Electives at UBC

[Guest davidlam]

Hi,

 

I'm beginning to plan out my course schedule for next year and was wondering if anyone could recommend electives they enjoyed taking. I'm looking to enroll in something that won't bring my average down or use up a lot of my time. Any interesting subjects/courses/profs I should look out for?

 

Thanks,

David

[Guest QG]

I took summer school once at UBC. Phil 120 was good.

[Guest davidlam]

Thanks QG

 

Was there much writing or out-of-class work involved? What about quizzes and tests?

 

Thanks,

David

[Guest not rex morgan]

I took Phil 120 in first year. It was actually known as an elective for engineering students to pull up their grades. No papers. It's called "logic and critical thinking." Our prof was ummm unique, so my experience may not be representitive. We had a midterm and a final. I studied for the final for a total of 2 hours and pulled off an A+. It's not all that interesting of a course, though. Psyc courses can be interesting depending on the prof. Again, depending on the prof, your grade may be pretty good. If you take lower level psyc, you can take the upper levels later and they are interesting. Biopsyc and abnormal psyc are said to be really good courses. I only took one summer course, and it was a practical archeology elective in England. I spent a month digging and got 6 credits. It was an amasing experience. I don't know if they still offer it, but check it out for next summer if you have the resources.

[Guest davidlam]

Hey,

 

Thanks not rex morgan, that archeology elective sounds really interesting - I'll be sure to look into it!

 

Thanks,

David

[Guest not rex morgan]

No worries. It's with the Classical studies department. It's a third year level course. Good luck.

[Guest Ska]

Know of any other really cool courses that don't require a lot of work?

[Guest Helmet33]

ska,

 

One of the best courses I took was a medical ethics HCET 400 that is run through the nursing program. It is full of Dr's, nurses, social workers, and people from every other profession in the hospital. You learn about med ethics on a case by case basis, of course backed up with lots of great lecturers. The course requires you present your assessment of cases in a seminar with 2 others once a month or once every two weeks so there is some work, but it is so facinating and because you apply what you get in your lecture to an seminar session almost right away, there is very little studying. I also found it to be one of the best courses for ethical questions in your interview. It was really constructiuve way to learn how to walk through any scenario that your interviewers give you without getting lost in the emotions of being asked a hard questions. At least I found it worked well for me!!!

 

Hope that helps,

 

Helmet33

[Guest 2ndyear]

Is this a UBC course? Is so, what heading is it listed under in the course listings.

[Guest Helmet33]

This is the actual course number. It is through faculty of nursing but it seems to be available only once a year. I haven't looked to see if the number has changed but I do know that you couln't sign up for it online like other courses when I took it. At that point those outside of the faculty of nursing had to go to the instructor and ask for permission. Don't know if that has changed or not.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Helmet33

[Guest bcdentalgirl]

The easiest A+ can be obtained thru Classical Studies 301 - "Technical terms in medicine and biological sciences". The course consists of memorizing the latin and greek roots to all the words you already know if you're a biology student. Each week you take a webct exam in Buchanon. I never went to class and I pulled off a 95%.

 

Warnig tho: you do have to study, but it's rote memorization - remember grade 3 spelling tests? Same thing!

 

Also, each test is cumulative - this burned a few people. you have to keep up on the old stuff as you learn the new (if I had known this before my second test, I wuld have pulled off 98%!!!)

 

A nice aside: it's actually useful!!

 

Good luck weavin' them baskets!

[Guest bcdentalgirl]

So everyone who's got these sheets gets 100's (or on-purpose 98's like you), and they therefor scale the exam and penalize those who studied for real. This is what I hate about UBC: Pseudo cheating is allowed.

Like I said this is a BASKET WEAVING course. Extensive study notes should not be necessary.

 

Are you even a student? you sound like a salesman.

[Guest not rex morgan]

Must agree with dent girl. These so-called cheat sheets are a gargantuan waste of your money. I got an A+ in the course. I studied it all. It was not that much of a time commitment. I also learned some useful terms. If you cannot manage your time well enough to do this course yourself, please do not apply to medical school. Leave admissions for those that can handle their course loads. Someone do us all a favour. When you pick up your complimentary quiz prep, instead of studying it, drop it in Dr. Sandy's mailbox. Give him the email address too. Databases can be changed.

[Guest UBCmedgrad1999]

Hello all,

 

i recently was browsing through this site and I came upon this topic and it shocked me. i myself being a grad of UBC med know first hand how hard university courses were and still are. Students I found would use any method (short of stealing exams) to give them an edge, and to an extent this is acceptable. The stakes are high and the competition is higher. I mean I remember taking Dr. Sandy's and Dr. Barrett's (I don't know if he is still teaching?) medical latin course and we didn't have these sheets around, at least I didn't because we did all our tests on paper and not on the new WebCT they have implimented.

 

What I am trying to say is that IF there were sheets avaiable to study from for that course or any other course I would have been the first to line up and get one (maybe not pay for one). And who can honestly say that they went through their undergrad years without studying from a past exam, or got help from an older brother, or got help from any resource for that matter. What it comes down to is the moral standing of that person, and to me getting extra help to learn doesn't seem immoral at all.

 

but this is just my belief and those of you can disagree.

 

ps. to the moderator, you being a med student should know that one of the key qualities that aids a doctor is adapting to new challenges and acquiring new knowledge.. just wanted to remind you of that.

