How to Succeed in General Biology Lab
Welcome to Freshman Biology
Welcome to this first quarter of the non-majors’ biology lab sequence. We know that students like to do well in their courses. In order to help you do well in this course, the following guidelines have been prepared. Students who adhere to these guidelines will be much more likely to succeed in this course.
No Prerequisites, but. . .
While there are no prerequisites for this course, there are several background assumptions made about students in this course. This is a college-level course, and we cannot “water it down” or it won’t transfer to other colleges. If you cannot read at a college level, you won’t be able to understand the text book for the accompanying lecture course nor the lab protocols distributed in this course, so any needed developmental reading and/or English courses should be completed first. While we do try to explain any math calculations you will need to do, if you test into developmental math, you may have trouble understanding the math. Thus, if your math is really “shaky,” you may do better in this course if any needed developmental math courses are completed first. If you have never had any high-school nor junior-high science courses (and are taking other developmental courses), it may be helpful for you to take the Developmental Science course before attempting General Biology. See the Learning Center staff for further guidance and information.
Time Committment
In order to do well in this course, you will need to spend an appropriate amount of time doing homework. As a national (if not international) “given,” college students are expected to spend two hours out of class on preparation and homework for every hour spent in class, thus a student carrying 12 cr should plan to spend a minimum of 24 hr/wk doing homework (so, 12 + 24 = 36 hr total, or about equal to a full-time job!). That means that a person who is attempting to get 8 hr of sleep a night has about 8 hr/da, total, to spend on preparing and eating meals, traveling to/from school, working at a job (to pay for school), and/or caring for children. Since this is a two credit hour course that, typical of most lab courses, meets for 4 hr/wk, you should plan on devoting four to eight hours per week to homework for this course — yes, YOU. In order to do well in this class, you will need to set your priorities and schedule such that you are able to spend an appropriate amount of time, outside of class, working on class-related things. If you are trying to work a full-time job (possibly along with the responsibility of being a full-time, single parent) as well as trying to be a full-time student, and are planning on spending a weekly total of only four or five hours, total, on homework for all of your classes, then in all likelihood, that lack of study time will end up being reflected in your grades. If you have a job and/or family responsibilities that prevent you from spending an amount of time which corresponds to the course load for which you are registered, you should reduce your course load to reflect the amount of homework time you have available, or your grades will suffer. While it is true that it might take longer to get your degree that way, chances are that the grades on your transcript will probably end up being higher. Past students who had thought they were different and could get by with less (or no) study time have ended up withdrawing or failing the course. Almost to a person, those who have needed to withdraw due to lack of sufficient study time have commented they thought they were different, thought they could “handle it,” but found out the “hard way” that to do well requires adequate time.
A portion of the grade in this course is based on demonstrated good record-keeping and documentation skills — necessary, but sometimes time-consuming tasks in any job/field for which you may be training. This is not a “fluff” course — science courses are among the most time-consuming, demanding courses you will take in college. This is not a course to take if all you’re looking for in college is easy “A”s. If you don’t have the time, the interest, or the self-discipline right now to devote to such tasks, you would be better off, grade-wise, to wait until you can devote the needed time and energy to this course. If you are mentally at a point in your life where you are feeling burned out on school, would rather be doing other things than studying for classes, or are unsure of where you want to go from here, that’s OK, but then you should consider pursuing those activities now. You can always come back and take classes later when you want to be here. To do well in this, or many of your other classes, you need to be mentally, psychologically ready to tackle the workload. Remember, your transcripts are “forever.”
Course Topics
This course was designed to provide an introduction to a broad spectrum of biological topics from such things as biochemistry and anatomy-type topics to field biology and the study of the plants and animals that surround us. Allow yourself to enjoy this course by experiencing the delight, the wonder, the “ah-ha!” of discovering something you didn’t know before. Combine your study time with family time, review what you’ve learned, and test your knowledge by sharing what you’ve learned with your family. If you have school-aged children, they love doing many of these experiments (with your supervision), helping you with at-home projects, keeping their own lab notebooks, “reading” your textbook, and permanently “borrowing” your field guides and lab pens.
One of the goals of any freshman-level, survey-of-biology course is to expose students to a taste of a wide variety of biology-related topics. We’ve seen past students who, when exposed to a “new” topic, suddenly discover that topic is of great interest to them, to the extent that they end up changing their major and career plans. Administrators and biology faculty from Clermont are in dialogue with our counterparts at Clifton and NKU, as well as other schools, so we are aware of what other schools consider to be “normal” course topics for a freshman course. Based on that knowledge, we strive to structure our courses so that they will transfer, and you won’t have to re-take the courses after you transfer elsewhere.
Grades
Please be aware that the purpose of this course is NOT to give everyone “A”s so you can all end up somewhere else. Realize that if we would give you all “A”s, those schools would deem those grades to be meaningless and refuse to accept anyone from Clermont. Any schools to which you may be transferring don’t want “A”s just for the sake of the grades themselves, but rather, use those grades as signs that students are capable of successfully mastering the material covered in their courses. Your job, then, while you are here, is NOT to get an “A” at any cost, but to work your hardest to absorb/learn/understand everything you can, either as a foundation for the topics covered in your classes “down there” or to aid you in the every-day life decisions you must make. Cheating won’t allow you to learn the background material you need, and even if you aren’t caught here, that will catch up to you in future classes for which you are not prepared. Besides, would you want to deal with that kind of person in a business or as your child’s school teacher? Relax, enjoy the course, learn as much as you can, earn the best grade you are honestly capable of earning, and don’t make yourself and everyone around you miserable by focusing only on grades.
Prepare for Future Classes
I can tell you that, over the years, many past students, while enrolled in these courses, have said (complained?) that the work needed to maintain their lab notebooks has not been “hard” work, but has required a significant amount of discipline to spend the time required. However, to a person, every graduate who has returned for a visit has told us stories of how much better prepared they were, how much farther ahead of their classmates in upper-division courses, because of the discipline of having to keep lab notebooks for Clermont biology courses. One former student, now a high-school biology teacher, requires her students to also keep lab notebooks.
Final Words
Please weigh your options and your level of commitment carefully. If you have an adequate background for this course, if you are willing to put the necessary time into preparation and homework, if you’re curious, inquisitive, and interested in learning more about the living world around you, and if you’re willing to work hard and try your best to learn the most you can and have fun doing it, your chances of succeeding in this course are greatly increased.
Other Things to Include in Your Notebook
Make sure you have all of the following in your lab notebook: