| Lecturer | Dr Susan Row |
| Course Link | UQ Site |
| Faculty | Science |
| Prerequisites | BIOL1020 + (CHEM1100, CHEM1221, CHEM1222, CHEM1021, or CHEM1022) |
| Contact Hours | 3 Lecture hours, 3 Practical or Laboratory hours |
| Semester(s) Taught | Semester 1 |
| Course Units | 2 |
71.6/100
Never in my life had I thought I would take the time out of my own life to review a UQ subject, and yet here I am - there is something so especially horrendous about this course to the point that I would be failing in my duties as a decent human being by letting anyone else go into it unwarned.
Taught almost entirely through a clunky, boring and downright Wikipedia-esque EdX course, I’m taken aback at the fact that I paid real life money to suffer through this. I don’t actually know where to lay the blame such an atrocity - of the lecturers that attended the face to face sessions they all genuinely tried hard to help and the practical aspect of this course was easily one of the best I’ve been a part of both content and tutor wise; it’s a shame that none of that matters due to the shockingly poor theoretical content and assessment of said content - a horrible, horrible experience; do anything but this.
Semester 1 - 2017
Biomedical Science
That would require lectures
Yeah sure, good luck identifying the actual content
For someone who hasn't done a lot of chemistry in their first year, I found this subject very challenging. The labs were unnecesarily confusing, and as has been said, if you have an ordinary tutor they become almost incomprehensible. The assignments were not so bad, but I required help from other students. Keeping up with the content it essential in this course. I let things go a little bit and really suffered in the final.
While it was difficult, I found it really helped with further Bioc courses, especially BIOC3006.
Semester 1 - 2017
Health science
Yes
No
Took in Sem 1 2017.
Overall an easy course, however has a fairly demanding workload. To succeed in the course, make sure you stay up to date with the lectures (don't need to do the readings) and write up the MCQ questions as early as possible. With regards to the practicals, do the prework straight after your session while the information is still fresh in your mind. Additionally make sure to write notes about the results you collect within the practical sessions i.e what dilutions were used, what are the concentration of the reagents; this information will be extremely helpful when it comes to writing the lab report. Both assignments are fairly easy, the plasmid analysis is a free 10% while the lab report, although requiring a lot more work, is similarly as easy. Just make sure you get started on the practical report as early as possible so the information is still fresh in your mind!!!!
All these assessment add up to 40% of the course marks. It's extremely easy to achieve between 95% - 100% which will help out alot when it comes to the final.
The final exam is pretty good despite the massive amounts of content you need to memorise. There are alot of recurring questions across the past exams so make sure you remember your responses off by heart! (ATP hydrolysis, reaction coupling, glucose structure, cori cycle etc..) Make a collaborative google docs with your cohort for the past exams, this will help out alot!
But now to the biggest stitch up of the entire course, the 10% 30 min multiple choice quiz. Expect this to be your worst assessment with the course. Please note that the quizzes were the exact same for all sessions, so make sure you drill your friends (who hopefully are in earlier sessions) for the questions as they will be the same for you!
Semester 1 - 2016
BE (Chem Bio)
No
No
BIOC2000 is a classic content heavy subject where you want to exceed/pass you need to put the hours in. I would recommend reviewing the 3hrs of lecture at the end of each week to really drill it into your memory. Like other reviews, the content is pretty breezy until you hit the flipping enzymology section. I found myself enjoying BIOC until enzymology where I would internally cry whilst watching the lectures for it. Nevertheless, it is endurable but you just really need to work at it and it is so discouraging telling yourself to try and understand for a subject you don't really enjoy.
As for LEAPS labs, it also demands a lot of time (lab prep w/ flowcharts etc). The first assignment (plasmid analysis) was pretty easy but just took a lot of time. The Lab report is a whole other level and I personally don't understand why they would give the task outline AFTER the labs and not BEFORE it so then we can jot down the data and things we need to really focus on and consider during the labs.
