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Transcripts - Group 1
Moderator: Tilly Weyl '06
Scribe: Div Sternman
Participants: Diane, Winnie, Joan, Fran, Ellen
Clip 1
Tilly: Is it working? It looks like its working. Oh my gosh, this is exciting. Okay, um, so why don’t we go around and say our names, class year and major. I’m Tilly, my things are falling apart, and I’m a religion major and a senior.
FRAN: I’m Ann, class of ’09, and I’m undecided.
Div: I’m Div, I go to Hampshire, so I don’t have a major, but I study gender, sexuality and violence and I’m a third year going into my thesis next year.
Tilly: And Div is our note taker.
Div: Yes, I will be taking notes tonight in case this recorder doesn’t work.
WINNIE: I’m Winnie, I’m class of ’08, and a biology and history double major.
DIANE: I’m Diane, class of ’06, and I’m a soc major.
Tilly: Okay, um, so okay so before I start asking questions I just want to let everyone know that I’m technically the conversation facilitator. Um, which basically means that you guys should feel free to just talk to each other and just have a conversation and you don’t have to like um always look to me. Go for it. Have good conversations. So anyway. I guess we’re going to start at the chronological beginning and ask you guys what you had heard about the science program at Mount Holyoke before you ever came here, if anything.
DIANE: I did not head anything about the science program before I came here
FRAN: I heard that um like Mount Holyoke was one of the best places for sciences and they sent me all this stuff on women and the sciences because I put down that I might like be interested in the sciences majors so all these brochures about how Mount Holyoke was good in the sciences I guess I was looking forward to it..
Div: what’s your major again
FRAN: Undecided. I came in as neuroscience but then I’m probably going to switch so I don’t know
WINNIE: I think it was one of the reasons I came, because I wanted to do bio and history. And I mean the science center was on e of the highlights of the tour and the modern science facilities and the class sizes – the class sizes.
Tilly: Alright, um, and you took bio 150 and you’re still jazzed about bio, but Fran,
FRAN: I’m not.
Tilly: and Diane, you were…?
DIANE: I have like an outside interest in science so I’ve done science things before but …my major’s always been sociology.
Tilly: Um so what was it about bio for you, you think, that kept you going and that no so much
WINNIE: Um I think I’m still a bio major in spite of 150 to an extent. I had 2 years of college level bio with an amazing bio teacher and that’s the reason I’m a bio major, and all my classes since bio 150 have been with amazing professors. Bio 150 was not so much not as in-depth as I had done in high school so it was kind of an easy class for me.
DIANE: After I got here I heard about intro bio and intro psych classes were hard to eliminate out people who didn’t want to be majors. Which was kind of disheartening because when I’m in it and I know I have to take it for a requirement I know they’re making it hard just cause they know not everyone’s going to be a bio major. But I got through it.
FRAN: Yeah, I didn’t really like it, but um I’m still like planning on taking more bio classes I guess, but probably just not as intensely.
Tilly: So you were saying bio was less intense than your high school
WINNIE: Yeah
Tilly: Did you guys have that too?
DIANE: I took AP bio my senior year and we had a new teacher who has never taught that before, so it was sort of dis-
Clip 2
DIANE: dis-organized but it was very difficult to take the bio exam at the end but then when I came here I did learn a lot of stuff but I did also have a lot of memory from the stuff I had learned in high school. It was a diff course I mean we have two profs here and the labs were a lot more hands on I guess cause we had to dissect things and we didn’t have the resources in high school.
FRAN: Um yeah sorry I only took bio my freshman year of high school and that was it until bio 150 so I totally didn’t know anything they were teaching. Except for like photosynthesis, that’s all I had learned. So uh for me it was really hard but it I had heard from other people who had taken AP biology it was an easy course, but to me it was really hard.
Tilly: Um, so what kind of stuff…what would you say you learned if you had to sum it up. “What I learned in Bio 150…” Or is that too hard?
(long silence)
DIANE I think looking back I learned a lot more in lab than in class (everyone laughs) but it was a lot of math stuff I learned and it was like oh now it makes sense. But um in the lecture I feel I learned a lot about the plants. There’s bio 150 a and b and they’re supposed to be different., there was when I took it.
WINNIE: There’s 2 sections but they’re technically the same. Different professors do things in their interest area, but it’s supposed to be the same introduction. I mean that’s…
DIANE I was told to take b, told to take one or the other specifically. I had a friend who had taken it and said the professor only teaches things about the boney ray-finned fish. If the boney ray finned fish is not the love of your life, then don’t take bio a. I took the other class and that was mostly about plants.
Tily: You guys learned about a bony ray fish?
WINNIE: who was the teacher?
DIANE it was a woman…I don’t remember. But a lot of girls dropped out in the first few weeks, and then toward the midterm when people got their midterms back and were like wow I’m not doing so great they dropped it too. So we had a lot of people drop out of class or move to the other section.
Tilly: So let’s see…we just did introductions..[new girl comes, same intros] So I guess just say your year and major.
JOAN: My name’s Joan, I’m a first year, rising sophomore, I’m going to declare my major in my sophomore year in bio-chem.
Tilly: Ok, so should we just continue? OK um, right. Did everyone here, were you guys really into to class – did you go to class a lot, did you do the readings, did you do the homework like religiously or was that kinda a class you could slack a little?
WINNIE: I remember there being not homework per se, not like assignments, I mean labs obviously, I did all those. I went to all the classes, but I never opened the text book. I had a copy of my high school text book. When I needed a textbook I used that instead. It was only a couple of times.
FRAN: Yeah I went to all the classes. We had worksheets, I did those, and I did the lab, but I think the text was like letting out sleeping gas. It just put me to sleep. I did try, attempted…
Clip 3
FRAN: basically did not absorb anything I read.
DIANE: I went to all the classes and labs and all that and I tried also to do the reading which I basically got thought the first few pages and then the terms. I don’t know if it was out of fear, cause the professors were always like the tests are going to be mostly on what we cover in class but might also have things from the book. That was from the reading we didn’t cover. Yeah, but I, mostly looked at my notes and then would go back to the reading if I was unclear. The lectures were pretty good, having 2 different lecturers was confusing cause they had 2 different styles and one had illegible handwriting.
Tilly: Anybody else?
JOAN: Yeah, I’d go to all the classes and lectures, and I loved the labs over the lectures. I guess professor Savants is a little too fast so she goes too fast, then I can’t keep up with the readings ahead of the times or be lazy enough to do the readings afterwards, and just cramming the reading for the exams. [??]
Tilly: Yeah, I hear that.
?: Did either of you take Bio 150?
Tilly: No, I took chem 100. Div did you?
Div: I’ve never taken science at the college level. I took math my first year to fulfill the requirement.
Tilly: She’s a Hampshireite. But no, a bunch of people in our Soc class had taken it, and had things to throw in. Um so…um did your impressions, like what you expected from the class and what you got out of it, or just general impressions of the class change over the semester at all?
FRAN: Well um I was really disappointed in it. I dunno, I guess cause Mount Holyoke was all excited about it, like ‘yeah, we keep women in the sciences’ and then I didn’t think they did that at all. In just thought that the class was, I mean, for basically not having any background in biology like…it was the tests were too hard for what they were teaching and I wasn’t interested in it, so…
DIANE: Well it could be more like um they have like a really good since program and they want to have a distribution requirements where you involve you in science and so either you like it or you don’t. And then my thing about it being too hard for people who were really interested in it but wanted to move on with it but were weeded out. And certain things like that and yeah we have a really good science program it’s not gonna be easy but if you wanna go here and you wanna be in science they’re gonna produce a leader.
FRAN: But I didn’t feel that way personally, I felt like, like, I you know had done well with science before and didn’t do well in this class and that they should have I don’t know why, I didn’t feel that it was taught that well and I don’t know why.
JOAN: Yeah
FRAN: Yeah, because it was like one of my worst classes and I was expecting like the teacher to get kinds engaged and like
DIANE: Who was your professor?
FRAN: Especially the man
JOAN: I like the man better than the woman
FRAN: No? Really no way. He would turn out the lights and voice was so …oh man…
DIANE: you don’t remember who the professor was?
FRAN: Peter maybe? Gruber?
[collective groan]
DIANE: This is why, I had Gary Gillis and Amy Hitchcock who was only here for like a year and was like 26 or 27 and they both actually came to class for Halloween dressed as hippies and taught classes like the evolution of the orgasm, which was promptly stopped when it was realized that someone’s parents were in the classroom that day. They were like there to see the class and stuff.
Tilly: Oh, nice.
JOAN: I think it all depends on the professors
FRAN: Yeah.
WINNIE: I had Sue Barry and Susan Smith, which was interesting.
Clip 4
WINNIE: But I had I guess kind of the same reaction, but I had the same class before basically, so I was I found it too easy. That was because I came in with a sound background and I was strongly interested in the sciences.
DIANE: Could you place out of Bio 150?
WINNIE: If you have AP credit, they told me I should place out of Bio 200 instead, which is a much better class. I’ve always been slightly…
DIANE: What’s the title of the class?
WINNIE: Developmental Biology. It would have been a little better had I been placed out of bio 200 than 150. But, no, my roommate is also a Bio major and she did it the other way, she talked to the chair of the dept into doing that.
JOAN: do the other way? Bio 150 is perfectly…
DIANE: you had AP credits and they wouldn’t let you skip bio 150? Oh.
WINNIE: No, yeah, I had the AP credits but they had me skip 200 instead. I hope it’s changed now.
Tilly: Um okay, so um, oh, this is kind of a loaded question [laughs]. That’s fine. What’s the impression that everyone has of science majors at Mount Holyoke?
WINNIE: They’re wonderful and talented. [groups laughs]
Tilly: Okay, okay. Except…
WINNIE: Biased as a science major.
JOAN: They have…they’re very personal personalities. Very distant personalities. Some of them are very well-rounded. They dance, they sing, they do their own thing. They’re people…yeah.
FRAN: I guess the only problem I have with science majors is the same problem I have with any other major, I mean, just like a lot of science majors, not a lot, but some I feel take a lot of science courses. Like, I dunno, just don’t really there’s like a billion other topics they could take and they take all science courses. But, in the same way, English majors, or whatever, stick to English and don’t take science and math, so…
Div: What about in terms of like not just what are their personalities like, but like in terms of academics do you feel like they have a heavier load or is it just like everyone has their major and every major is sort of similar?
JOAN: Well I think in terms of labs, they have labs, but the other majors don’t.
WINNIE: I mean, they’re very different loads. I’m a double major in the humanities and the sciences, and it’s…you don’t have the reading and you don’t have the papers, so it’s not a lot of outside of class stuff, but you have the lab time every week. So, it’s comparable loads, but it’s weighted differently.
DIANE: Yeah, I feel the same way; I think that science majors spend a lot more time in the classroom, that’s an extra three hours a week just for one class. But I feel as if you’re the humanities, you’re expected to sort of think on your own time about stuff like writing papers or you know. So you probably have just as much time dedicated to the subject, it’s just in a different way. And it seems like science majors are always busy and always doing work because they have this dedicated place – they need to be in the lab, doing work, whereas you just might be on Facebook, or on the internet, writing you paper at the same time, but you’re like in your room.
FRAN: And it depends, too, like, if you’re not like a science major, well like science majors like obviously they’re in science because they like it. You know, it probably comes easier to them then people who aren’t science majors because it’s the reason they’re like not. So if you’re, um, outside like on the outside looking in, you’re like well they have a lot more work, but maybe they don’t cause to them it’s like easier.
