Friday, 1 January 2016

LSM2103 - Cell Biology

Type: Core Module
Difficulty: Hard
Workload: Heavy
Lecturer(s): Thilo & Sudhakar & Ee Sin
Assessment: Assignments (Diagram Drawing, Video), IVLE Quizzes, Open book Finals

A big jump from LSM1301, this module focuses heavily on much more advanced biology. There is an emphasis in the ability to interpret experimental results and form conclusions from methods like the western blot and microscope images.

As this module is taken with life science students, you would already be expected to know quite a lot of scientific jargon such as "RNA Knockout Mice", "Wild Type Mice" as well as many abbreviations such as "SHOC2", "Alexa Fluor-594", "ABCA1-GFP" and "ABCA1".

During the first lecture, it was as though I was sitting in a korean language class without knowing korean. The lecturer was spewing out the abovementioned jargon and terms ever so often and I could not understand anything at all.

Thilo is known for looking like Gru in the despicable me movie. The video assignment in particular takes up quite some time, but you may find many examples on youtube if you search "LSM2103". Thilo is looking for correctness, but he also emphasizes heavily on design. He particularly likes interesting-concept videos, so please do not use the following 2 video concepts unless you are super super good at it as they are overused by students in this module:

  • Whiteboard Presentations
    • Please no, do not use such video concepts such as videoscribe or powtoon. Those videos which features a virtual hand which draws and erases the whiteboard contents are simply overused by everybody!
  • Hand drawn video
    • These videos are a fast forward time lapse of a real person hand drawing diagrams and presentation on a sheet of paper in front of the camera. Unless you are a super good drawer, please do not use this as this concept gets really boring because it is overused too.

This module is not easy in my opinion. You have to learn interpretation skills, and this can only come with practice. Pure hardcore muggers will not do well in this module as you can never study application skills. The finals are open book, so I printed this Molecular Cell Biology Glossary for the finals, just in case you encounter some unknown terms. This is highly recommended as it was a life saver for me.

* A Hint: Especially for bioengineering students, it is highly recommended that you follow the pace of all lectures. If you do not understand a lecture, DO NOT fall behind. Rather seek to understand by reading up more. It takes a lot of effort, but it is possible. I did not take Biology in JC, yet I still managed to score fairly okay. The finals is open book 

Expected Grade: C+
Achieved Grade: B+

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