 at all so just get through it and try to understand the conceptual stuff at the end.
Unit 2, 3, 4 are so much better. It is a ton of pathways. I would say Unit 2 is the most important Unit to be confident in. That will help you a lot in 3 and 4, but again isn't required, just will help. The pathways are actually pretty easy. Yes there are like 15 of them usually with 5-10 enzymes per pathway which you have to know each enzyme's inhibitors and activators (usually 1-3 per enzyme), but just take it pathway by pathway. I honestly just wrote the pathways down on paper and their activators like 5 times and I had it memorized well enough and sometimes looked at pictures. I just reviewed that visually before exams and was fine. ***I cannot emphasize this enough with pathways*** Most of the time you will have no idea where the **** this NADH or random substrate is coming from, don't sweat it. Just know its there and don't think too hard about it. MEMORIZE AND PUT THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE TOGETHER. It will click. Sooooo many of that pathways are taught completely separated in a confusing way where you have no idea where the hell this or that enzyme is coming from. Don't worry about it. Just accept it. Sometimes you learn later where it comes from and sometimes you don't (this class is poorly structured in the order it presents information.. for example it taught ETC first, then TCA cycle, then Glycolysis... completely ridiculous order).
Learn to find trends in questions they will ask based on the weekly quizzes and the Unit exams. There are no curveballs, the questions will be similar format/style on the midterm and final. This can help you pick out the information you need and not get stuck in the overwhelming load of information. Again this is multiple choice. This is very different from a written exam. **You really need to just recognize something, not have it completely memorized perfectly if that makes sense**. It's all about memory recall when you see a question. Make sure you know those inhibitors and activators along with enzyme steps. I personally found Unit 4 to be actually on the more difficult side, its protein synthesis/ pyrimidine purine stuff. Even though it's pathways it's just harder than the other Units. You can complete this class in less than 16 weeks. I barely spent anytime after the midterm and finished 2 weeks early. I was able to get through a week of material in a few hours. Again, at the end all I did was watch the videos once, wrote on the study guide, and looked at pathway pictures/write pathways some. The objectives eat a huge chunk of time away and not worth it IMO. Only worth it to see if there is random stuff not mentioned in video or study guide. BTW, we did not have to memorize all the amino acids. Just a few at the end of Unit 4.
Hope this helps someone sorry it's not very short! This is an extremely doable class to get an A in. Feel free to message me if you have any questions