JOAN: easier than writing papers
WINNIE: but in the science majors they’re definitely the perception that they have a lot more work and they have to be in lab for 3 or 4 hours and….but I think it’s a little biased either way.
Div: Do you think that influenced people’s choices, like their majors, their focus?
JOAN: The workload?
Div: Or that perception of the workload.
JOAN: Um….if you were interested in the subject, you don’t think it’s a big workload. For me…
Clip 5
I think writing papers is bigger, is a heavier work-load for me...'cause I hate writing papers. (polite laughter all around)
DIANE: I know people that came in and for their first year, and possibly some of their second year, they were doing bio and neuroscience and then they dropped it because they just couldn't handle the work-load or thought that there was just too much and they wanted to be involved in, like, extracurricular activities or music programs, and because a science major's time is so structured in terms of labs that you can't just put your paper off for the weekend and put your lab off for the weekend in the same way, that some people just switch to another major, or, you know, even if...if they don't have a strong enough interest to be able to give up those things.
Tilly: um, um, so, um, okay, so, we talked a little, at the beginning, um, before you (Joan) got here, about how the college expresses it's-it's kind of science-ness to prospective students, and how it kind of has this idea about a science tradition, and I was wondering to what extent, if any, you guys feel connected to this tradition of science here, or if you were aware of one or feel that there is one...
DIANE: On campus? Or like, after we graduate?
Tilly: I guess whichever
DIANE: tradition of science...can you rephrase that?
(a bit of laughter all around)
Tilly: um, like how the school has this long history, like we've talked a lot in our class about that when you're in the library, you walk through that hall, and it has all the scientists, like the little posters about them and stuff and just how the school has a long history of being a research--a science research---facility.
(Diane looks over my shoulder oddly)
Tilly: did Eleanor make a face? She does that, like, she makes a face with an Australian accent.
DIANE: I don't feel like Mount Holyoke, I mean from my experience, puts out, like, more of a science-y feel than any other subject, but i feel like if people are asking about it, then they're gonna say, you know, 'we have a really strong science program, and it's because not that many women are involved in the sciences, so, it's gonna be all women here, and they wanna have that good of a program, and it's because, it's a motivation talk, I mean, it's easier to make a point of women in science when it's all women here.
(ELLEN sits down)
Tilly: welcome...
ELLEN: Hello, hi, I'm Ellen.
Tilly: okay! um...how about, year and major?
ELLEN: year, 2008, major, chemistry
Tilly: oh, cool! okay...um, I'm Tilly, I'm, the, uh, facilitator, and...(I motion to Div)
Div: Chemistry you said?
ELLEN: yeah. (giggles)
Div: I'm Div, I'm taking notes.
ELLEN: I'm a Bio minor, if that helps, too.
Tilly: goodness gracious! Um, ok, well, we were just talking about the--this, idea of a science tradition and history of Mount Holyoke. If you feel like there is one, sort of, do you feel connected to it at all?
ELLEN: So, talking about, how...Mary Lyon founded the college kind of tradition?
Tilly: the whole thing, and Cornelia Clapp, and that whole--
A?: dynasty
Tilly: yeah, dynasty, of the sciences
DIANE: when we talked to the class of 1955 in this class, we interviewed, um, not many science majors, and I'm not sure if that was representative of the class, but, I think two women who I talked to who were Bio or science majors, or I think one of them was actually pre-med, when they left the college there was a lot of prejudice against them, like the women's father said that they can't be a doctor and a woman, and blah blah blah, so, i mean, if there is a science regime at Mount Holyoke, I know we have all those, women in science posters up and everything, but I feel like it was probably a lot harder back then to actually make a career of it which was probably discouraging people, maybe the tradition is, younger than you think.
