TESTIMONIALS

The course has two professors and focuses on two main themes: evolution and ecology. It is primarily lecture-based, and broadly covers some fundamental topics in biology. While these subjects don't directly relate to the health sciences, they form the basis of understanding more advanced concepts in biology (such as antibiotic resistance, drug development, virology, etc). The course reviews a fair amount of high school-level biology concepts, but also incorporates significant amount of new content as well. It has two midterms, an exam, and a problem-based learning project, where students work in groups to analyze a pressing ecological issue and propose a solution to it (ultimately writing a group report and presenting their findings in-tutorial). The course is well-organized, and the professors provide skeleton outlines for note-taking. The tutorials provide greater information about important/confusing concepts (e.g. phylogenetic trees, Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium), and has straightforward tutorial assignments. Testing is fair, but the wording can be confusing, and sometimes seemingly insignificant details are tested on. The textbook is helpful for the course, as it provides further detail to concepts discussed in-class, and is referenced in tutorial assignments and pre-tutorial quizzes.