Chapter17--Review of year 2 semester 2
Alright guys, here is the summary of my year 2 semester 2.
LSM2103--Cell Biology
Hmm...I think I have a love-hate affair with this module. Love it for the content of the module taught and that it is one of the few life sciences modules that are WEBCAST but hate it that I do not seem to able to have a firm grasp of the concepts. It is a bit of a pity because I initially have the feeling that this module could very well end up to be the second metabolism-like module and so I was naturally disappointed that I could not perform up to my expected standard. Anyway, I feel that what is taught in this module would be useful to my future studies especially since I am poised to enter biomedical sciences research. The lecturers for this module were also quite nice and efficient, in fact they are sooo efficient and meticulous that they will try not to missed students queries by replying to every students questions through email and then forwarding them to the whole class so that there would always be a sudden increment in our email inbox especially towards the CA and final exam. Therefore I hope that the future batches of life sciences students will be spared the agony of having to delect numerous emails towards the CA or final exam. Actually, its very easy lah, just set up forum in the ivle for students to put up their queries loh. Hmm, did I mention it in the student feedback and evalution?
LSM2104-Essential Bioinformatics and Biocomputing
To be honest, this module wasn't as daunting as I first thought to be. In fact, content wise, this has to be the lightest workload compared to the rest of the modules that I took this semester. The only "scary" part of this module perhaps is the miniproject because one can have totally no idea how to go about doing it in the very beginning since it is supposed to be kind of a "progressive project" which means that we can only execute and have a better understanding of the whole project as we progress through the course. Luckily, I am blessed with some fabulous team mates for the project so it was overall still quite an enriching experience for me. Overall, I am quite satisfied with this module and I hope that I would be able to obtain a delightful grade for it when the final exam result is released at the end of May. Hmm, maybe I should keep my fingers crossed on this one!
LSM2202--Experimental Molecular and Cell Biology
Now, the module title almost tells it all that the most tiring, frustrating and possibly depressing part of this module lies in the experimental lab reports whereby I had spent countless days and nights working on it. The lab experiments were not that tough but I can tell you that just thinking about researching for materials for that terrible lab reports still give me the shudder. However looking on the brighter side of things, besides the lab reports, this module hardly feel like it is worth 6 MCs( and it would most probably be the only module that I would take in NUS that cost more than 4MCs) because the theory part of this module were relatively easy to understand although the questions set in CA by Dr Nobert Nemming is another story.... Ironically, the best experience that I have for this module stemmed from the lab experiments whereby I met 1 of the most competent teaching assistant(TA) that I have encounter for my short 4 semesters in NUS. This further reaffirmed my belief that a teaching assistant can really make or break one's experience in practicals and once again I blessed with an excellent TA which makes the whole experimental part of this module so much more tolerable. The miniproject itself which is supposed to be the highlight of this module also seems to be a blessing in disguise although there were some slight panic in the beginning whereby we were trying to figure out which BLAST applications and database to use. Once we get past that point however, the whole miniproject appeared to be less daunting as the rest of the report can be considered to be rather straight forward.
FST2201--Introduction to human nutrition
This module can be say to be the sequel to my GEK1529 food and health module that I took last semester since the content taught are mostly similar, the lecturer is the same and even the assignments which include things like diet assessment and poster design are also similar. However, being a level 2000 module, the topics covered is of course more-in-depth compared to GEK1529 which serves as a general education module. Studying for this module is quite a breeze for me since I have always been interested in nutrition and its related stuffs and therefore have the most confident when sitting for the final exam paper. I dare to say that I anticipated good grade for this module. Now the question is should I attempt FST3202 next semester?
GEK2506--Drugs and society
Another love-hate module. Like it for the contents that the module covered which include a brief history of the origin of medicines and some of the important people that helps paved the way for present day medicines.( Hippocrates, Galen and Paracelsius, I will remember their important contribution) The module also covered drugs abuse and the classification of some of the drugs.( Did you know that alcohol is a depressant and not a stimulant?) Others things about this module which I found useful and insightful includes the definition of trademark drugs and generic drugs and a deeper understanding and true meaning of patents and the functioning of pharmaceutical companies. I especially found the topic on pharmaceutical industry relevant because it provides me with an introduction on the drug discovery process and what types of drugs or things can be patentable. Since I am likely to go into Biomedical research in the future( oops, have I mention it too many times?), this topic really intrigued me since we all know that patent is the life blood of pharmaceutical companies and the motivations for most researches. Finally, to round it up, here are the 7 medicines which I learned in this module that changes the world-- Opium, Penicillin, Salvansan, Insulin, Thaliomide, Enovid and small pox vaccine.( not listed in order of merit)
Overall, this semester is quite a good semester with some unexpectancies( good and bad ones). I have even manage to find some interesting facts regarding this semester.
1--The number of faculty which I went to throughout the semester which is Science
2-- Number of miniprojects that I attempted
3--Number of life sciences modules that I took
4--Number of foreign lecturers I have for the semester
5--Number of modules took
6--Number of modular credits of LSM2202 which is probably the only module that I will took that is worth this modular credits.
Yours Sincerely,
Yongster