*Actually took this course in sem 1, 2017 but that option wasn't available yet*
Semester 1 - 2016
BENS
No, Rowlands often picks people from the audience to answer questions. And for enzymology I found it easier watching online so I could easily pause to grasp hard concepts.
Not really.
I took this course in sem 1 2016 and found it unbelievably easy for the first three topics. Then it got to enzyme kinetics and metabolism and it was quite a big shock to the system. The first three assignments were also ridiculously easy, to the point that I wondered why they were treating us like idiots. The practicals and lab report were another matter. Having a bad tutor will make your practicals unnecessarily confusing and difficult and will in turn result in a lot of confusion and struggle when it comes to doing the lab write-up. I found the last two topics a bit of a nightmare to study for because of all the equations and things you have to learn for enzyme kinetics, and the high level of detail you need to know for the metabolism section. As a chemistry major the sections on basic chemistry (electronegativity, weak forces, bonding and polarity) and sugars and lipids were like second nature but they may have been less easy for students not accustomed to chemistry.
It would be beneficial to sign up for the LEAPS+ practical stream. As someone who did the mainstream LEAPS, I found the practicals mundane and pointless. Basically we'd turn up each week and do little tasks - simple things like pipetting tiny droplets of liquids into microtubes, labelling tubes, making gels, measuring stuff.......all I remember from those practicals is spending most of the time sitting around waiting for things to be sufficiently cooled in the cold room or waiting for things to be done running in gels. Then we'd turn up the next week and the tutors would give us our stuff from the previous week in an unrecognisable form and spend time telling us what the 'lab staff have done to your samples form last week'. In short it felt like that the lab staff were doing our prac work, not us students.
Semester 2 - 2015
Chemistry
Yes - especially for the metabolism section if you have Justin Ridge, who makes slides that consist of complex diagrams with no accompanying words
Depends
All the assignments up until the last prac report are fairly easy. In saying that this actually makes them somewhat harder to do relatively good in compare to the cohort. The marking of assignments is a little interesting so write things exactly as they are in research don't reword for fear of losing marks. The final prac is interesting in its marking as well because they seem to expect you to do things the question doesn't ask. Despite the dodgy assignments and marking the content is really good and the final exam is very fair and tests the concepts taught very well.
Semester 1 - 2015
BSc
Yes
No
Absolutely loved this course, overall it was very well structured and interesting. The assessment throughout semester was plenty, but very crucial, as it allowed us to apply what we learned in lectures so that we understand concepts better, and took away the need to cram at the end of the semester. Pracs were enjoyable and very relevant to lecture content too. The end of semester exam was similar to previous exam papers and basically an overview of everything taught throughout the semester - it was probably the fairest exam I have sat to date. Now that I'm in 3rd year, I truly appreciate how important BIOC2000 is as a prerequisite.
Semester 1 - 2015
BSc (Biomed major)
Recommended - all of the lecturers (esp. Susan and Schulz) are great. They\'re not the type to read off a lecture slide, but will often whip out pen and paper and draw molecules / solve problems during the lecture that are similar to what you would see in an exam
The textbook (Lehninger) was definitely helpful in explaining concepts (particularly for the metabolism module). It\'s more crucial for other courses (e.g. BIOL2202/Genetics), so it is worth getting
I found BIOC2000 to be extremely demanding. I was able to follow the pracs and complete the assignments to the best of my ability (and receive amendable results) however the last exam undermines this course. Given the volume and the nature of the content, it is crazy that there is no mid-semester exam for the students to gauge the layout of the exams as well as break up some of the semester. The expectation to learn 13 weeks of content for a 2 hour exam is quite ridiculous and results in those who have done quite well in the semester to suffer with their gpa's as a result of finding the final hurdle challenging.
Semester 1 - 2015
Bachelor of Exercise and Nutrition Science
Yes
Yes
ALLURE was great. It was what made me seek out further research experience. Susan Rowland is a great lecturer too. Essential course for science students because it teaches the basics of biochemistry.
Semester 1 - 2012
BSc (Biomed)
Recommended as Susan uses the project to take notes
No