FRAN: um, as far as like, I guess, this is like, maybe going back to another question, and not really answering this one, but, like, I did come to Mount Holyoke with all those brochures, like, that Mount Holyoke has this great, amazing science program, and like, I know that 150 was just an intro class and whatever, but--and not that it like discouraged me, but it definitely that it did not, like, encourage me, to take any more classes.........like, it really just felt like--
WINNIE: they get better
FRAN: yeah, that's what people say--
WINNIE: like, genetics is so much better
JOAN: yeah, yeah, yeah.
WINNIE: especially since---
ELLEN: I don’t feel like (?)bio is though.
WINNIE: Oh really?
Clip 6
FRAN: yeah, I don't know
ELLEN: I feel like, for me, I heard, when I was doing my research on college, I spoke with one of the bio teachers at my school, and she was raving about Mount Holyoke, with all the support that they have for their science, um, women in science and sisters in science and all the research opportunities available and stuff like that
FRAN: right
ELLEN: so for me, I didn't think of, like, this tradition of science at Mount Holyoke, but it was more of a...this is what they are doing now.
Tilly: and, um, so, would you say that, so far, what you've seen is what you expected, in terms of support?
ELLEN: no. (laughter all around) I feel like, I mean I was lucky, because I know when you get in they just sometimes randomly assign you to an advisor, but my advisor was actually in the bio department as well, so she had all the bio and pre-health and chemistry stuff because of her other advisees.....and so I felt that, even those little things...most of the classes so far have been science so a lot of the teachers that I interact with have very encouraging things to say to me, and I feel like, even in the social sciences and stuff like that I had some classes and they spoke about how, originally, in the past, women weren't encouraged to do math or science and here at Mount Holyoke they're trying to get rid of that pressure that, you know, women do horribly, but...
DIANE: I feel like that's kind of a, in my mind it's contradictory, 'cause when we have traditions at Mount Holyoke, it's always like, stuff that's very concrete on campus like Mary Lyon's grave, and like, m&c's has been going on for such a long time, but science is such a--innovative area and like you get the new science building, and the new science equipment, it's hard to keep a traditional feel to something that's so innovative.
WINNIE: well if you get into, like, the evolution lab, there are probably the original desks from the 1900's
Div: I mean, do you feel like there isn't that push to be on sort of a cutting edge in the social sciences or, I mean, the arts, or anything like that?
DIANE: um...no, but I feel like for our 224 class for soc. we were looking back at women who had attended Mount Holyoke and talking about history, whereas in biology you're talking about the future, maybe....does that seem right?
(long pause)
ELLEN: I don't know if it was a more personal thing, too, but I know that for my friends who are humanities or social science majors, it seemed to me as if it was harder for them to find, like, research oppurtun--not research opportunities, but, like, things to do for the summer that had to do with their major, than it was for me to, like, go to all the teachers and ask them, 'hey, can I do research with you?' so....
WINNIE: interesting. I found it easier to find stuff for history than--
ELLEN: really?
WINNIE: that’s...I wasn't looking for research, though, I was looking for positions at museums, so it's a very different approach.
Tilly: um, so how do you guys feel about the distribution requirements, in terms of the science, do you think there should be more, like, more lab required, or no lab required, or a different system...
FRAN: I think it's a pretty good system. (something unintelligible)
WINNIE: I think it works pretty well. One of my friends is a history major, education minor, and she took bio 145 and she's taking geology now, and she's not a science person at all, she loves her history, but she---it's so fun to watch her get excited about how an electron moves.
Clip 7
WINNIE: so its, I think it's really valuable to have that there.
Div: what do you think is the value of it? I mean, like, there seems to be sort of a consensus, but, you know, what is valuable about that, going outside of her history bubble?
WINNIE: it's thinking in a very different way.
FRAN: and a lot of people wouldn't take any science courses if there wasn't the requirement.
JOAN: and a lot of people won't take humanities courses if there is no distribution requirement.
