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Transcripts - Group 3
Moderator: Liz Dean '08
Scribe: Anuska Fernando '08
Participants: Shania, Wendy, Kiki, Janet, Liliana
Clip 1
Liz: All right. So definitely jump in, you know, that sort of thing. So what was your experience with sciences before coming to Mount Holyoke? Did you start college expecting to become... to take classes in the sciences? That sort of thing.
SHANIA: Umm, I wasn’t going to take any classes in the sciences except for a distribution requirement, because during high school I actually had a real challenging science professor, so I expected that it would be worse here.
WENDY: Umm, yeah. I took a lot of classes in the sciences during high school, but I just wanted to take this as a distribution requirement. Like I took AP bio so I figured it would be an easy way to get it out of the way without taking like an upper level class.
LILIANA: I don’t know, I just like bio, and since I started to like it since high school and middle school and everything, it was just a way to start. And I took it because I like bio, that’s it.
KIKI: I took it because I was potentially interested in minoring in it, or minoring or majoring in biology, but based on that course I decided not to.
Liz: So how has your experience with science at Mount Holyoke changed since you took bio 150?
WENDY: I really haven’t taken anything since. Like, I took geology as my non-lab requirement for science, and then I took bio 150, and that was pretty much the extent of it.
SHANIA: Yeah, I did pretty much the same thing.
KIKI: I took bio 150 and decided that I needed a break, and I came knowing that I would do biology or my major now, and based on that course I decided to go on with architecture.
SHANIA: You know, as a side note the class I took actually made me want to take more bio, but now I can’t.
Liz: Good...wait, so why can’t you?
SHANIA: Well, I could take another course but it would kind of conflict with a lot of the other classes that I want to take.
Liz: Ok, but you would still be interested in taking more science classes?
SHANIA: Yeah, but now I have to do lots of 300 courses. So that's not going to be a big priority.
Liz: So what did you guys know about Mount Holyoke’s science program before, like when you were applying here, looking at all the admissions stuff, that sort of thing?
LILIANA: I know that it was different from science at home because at home we don’t have the materials and everything. So I knew it would be more complicated because we would have labs and whatever. I never did labs before, at home we didn’t have it. So, I just knew sciences were really good, and if I was really interested that was a good way to get it at the time. That’s it.
WENDY: I actually didn’t know anything about it before coming here, but now that I’m here I know they are supposed to be really good, and that we have a lot of good equipment here, but it wasn’t a draw. It wasn’t anything that I really knew about before hand.
SHANIA: Well, I knew they were supposed to be really good, and a lot of people were going here for it. Umm, I actually have a friend who I knew before coming, and she came for the sciences, so I knew a little bit about it before hand.
KIKI: I didn’t really know much other than it was a popular major and that it was known as being good. But I didn’t know anything about the school at all. So, yeah.
Liz: OK, umm. So how do you feel about having the distribution requirements as part of the Mount Holyoke curriculum?
SHANIA: I didn’t like it but I thought it was necessary.
Liz: Why did you think it was necessary?
SHANIA: Because it definitely helped me to understand things that I needed to understand in life.
WENDY: I think it’s definitely necessary to have a variety of subjects that you can have basic knowledge of when you come out of college, although I don’t think that bio 150 necessarily needed to be particularly one of them. I think there should have been a more clear cut class for non-majors which... it was fine for me to take because I had already taken, you know, rigorous bio in high school, but for those people who bio/sciences/chem. whatever, is not really there thing, they are starting in a class where a lot of science majors, premed majors, there’s just a wide variety, and I know it can be really difficult for some people who either are feeling like they being, I don’t know, impeded by the slowness of the class, because there are so many people who don’t want to have that as their major, or the other people are like ‘Oh my god, this class is moving way to fast. I don’t know any of this.’ Because, you know, the majors want to get ahead with it. So form both standpoints its kind of difficult to have 80 people in a class.
SHANIA: Umm, can’t you place out of it?
