IMM335, MGB311

[Guest dogeatdog12]

hi guys

 

I have to take those next year, and my GPA has stayed the same from last year (3.5). I want to know if taking these courses is worse because they will affect my GPA in a bad way.

 

I've hear IMM335 is fun, but hard. I've heard awful things about MGB311.

[Guest bkim20]

Hey,

 

I took both courses in 3rd year (2 years ago). I really enjoyed them, despite all of the hard work. There's no question about it--these courses are not a walk in the park. However, it's not impossible to get a decent mark...assuming you put in the work.

 

IMM334 - Excellent course. You learn so much and it will become very useful in the future. The textbook is very good ("Immunobiology" by Janeway) and there are a lot of past exams to study from. The lecturers are ok (about 5 in total). There are also tutorials which were helpful. There are 3 midterms and a final.

 

MGB311 - Good course too. The lecturers are ok (about 6 in total). There isn't a required textbook, but I would recommend "Molecular Biology" by Weaver. There is a major essay in March which everyone dreads. However, the averages are high. This course is essential for 4th year (for MGB, BCH, IMM), and it also overlaps well with MBY. There is 1 midterm and a final.

 

Don't worry about these courses affecting your gpa...they actually helped mine (and others too). But this is entirely subjective. I just wanted to let you know that it's possible to do well.

 

Do you ever notice that it's the "easy" or "bird" courses that end up hurting your gpa?

 

Good luck,

[Guest cheech10]

I was an immuno major at UofT before meds, and I took both of these courses. Here are my thoughts:

 

IMM334 - Very interesting, but quite difficult. Julius is a good lecturer with very easy test questions if you learn his problem solving techniques, but Fish's questions were basically memorize these (long) lists of cytokines, signalling pathways, etc. and regurgitate. The lecturers at the end of the year were interesting, but many topics were poorly taught and poorly organized. The textbook was extremely useful for the innate immunity guy (and I rarely use textbooks) but not required for the rest of the course. Overall, I really enjoyed it.

 

MGB311 - Parts were interesting, tests were difficult, but the essay was easy. Class average for the essay in my year was 84 (typical for the essay apparently). The final was extremely difficult however, and was probably one of my lowest marks in university. Some lecturers are very boring; Sodwski was my personal pick for the worst one. Overall, this was probably my least favourite course in undergrad (strange because I enjoy molecular bio and did research in it for a couple summers).