DIANE: I really wanted to take, um, a first-year seminar in biology because it seemed more interesting, um, but I think maybe it didn't have a lab and that's why it didn't come out as a lab science, but I think it's a good system that they have the first-year seminars that are changing all the time and those are the classes that teachers, like, pick the subjects and it's what they want to teach. It’s only for one semester but I feel like if they had smaller classes available with different subjects that you could take, not necessarily as a first-year to do distribution that more people would be excited about it rather than throwing in all these students into bio 150 in this huge lecture room with 70 people, some of them are like, they've known they wanted to do biology their whole lives and they come here and their doing it and other people, like, who are just doing it for distribution or whatever, and they sort of get lost in the class maybe.
FRAN: yeah.
ELLEN: I feel like our intro bio. classes here aren’t very, like...comprehensive
WINNIE: yeah.
ELLEN: They--they seriously focus down and they--you have to know all these details and--
FRAN: yeah.
(unintelligible---everyone sort of mumbling in agreement at once)
ELLEN: maybe, I think the 145s might be more interesting for non-science majors than the---
WINNIE: I think it's easier for science majors, personally.
ELLEN: yeah. But like, 150 I know I was in a class, I don't remember the actual name, but we did a bunch of taxonomy and I know that if I had just been in that class for distribution, I would have hated myself for taking it.
FRAN: Well and that's another thing is that like, all my friends are like, they want to have to fill the lab requirement or whatever, and so they all take like, planet earth, which is like, you know, everyone's like, 'oh it's such an easy class.' Well, like, that's kind of ridiculous too, is to like, make like, a biology or a chemistry course, I don't know, harder and then so everyone's just like trying to find the easiest science course they can take.
ELLEN: But I feel like--for, for me as a science major, I do that with humanities. I'm not gonna go jump into some--
WINNIE: same here, same here
ELLEN: like some hard-core history class....
FRAN: yeah, yeah I guess, yeah…
Tilly: so, it sounds like there are like, two kinds of people, like 'science people' and 'humanities people'...then we have the-the elusive double major, um, but is it--does it feel like that, like, socially, too? Like, do science people hang out with science people, or is it like, after the end of class does the split end?
ELLEN: um...I think it's not necessarily out of choice, it's just, for me, I have, the people I spend the most time with are my science major friends, but that's because we do homework together, we're in lab together, and stuff like that, but that doesn't mean I don't go to dinner with (people in the humanities??)
WINNIE: my moving group is three bio majors and a neuroscience major, so there's--there's a certain divide where a lot of science people do get together and do do labs together with your lab partner, but, I think over that is most my friends are people I live with, so, who just happen to be science people…At lunch there's definitely a divide because all the science majors eat in Kendade, and everybody's there from the end of their class until just before one o'clock when they go down to lab.
DIANE: Well isn't that why they go to Kendade, because a lot of science people were complaining that they couldn't get to lunch on time and stuff?
FRAN: probably...
WINNIE: I don't know what I would do without Kendade.
DIANE: you should have been here when there was no Blanchard.
Tilly: yeah. Getting your mail in the basement of Wilder is not easy.
DIANE: and all Mount Holyoke life stops at 5:30 when dinner ends.
Tilly: yeah that's true! But, dinner was in every dorm…anyway, we digress…
Clip 8
Tilly: So, uh, premed stuff. Did anyone in here come in planning to be premed and if so are you still premed?
DIANE: Can someone please explain to me what that actually that entails when you declare premed? Like are there requirements that you have to do?
WINNIE: Premed is not a, you don’t get a degree in premed. It’s just a set of courses that are required for entrance to med school, which is two years of biology, two years of chemistry, a year of physics, a year of English, and something else….yeah a year of calculus.
JOAN: It’s not quite as demanding as if you want to go to graduate school, I think.
FRAN: Well it kind of leaves the option open, like I came in as a neuroscience major and like I’m not going to do that. So now I’m a Critical Social Thought major, but I’m going to take all the courses I need to still have the option of med school open. It’s like I can apply to med school and hopefully get into med school, but it’s not like I’m going to be…I mean I might go through med school, but I might not.
