HMB - Human Biology Courses
A&S Human Biology Course Descriptions
HMB265H1- Human & General Genetics
French, Malcolm
Same as bch210. Great, really interesting course. I just wish we didn't have to pay for last year's mistakes. Oh well, exam should be fun.
HMB305H1 - Modern Science
Shubassi and Others
This
was actually not a bad course. Basically you learn about major forces
in the last 100 or so years of science - women and men - and talk about
their discoveries and controversies. I liked learning about the people
and all the details. What I didn't like was the ambiguous M/C on the
first test and part marks off at every question (25%). There was also
an assignment where you prepare to interview a researcher at UofT on
video, then edit it (15%). Exam was 45% and it was interesting b/c they
didn't test you on any facts... it was all interpreting and
application, which I wasn't exactly preparing for. Overall, this course
throws you some curve balls on the tests, but it wasn't that bad. Staff
were okay, the coordinator is really nice. Expect a lot of input from
Prof. Watt though on the tests/assignments.
HMB310H1 - Neuroscience Lab
Taverna
Marking Scheme: 55% labs, 25% poster, 10% participation, 10% pre-lab quizzes.
Program requirement. Disorganized and I felt the lab write-ups could have been better. Not as stressful as people make it out to be and overall I enjoyed the actual labs for the most part, decently represenative of neuroscience. I think this course will get better as the organization of it gets better. Lab marking seemed random.
HMB320H1- Neuroanatomy
Marking Scheme: 25% midterm, 25% midterm #2, 20% bell-ringer and 30% final, all cumulative.
Also program requirement. I <3 this class. Being evaluated every 2 weeks or so really makes you keep up with the class work. It is easy to study for because you know what you will be tested on, no suprises, and the knowledge just builds up because it is all one topic! So it is not frusturating in that sense of feeling like it is a bunch of random pieces of information. I LOVE the labs, been waiting to teach a real human brain since highschool (yup, nerd!). Very clear as to what we are responsible for knowing. Great lectures. Sitting at an A- here as well.
HMB420H1 - Seminar in Human Behavioral Biology
Franco Taverna
Marking Scheme: Midterm (25%), Powerpoint presentation (10%), Grant proposal writing assignment (20%), Final exam (35%), Participation (10%)
Overall Opinion: This course is essentially a series of lectures by various researchers in the field of dementia. You'll get 4 or 5 different researchers that will discuss their research and dementia in general. While the course may be unstructured at times, it is a valuable learning experience. The material is interesting and examines extremely recent discoveries in the field of dementia. The course also has a few lecturers that look into a more social aspect of dementia. At first I thought that would bore the crap out of me, but the manner in which these aspects were analyzed was very scientific and quite interesting. The grant proposal assignment involves you designing an experiment and writing a proposal as if you were to be a masters student. Overall, it is an interesting course. Writing a grant proposal is a very valuable thng to do as an undergrad for anyone looking to go in to research. Franco is not terribly difficult with the marking and so it is not that difficult to do well.
Rating: 4/5
HMB430H1 - Trends in Neuroscience
Franco Taverna
Marking Scheme: Midterm (25%), Final Exam (35%), Participation (10%), 2 short presentations (5% each), critical analysis of a piece of recent literature including a paper and short presentation (20%)
Overall Opinion: Once again, hit or miss with Franco. The course is similar to HMB430 in structure (series of guest lecturers discussing their research). However, the topics are much more broad (covering nervous system development, spinal cord injury treatment using stem cells, rehabiliation using prosthetics and various other things). There is a ton more to learn from this course compared to the other. However, you'll find yourself bored at times depending on which fields you are interested in. Again, Franco includes an assignment (the critique) that is very valuable to perform as an undergrad. Being able to critically analyze literature is vital. This course does have a fairly decent workload. Each week there are required readings (typically journal articles) and some of them were as long as ~100 pgs for a week. But of course, Franco isn't a terribly difficult marker so you can do well if you put in the effort.
Incredible learning experience if you study the right way -> enforces mastering/understanding of PSL302 material in a very nice way (and in my opinion goes much further since you do your own homework and can get as detailed as far as you want).
Rating: 4/5
HMB470H1 - Exercise and Sports Medicine (20L, 4S)
Was pretty lame too. We learned some new stuff I didn't know about, that was nice and I liked the fact that our evaluation was spread out (test, group presentation + group essay, exam, participation?) But I really didn't like his notes. They were very disorganized imo and took a lot of effort to understand them. But then again, I attended a max of 2 classes I think lol. Even with the recordings though, notes aren't better. Although I think his test+exam questions were fair, not sure about the marking though since we didn't get to check out our only test. Haven't gotten exam back, so can't comment on how that was marked. I can say one thing though, after this course I crossed out physiotherapy as a future career option.
