For the Love of Biology

So I think I’m finally getting a hang of college, famous last words, but I feel like by my next exams I’ll be golden, not like A+ golden, but just a lot better than my first two exams were. My first exams for bio and chemistry I didn’t study enough, my second chemistry exam I studied a lot for, but now I know the only other thing I’ll need to do is practice more equations and math chemistry problems. Right now/this weekend I’ve been hard-core studying for biology, my next exam is Wednesday and I need to do a lot better on. Except I realized that I’m now spending all this time trying to understand the chapter, when that is something I should have done a lot sooner, and then I could actually study right now. It’s taken me about two-three hours to understand/summarize the important parts of one chapter, which is RIDICULOUS. But, now I know that next time I should type out my summaries, like I’m doing now, while I read the chapter for that day and seriously my life would be ninety five percent easier right now.

I’m going to blame my unsuccessfulness and need to reread every word of the chapter even though I took notes about terms the first time I read it on my biology professor, haha, just like you’re never supposed to blame someone else. But I just despise him. I’m counting down the days until winter break just so I know I don’t have to go back to his class again.

I know this whole life isn’t fair thing that everyone talks about, but I hate how much work I have in that class compared to my roommate, who is taking the same class with a different professor. Sometimes I just wish that all the homework and the exams across each course were standardized. They are in my math class and I feel like that just makes sense. My first biology test raped me, it was the hardest test I’ve ever taken, granted it was my second test in college and now I’m at a whole other level, but my roommate said hers was so easy. Hers was simple spitting out definitions and mine was about applying information, something I’ve been notoriously horrible at. And once your grades are published your grade isn’t curved according to how hard you professors are, or a grad school doesn’t look at it and say “oh, she got a C in biology, but oh it was with Buikema, he’s the hardest so we understand.”

Oh well I guess I only have six more weeks left with him and then the final exam, and like I said I’m getting used to his work load, and now I know how I need to prepare for tests earlier. Or I hope I now know how to prepare for tests earlier, me spending three hours per chapter could still be the wrong way to study and I still could just have no idea how to apply my newly acquired knowledge and then I would scream, literally.

Our student TA was talking to us on Friday during our little review session at Deets, that he’s one of the hardest teachers we’ll have, and he does it to weed out the other biology majors. I don’t understand though because, I’m NOT A BIOLOGY MAJOR here buddy, I’m just taking the class, so I would prefer to not be weeded out thank you. She also said that whatever biology class we take next year will be a piece of cake, but once again I’m not going to take biology next year and I think I’d much rather have my work load at a steady pace.

I was trying to figure out my schedule for next semester and I went to ratemyprofessor.com and searched every biology professor I could have. I picked the one with the best reviews after reading a good number of them and then planned my entire schedule around that one biology class. Whether this is a good idea or a bad idea I guess I won’t know yet, but all I know is that I was sick of dedicating so much of my life to it because, it wasn’t only the homework that was ridiculous, I went to class and learned absolutely nothing at all. He talks to fast for you to write anything down, he would add extra information to the slides that you would also try to speed write down, and then at the end of class he would just ask us some questions that were application questions, but wouldn’t show up on the test or help my brain apply it anywhere else.

I’m going to take Simmons next semester; I almost jumped for joy when my advisor told me that I didn’t have to have the same professor for the same class. People commented on how he was one of the best teachers they’d ever had, I guess all I have to do now is hope that I actually get into the class.

For the rest of my classes it took me a really long time to decide where I’m going to put things. There were just way too many decisions to make and variables to account for. I also need to pick a class that goes to the core curriculum to get some of those things knocked out of the way. I’ll have 18 credit hours after I do that, but I’m hoping that just a lecture class on psychology or something won’t be that hard. I could just be being completely naive though but really, my brain would gladly accept listening to something that wasn’t about chemicals or cellular respiration or calculus. Last Thursday I went to a seminar on public speaking just for the heck of it and even though it wasn’t that enlightening, it was the basic don’t mess with you hair or put your hands in your pockets, it was really nice to listen to something simple.

How are you schedules looking for next semester easier or harder? Or better or worse? Or more fun or less fun?