WINNIE: I came in thinking about physical therapy, but I decided that I didn’t want to do that for other reasons. I’m still a bio major; but I just decided that isn’t what I want to do.
Tilly: So now are you going to maybe do research?
WINNIE: I’m, right now, planning on going into museums. Museum studies.
ELLEN: I had come in and wanted to, I mean I still want to do forensics. And in order to do that I don’t have to go to med school or anything like that. If I wanted to be a pathologist, then I would have to go. I’m more or less going to end up getting, I think, most of the premed requirements done because I’m a bio-chem major, or bio major chem. minor, but if I don’t want to do the English I don’t have to.
Tilly: Was there any…did you guys feel like there was that there is any pressure at the school to go premed? like it has some cache or anything
DIANE: I always hear people say they were going to be premed and they aren’t anymore that all I ever hear.
WINNIE: If you want to be premed there’s a lot of support and once in a while they’ll push the program.
Tilly: Do you all hear a lot about people wanting to be premed and then giving up? Is that like a common…
WINNIE: You do in the beginning. and I think part of the trying to have bio 150 be hard is to push out the people out that just want to be premed for the sake of being premed, you know, not for being really interested in it, was my impression. I hear a lot of people that used to be premed that aren’t any more.
Div: Do you think there’s a lot of support, because we talked about this a little in class, do you think there’s a lot of support for people who are sort of pre premed? like, I’m gonna be premed, you know, like really excited. Or is it like once you’ve actually filed and joined the premed listserve that that’s when the support starts? or do you think there’s support before that? I don’t really know.
WINNIE: There’s information before that. But I think once you like say you want to be premed you get a premed advisor and they’ll really work with you. I don’t know enough about that though.
ELLEN: I think it all depends on who your advisor is in the beginning. Because I’m sure that if you had a science advisor and you told them that you wanted to do premed they’d line things up pretty quickly because they are either one of the people who are a premed advisor or somebody in their department is, but if you had maybe an English major as your advisor, they might not be as familiar with the process. So they either wouldn’t push you as far or they wouldn’t be able to say ‘ok you need to speak to this person and this person and they’ll tell you about it.’
Clip 9
FRAN: Yeah so I came in as a neuroscience major and I had a dance advisor, but he’s pretty like, I tell him all this stuff and he’d like ‘yeah I don’t really know you should go talk to other people.’ and so he doesn’t really give me names, but he’s like ‘yeah you should do that, like whatever you want to do.’
(five minute warning)
Tilly: How would you say did taking bio 150 impact what you took next? Like in general. Like how did it make you decide whether or not to take more sciences or not, and if so what?
DIANE: When I was picking courses after bio 150 I would always look at the science section because I knew I had the prerequisites to take something else, but nothing else seemed to fit into my schedule that seemed easy enough for me to take and do it for my own enjoyment and not just because I needed to take it for class. But I took bio 150 in sophomore year and that sophomore year summer I went into the school field studies and I did a coastal studies program that I felt prepared for because of bio 150. So that was fun and that was my other science that didn’t have a lab which was totally backwards, but still, I got that environmental studies credit for that.
JOAN: I think it’s all structured because I know my major and I have to take those courses no matter what impact bio 150 had, so it didn’t really have an impact on my course selection. Well maybe it had some impact on me, as to how the professors are, in terms of choosing their courses.
WINNIE: I took it with Susan Smith and I considered taking the Ornithology class that she teaches because her specialty is birds and then I realized it had like a six am lab and I wasn’t up for that.
Tilly: Whoa six am lab!
WINNIE: for bird watching, which makes sense, but yeah.
?: and it’s only a two credit class right?
WINNIE: Yeah it was a little intimidating for that. Yeah but it’s mostly just letting you get to know the professors. Like I know I don’t want to do neuroscience with Sue Barry because that’s not the part that I’m interested in, but in terms of what comes right next, it doesn’t really…
FRAN: Yeah I’d say the same thing. Like I know I’m not going to take another class from Gruber again. (laughter) Not like I’m not going to take bio 200 or anything.