[Guest keener]

Hey I'm gonna be taking CLST 301 this winter term. How do I get these sheets? My friend in the summer session used them and she said they helped her alot.

 

2nd year science - biology major

[Guest Jennifer Y]

Why not get them from your friend?? Why waste $3; xeroxing would be less. Even if on red paper you can still do it, just set the xerox machine to read properly, although the machine must be one of those big ones with loaded features. Unless she is not a real friend of your.

[Guest bcdentalgirl]

Hi,

hey, I've got no problem with studying from old exams. What this person seems to be saying though is that he's got 200 potential questions per exam. It sounds fishy since each exam consists of only 30 q's and there is no paper involved. ie. you can't get old exams form students. The fact he said he had to purposely get a couple wrong...why would you do that unless you were doing something wrong???

Look, whatever... if you need a ream of cheat sheets to pass a course that a drunk monkey could do blindfolded, go for it.

[Guest gotanA]

just wanted to add my two cents,

I took clst301 this past summer session1 and i didn't know about any study sheets until Quiz 4. Up to that point I had been getting 80% 50% and 67% on my first 3 quizzes (I know that it's an easy course BUT only if you study and I didn't have time because I was working) anyways I purchased the sheets and they really really helped... i mean I got 95 or 100 on all my other quizzes, except the Unit Tests cause they were a bit harder, but I ended up with an A- .

 

so from my experience these sheets really helped, but I do know others that didn't use them and still got A's too.

 

BTW there is a website that you can get info for these sheets I saw it posted on the chalkboard in Wood IRC (that's where I first learned about the study sheets)

I think the website was: groups.yahoo.com/group/ubc_clst301/

but don't quote me on that.

 

neways.. good luck for the winter term!

[Guest 2ndyear]

Hey CLST 301 salesman, why don't you earn your living decently?

 

I mean all you're doing is promoting cheating. I seriously feel like buying one of your packages and giving it straight to prof, so they can eliminate all this rampant cheating.

 

Honestly, the med school isn't stupid. When they see the course on your transcript, they throw it out and don't use it in your GPA. I mean looks rather obvious when everyone who applies to med has 95 and up in that class. That's something that obviously WASN'T in your salespitch.

 

They know about CLST 301 and how easy it is to get an A+. Even my Biol 112 prof was telling the class they're trying to make it harder, cuz the course is such a joke.

 

By the way, I haven't taken the course and I don't think I will.

 

You're taking advantage of pre-med students with your overly zealous entrepreneurial spirit. Shame on you.

 

The only thing worse than cheating is the people who condone it and support it.

[Guest tookclst301inwinter01]

I took this class last year and Dr. Sandy gives the students sample questions (around 20 or so) in his lecture notebook (that we MUST buy for $20) and on the WEbCT course page. I purchased these study sheets and they are NOT cheat sheets. They only give us more examples of roots and endings together. I found them useful, but I wouldn't consider them cheating because I could have easy looked at my friends notes from the year before and it would have been the same thing. THe T.A.s in the course tell us what is cheating at the beginning of the first class: basically you can't look at other peoples screens, can't bring in foreign material other than a blank paper, and you can't have any electronic devices.

 

If you haven't taken this course yet you shouldn't bad mouth it. I found it very good, and I learned a lot. Even if it was easy, it was worth it, cause my GPA went up and Med schools look at your overall GPA (they do not throw out marks, and even if they can justify throwing out clst301 other canadian medical schools won't know that it is easy and will keep it in the GPA average. What you seem to be implying is that ubc med throws out courses just because they feel they are too easy.. that's rediculous.. you could make that case for any easy arts course or psych course on campus.

 

I think you should take the course and use the sheets, cause like the seller of them said he checked things out with the UBC administrators and also my genetics prof last term was endorsing the sale of packages to students and the people selling were from the class the previous year.

 

Why is it that people that don't know what they are talking about talk the most? I know for a fact that everyone of my friends that bought the study sheets said that they really helped. You should take the course and relax.

 

 

Jen

[Guest not rex morgan]

Hey. I figured I was qualified to comment, as I took the course, and got an A+. (plus I took an archeology course w/ Dr. Barett and he wrote one of my reference letters) I think it's a good course for someone considering medicine to take. It is not time-intensive, and you do learn terminology you are hoping to use in the future. In addition to these pluses, it is unbelievably easy to do well in this course. I didn't need any supplementary sheets, and to be honest, I don't see how you would. Latin front part plus latin back part = new word that means something. Tricho (hair) + phagia (condition characterized by eating) = condition characterized by eating hair. People, you are students. This is good money you could be spending on beer...plus, I would bet good money you could do this course drunk. It is not like you are getting a tutor for organic chemistry to help you work through concepts. You are spending money on a package put together strictly b/c people know pre-medders will spend money on anything that will potentially increase their chances of getting into medicine.

 

As for the comment of this mark being thrown out...it will still be used in your overall average, BUT, with the high number of applicants to medicine, grades tend to be very narrowly distributed. If your name is brought to the committee meeting, and you and someone else who scored equally to you on interviews and extracurriculars was also being discussed, they are not going to look at your courses and say "pull out the red carpet, this guy got a 98 in clst 301." It is not a make or break course. They know it's really easy.