Clip 2
WENDY: Umm, yes, I actually placed out of it but I’d rather not take, like, and upper level bio, so I’d rather take the easier one just ‘cus it’s a distribution requirement.
Liz: So do you guys agree? That there should be separate classes for majors and non-majors?
LILIANA: I don’t like the distribution requirements at all. Some people are not interested in that, and now I maybe see that they need to take it just to know, really, what those things talk about, like because I didn’t know anything about econ…before, and now I took it and I’m really interested in econ...Like it helps a lot.
SHANIA: I definitely think that if you only took classes in your major you’d be really close minded.
KIKI: I definitely appreciate it, but I do know that there is also biology 145, which is...
WENDY: Yeah but it’s only for…
KIKI: It’s smaller sections....
WENDY: ...for first years, it’s also about plants.
KIKI: Or, they actually have a Zoology course which you can get into I think, but in general that’s kind of like the bio class for non-majors, I guess, but the secret is that you can take it and still be a major, yeah, so a lot of people know about it but, I don’t know.
Liz: Umm, Ok, all right, let’s shift gears and talk more specifically about bio 150. So I guess I sort of got a sense of this but just for clarification- Why you all....so you three took it for distribution requirements and you took it because you were a biology major and you like bio?
LILIANA: Yeah, and I like bio a lot.
Liz: All right, good, I just wanted to make sure that I got that clarified. So before you took Bio 150, when you signed up for it, what exactly were your expectations? If you had any, I mean if you didn’t have any expectations, that’s fine too. But if you did have any, what were they?
LILIANA: Yeah, I was not going to take this Bio, like with Sue Barry, I was going to take the one with Gruber because that was the one that I was interested in. I am not interested in doing plants... I’m a.... I was interested in cells, but they told me X was so boring, so I just went to Sue Barry, and then when I went to Y, I was like ‘Oh, even if like the teacher is not that interesting,’ and I found X very interesting, because I met [them]in the street and we talked, and I found [them]really interesting and then I realized that I shouldn’t have listened to others, I should have stayed with X.
KIKI: Um, I know my personal experience with X wasn’t a spectacular one. Z was really interesting and, um, X taught plants, that was [their] specialty, and my section half of the semester was X teaching plants which was not really the best.
LILIANA: All teachers are interesting, I think, the only thing is what they teach. I’m not interested in plants at all.
KIKI: I mean, I took IB Biology for two years before coming here so I - it’s a two year program - so I kind of knew what to expect in terms of lab and everything, and I found them to be very similar in a lot of the material overlapped, but um, I don’t know, I still didn’t expect, I don’t know, when I was signing up for it I didn’t really think about how large the lecture would be and how much I would dislike that.
WENDY: Along similar lines, I thought the same thing. You know, it’s gonna be like my bio class that I’ve taken in the past, so, or it will be fine, but it was a big class. Very large, like 80 people.
SHANIA: I don’t really mind the big classes, but I was definitely afraid of it because, like I said, I thought it would be harder than my high school classes, but it was a lot easier.
LILIANA: Yeah, it was a lot easier.
SHANIA: Yeah, I had labs, too, and they were really hard in high school, but here , it’s just like, ‘yeah, we’re going to do this, this is how you do it, ok?’
LILIANA: Yeah.
WENDY: Yeah.
KIKI: Generally, my section, I don’t think was quite as easy, but, a lot of people dropped the major based on difficulty, or, um, chose, a lot of people like me that were considering bio, but after the course, because of, I guess kind of competition, like it was a competitive class, especially labs, just a lot of people lost interest and moved onto other things.
SHANIA: usually the humanities. I hear that sometimes professors do that, try to weed people out, and I don’t really like that at all.
KIKI: No, I mean I think that’s kind of why I have hard feelings.
Liz: Um, so you’ve sort of answered this, but we can still talk more about it, um, in terms of Bio 150 I know that you guys have said that it was really easier than classes you took in high school, um, for you was it about the same?
KIKI: Well I mean…
Clip 3
KIKI: It was comparable, in some ways, but a lot of the material is different from what most AP, or IB students have done, I felt. Um, so it kind of depends, but a lot of people, I think, the problem was really they lost interest and found it difficult because of that.
Liz: Why do you think they lost interest?
KIKI: Well, it was really hard to be enthusiastic about the material. Um, and the labs, group projects were really dry.
Liz: Why was it dry? Because of the professors?
KIKI: Partially because of the professors, but a lot of it because of the material. A lot of it was really repetitive. I mean we learned plants for probably three quarters of the semester even though it was supposed to be half. Um, a lot of us got in there... it was supposed to be more about organisms and , um, little did we know that it would actually turn out to be about plants, So that was kind of disappointing. And we were always kind of waiting for the plants to end and they never really did.
LILIANA: So you really had plants, too? I thought the syllabus was wrong.
KIKI: Yeah, no actually the sections, I think, are a lot more simpler than you would think. Um, the descriptions are different. Um, I originally intended to be in the Barry and Smith Section, but switched over to Gary and Gruber, um, sorry, Gillis and Gruber, because I thought it would be better for me, but they seem to be exactly the same, kind of, hahaha.
WENDY: For me, it was kind of like a similar experience, it seemed kind of like a watered down version of what I had taken in high school, like the, um, labs were pretty similar, maybe not as like challenging just because they were all broken down and you’d have little tiny steps to go along with everything. but in terms of the course material we went through mitosis and meiosis and I was really kind of, I don’t know, a little bit surprised that we didn’t go in more depth and say, okay, this is anaphase, this is telaphase, they just said this is what meiosis is and this is what mitosis is, they’re different, blah blah blah.
KIKI: We went really in depth, like to the point where it was painful, but...
WENDY: Whoa, I guess it really depends.
KIKI: Yeah. It was really all we got into, other than...
SHANIA: Ha, I’m kind of glad that I took this one.
Liz: That’s funny, um, so if you had to do the science requirement over again, would you choose to do Bio 150, or if you, knowing what you do now, would you take a different class?
KIKI: I’m still planning on taking physics, so I guess if I were to do it again, I would do 1 ...Bio 145, or just take physics if I only wanted to do one.
LILIANA: I wouldn’t change. I enjoyed the class, it was nice.
Liz: Good.
SHANIA: Um, I took Geology before and it was kind of accidental.
WENDY: Um, I did that, too!
SHANIA: Yeah, I was planning on taking a math because I am better at math and I enjoy it, but then I took science and I realized that since it didn’t have a lab, it didn’t count except for math, so I would have planned better and I wouldn’t have taken it.
WENDY: I was kind of in the same situation, I might’ve taken Bio 145, I don’t know. Bio 150 seems now comparable. I don’t know., so...I guess I would take it again. Not again, but...!!
Liz: Right, right, um, in terms of the actual class, did you all always go to class?
KIKI: I always went to class.
LILIANA: Always.
KIKI: But there were about 5 people using my notes because they didn’t go to class.
WENDY: I have to say, like, I’m just a person who always goes to class anyway. But if I weren’t it would have been absolutely fine anyway because of the notes. It basically means that you don’t have to sit through 50 minutes of what you could just copy down in 2.
KIKI: Which is why so many people skipped my section and took my notes.
SHANIA: I usually go to class, and I went to class so that I wouldn’t have to touch the textbook, that’s pretty much it.
WENDY: True.
KIKI: Well, that was another thing. None of my classmates used their textbook. How was your section?
WENDY: I didn’t buy the textbook.
SHANIA: I did, but I shouldn’t have. Now it’s just like covered in dust.
LILIANA: Yeah, the textbook is just laying there, but I use it for Bio 200, but still I never looked at it.
KIKI: I know a lot of students bought it because they planned on taking Bio 200 and we were promised that they would use the same textbook and of course, they didn’t, which a lot of people were bitter about.
LILIANA: They are using it, but they are using two others.
KIKI: Yeah, so...
LILIANA: Yeah, two others with a price even higher.
Liz: So since you guys are talking about not ever opening your textbooks, I assume that...were there readings assigned for the class?
WENDY:No, not really.
LILIANA: For my class, yes there was. Bio 150, yeah, they were like for next week.
WENDY: You took it a different semester.
LILIANA: I took it in the Fall.
WENDY: This last Fall, they took it last year.
SHANIA: Well, she told us what chapter corresponded with the text, with the um, class, but she didn’t actually say we had to read them, she just said that...
WENDY: Yeah, yeah.
KIKI: The same thing.
SHANIA: Yeah but she said….
Clip 4
WENDY: It was for reference.
LILIANA: You would use it because some materials are in the book that she didn’t say. So if you wanted to go in more depth, you go to the book.
SHANIA: Yeah, but it wasn’t on the test so I wouldn’t bother.
LILIANA: Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
KIKI: In general, they didn’t give us assignments, every once in a while they would suggest a chapter,but for the most part, you were sort of expected to just find where you needed to be in the textbook, and so no one really used it.
Liz: So, primarily it was notes in class that you went off of?
WENDY: Yeah
Liz: And so was your work primarily lab reports?
WENDY: We actually didn’t have a full lab report ever.
KIKI: Really?
WENDY: Yeah
KIKI: Ours were full on lab reports. Write ups and all. Which I enjoyed, personally, because I was used to doing that in high school and I found that I was one of the few people in my lab that knew how to do them.
WENDY: Oh wow.
SHANIA: Did he not explain how to do it?
KIKI: Well, we learned in lab, like the lab TA would teach us how to do it, but a lot of people struggled with it.
WENDY: I have to say that that’s another thing that I’m kind of bitter about. Like I came to a small college, so that I could get, I don’t know, professors full attention. Yet then we were taught by TAs and, I don’t know, I was kind of disappointed with that. And then after hearing my friends say, ‘Oh Mt. Holyoke has such a great science department’, but I’m being taught by a TA. Like that’s.... I don’t know.
LILIANA: I had a hard time with labs too, I hated the labs.
KIKI: That was the only part I liked.
LILIANA: Really?
KIKI: I really got sick of going and taking notes. I only liked the labs and the write ups.
SHANIA: The lab was way too slow. I could barely sit through them for three hours.
Liz: So who are the TAs exactly?
LILIANA: We didn’t have a TA.
KIKI: My TA was called W. I don’t remember her last name. But we all just called her W. And what was great, our professors would walk through every once in a while and kind of work with us.
LILIANA: Ooooh.
KIKI: Yeah, but I mean, it wasn’t like they weren’t teaching, but like, if we were doing work with them, they would walk through. It was kind of nice to get a little bit of feedback, but I mean it wasn’t as, I mean I don’t think they were even assigned to, it was kind of like they were bored and they decided to walk through and see how we were like screwing up.
{Laughter}
LILIANA: So those people are not teachers, they are TAs?
KIKI: Yeah,
LILIANA: Oh, I didn’t know that.
SHANIA: As like a small side note, of the Science Department in my major, there lots of small classes where we do get lots of individual attention.
WENDY: Yeah, I mean I’m a Psych Major, but the thing is, I’m a TA, and I kind of don’t feel like, I don’t know, I feel like that’s not as beneficial as it could be. I mean, like, I’m going to be a Psych Major, so obviously I’m passionate about the subject, but a professor has a lot more knowledge than I personally do, and I feel the same way about Biology 150.
SHANIA: I think that Bio 150 class was one of the few ones where I was taught by a TA.
KIKI: I mean to be fair they weren’t student TAs, they were like graduate school grown-ups that were, like, had masters in Education and whatnot and were qualified in Biology but, I mean like yeah, they didn’t have Ph.D.'s in Biology by any means, ours was really helpful and if she wasn’t sure she would ask the professor of have them come in which was nice.