WINNIE: If you take bio 220 he teaches it. But with Sharon Stamford it’s amazing.
FRAN: are you kidding me?
ELLEN: If you don’t have to, I would advise you not to.
FRAN: I was not a fan of Gruber.
ELLEN: I did amazingly well in Sharon’s part, and then when Gruber was teaching the class…
FRAN: His voice it’s like uuuuhh…
WINNIE: He’s starts lecturing again.
ELLEN: I know. I’m not looking forward to that at all.
WINNIE: but compared to last semester it’s very good. But last semester we had a visiting professor who was in his very first year teaching. And the other professor was amazing and wonderful and the visiting professor was a little painful. But the lab made up for it. The lab was pretty cool.
Tilly: So what about the lab instructors? Did you guys have the same…how many?
DIANE: I had two lecturers for the lecture part and then a lab instructor for the lab part. but it’s very strange for me because you can’t ask the lab instructor questions about class, it was frustrating for me, in that aspect. Although the lecturers were in lab sometimes.
(a few people): it depends, it depends on who it is.
ELLEN: I think it depends on who you have though because last semester my lab instructor was like one of the lecturers, but for bio 150,
Clip 10
ELLEN: I think she’s been here a while because she’s done the lab for 150 for so long she…the lab instructors are with you in class every day as well, so even though they probably don’t know the material as well as the lecturers, they have to have some knowledge of it as well.
WINNIE: Yeah this semester I actually have both of our lecturers are both our lab instructors so that works out really well, but bio 150 I actually had a senior. Which is really weird because it’s the only time I’ve had a student as my instructor. Like in chemistry you have student TA’s but you also have an instructor. So it was an experience, I feel like I could have gotten more out of it if there was an instructor too I mean she had useful things to say, and she knew what she was talking about, but it was a little disconnected.
FRAN: Yeah I had a senior, but I liked her she was nice. And like, I just liked her.
Tilly: It was more relaxed an atmosphere?
FRAN: a little yeah. There was definitely like, I think Sue was in the next room over and she would come over and she was very like…OK like. And my lab instructor was like ‘it’s ok take your time.’
Tilly: What about the tutoring thing? did anyone do that? Getting tutored? Is there like a, I know for chem. there’s like a program…
WINNIE: For chem. that’s PLUM’s, which, there’s nothing like that for bio.
Tilly: Oh really.
WINNIE: The PLUM’s is actually a chemistry department experiment. It’s a tentative program and hopefully we’re gonna get more funding for it, expand it.
?: What’s that?
WINNIE: PLUM’s. It isn’t always very helpful. It depends on the person.
ELLEN: I think it was a lot better in gen chem. lab.
WINNIE: It depends on the group you’re with, but bio there’s supposed to be biology tutors who are students, but there’s no program.
Tilly: did anyone use any of that?
FRAN: I didn’t even hear about that.
WINNIE: I applied to be a bio tutor but I haven’t had anybody.
Tilly: Did you guys hear about those? Like the existence of them in your classes?
ELLEN: I don’t think, I mean, because there are tutors for I think even for math classes and stuff like that that you can sign up for, but I don’t feel as if, unless you’re failing…
WINNIE: It wasn’t really publicized.
FRAN: well you know like math help, that’s like, everyone goes to them, like my entire class went to that.
WINNIE: Was that a tutor? Or was that a TA that was with your class?
ELLEN: Kind of like a PLUM student kinda thing.
FRAN: It wasn’t, I don’t think they were in our class but, they…it wasn’t…I don’t know. It was just called Math Help. That’s all I know.
Tilly: So how did you know to apply to be a tutor?
WINNIE: They asked for tutors, I found out about it when they asked people to apply to be tutors, but not really in the class
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