Liz: And you also had two professors, right? So did the fact that you had two professors and then also like a TA for labs, would you prefer to have one for everything or two for everything?
LILIANA: They had different ways of teaching, like I remember T, [their] teaching was very different from Y. I liked them both. T, I preferred a little, because [they] were funny, but they had different ways and it was good to see, like, this one will go faster and this one will go slower, it would be a break from the fast, fast, fast.
Liz: So you did like the fact that there were two professors?
LILIANA: Yeah
SHANIA: I didn’t really because I had to adapt to a new teaching style. I had to figure out their patterns of thought again.
KIKI: My class on the whole found it irritating. Um, X is a very boring lecturer, whereas Z was really enthusiastic and had a really great way of involving people, even an 80 person lecture. And, um, I think that this last Fall, Z wasn’t teaching with X, it was just X and um, I cannot even imagine that. I mean it might be okay, because you’re used to his pace the entire semester, whereas when X was lecturing we would just wait for weeks and cross our fingers that Z would come back and he usually did, but it was always hard to tell when. So I don’t know, I guess I am thankful…
Clip 5
KIKI: ...in that respect that they were team teaching. Um, also in terms of questions...I mean they both specialized in different things. So for labs they came in handy. One of them was obviously more enthusiastic. X, asking him about plants was amazing because plants are [their] life, basically. [They] are like err... so that was really great So that was really, [they] are really great, [they] were just boring one on one, [they] were definitely nice and helpful.
LILIANA: They two were nice. T and Y were nice.
Liz: Do you think that your experience of bio 150 would have been different if you had a different professor? Would you have come out feeling worse better about the class?
SHANIA: Well apparently after I hear description of the other class yeah.
KIKI: X. I definitely regretted X, not taking the other section. Particularly because they were at the exact same time so it wasn't really because of class conflicts or anything that people chose based on the subject and it sounds like they were teaching the same materials and my second room mate last year actually took that section with T and Y, and she had a lot of great things to say about it and you know, I guess considerably good things about it...whereas I didn't. So I definitely regretted taking the section I had taken. but,
Liz: And the rest of you were pretty happy with the labs?
All: Yeah, yeah
{laugh}
Liz: Over the course of the semester how did your impressions of the class change? Did they get better? Worse?
All: {Laugh}
LILIANA: better
JANET: better, how so?
LILIANA: Yeah because my only problem was the lab, and since with time the labs, the number of labs left kept getting smaller and smaller I was feeling better.
Liz: So why did you dislike the labs so much?
LILIANA: Because I never did a lab before. And I had two partners that didn't talk to me. And so, my TA was not helping. So, I just didn't feel good about the lab I couldn't wait and some times I would just lie and say 'oh can I go to the Friday lab or the other lab’, she will be like 'why' and I am like oh I have something on that day and I would lie and go to the other lab and have fun there.
Liz: So the other lab was better than your particular lab?
LILIANA: Yeah, because the people yeah, because of my group, the people. Because when you never did a lab, you come you have two partners, we were supposed to be three. I would e-mail them, can we meet, they would meet both of them and then I would be left out. They would come to class, they would not even talk to me. Like I did something, so I like I was like what is wrong with me so at the end I was just by myself and The TA knew it. But, she knew the others would not do anything with me. She would, so I was on my own for something I never did. I hated the lab.
WENDY: That sounds so terrible.
SHANIA: I guess so.
KIKI: Kind of in general that is the description of what I got from the department and in the beginning, I think, when people were ultra competitive. I did not have any personal experiences like that, but in my lab there were 12 people, it was very competitive and the only person like... the people would only speak to their lab partners. No one else really spoke.
WENDY: Yeah, that's true. That's what I found too.
SHANIA: Yeah.
KIKI: And everyone had the same lab partners the whole year. Even though we weren't told that we could have... you know, I mean it is nice to get used to one person and...you know, work with one person, but no one else would really speak. We did a lot of lab presentations and we just couldn't really get any interactions with each other, which I thought was really unfortunate, but yeah, it is nice to have one person.
LILIANA: My other problem that I didn't speak English too. Like I have been speaking English for only one year, and it was hard to write the papers. She would always commented “You better go to SAW!” I was like ‘why should I go to SAW again?’ “You know you have some structural problems,” and whatever I was like ‘hhhmm’.
KIKI: My Gosh!
V - Yeah
KIKI: That's really so amazing that you are just speaking after one year. I’ve been trying to speak French for years.
LILIANA: Really?
T - Yeah.
WENDY: I've been trying to speak English my whole life.
SHANIA: On the labs I actually had a very different experience. Everyone on my table helped each other and then compared notes with everyone on the other tables
KIKI: Oh really? That was the best.
SHANIA: Yeah.
KIKI: I mean, if one group is having difficulties it would be hard to get answers from another group. Rather, we would go to the TA and of course she would be like ‘I can't help you much blah blah.’ I mean, I think out of my lab…
Clip 6
KIKI: …my lab partner and I probably had the most experience with like dissecting, so we did a lot of that and writing labs, so that was... I mean helpful, but, other groups just wouldn't help each other at all which was really unfortunate.
SHANIA: My lab was entirely different. When there were dissections and some people- like me- were kind of squeamish, they just didn't have to do it. They just hooked up with someone else. It was... yeah, may be it was my lab instructor. Because she was really enthusiastic and she loved team work and stuff like that.
KIKI: I actually was really happy with my TA and everything, but I really think it was the group of people...like my TA, it seemed like she taught, I think, at least two other lab sections too, and from what she had to say about it they were all kind of different, too. So I think it really depended on the people.
Liz: So some of you seem to have this impression of students in your class being competitive. Do you think there is any particular reason as to why they are that way?
KIKI: No, I haven't dealt with that in any other class.
Liz: Really?
KIKI: Yeah, really. To a certain extent in other classes. It’s usually kind of like two students being competitive, it's not like the group on a whole, so I really only experienced that there. From what I understand in upper levels it's not really much like that. I mean, I have other friends that are Bio or Chem majors, or both, or whatever, and they seem to be fine. So, I mean, I think it really depends.
WENDY: Well, I don't know. One reason is because it is like an intro level class where people are trying to get into the upper level classes so they don't want to be the one to be weeded out, so maybe the other person gets a lower score than they do then may be
KIKI: Yeah.
WENDY: They have a better chance of getting good grades.
KIKI: I think a lot of it too was knowing the professors. I think it seem like a lot of students were striving to be on, like, a first name basis with the professors and getting more attention during lab
Shania: getting more private individual help with them sort of thing. Whereas the other students didn't really care about that and it seems like the students that didn't really care about that weren't really there to major in biology so.....
SHANIA: Well may be that was what a part of my experience was so different. ÔCuz everyone at my table wasn't majoring in bio, but I haven't seen that competitiveness anywhere in any of my classes.
LILIANA: Yeah.
KIKI: That was the only one. That's why it kinda freaked me out and I was like ‘ok, architecture it is’. Because I don't like that. It was just uncomfortable.
All: {Laugh}
LILIANA: I didn't feel any competition. I don't know why? Maybe I didn't look for it.
Liz: No, I mean everyone clearly has different experience. I was just throwing that out there for those of you that have experienced it.
LILIANA: Yeah.
SHANIA: I am really glad I am not a science major.
LILIANA: Oh don't say that!
All: {laugh}
KIKI: I mean the competition kind of came to my attention too, because a student... we had to write biology papers half way through the semester and a student was caught cheating on it in order to obtain a better grade than some other students too, and in the end they allowed her to stay in the class but I guess get a D minus, and she is a biology major now, so she continued on to two hundred since you can continue taking D minus or a D plus. I think it is either a D plus or a D minus that you need in order to move on to bio 200, so they allowed her to continue but she more or less nearly failed the course because of it. But that was all to get a better grade, which was obviously was all very controversial half way through the semester. I mean, I think a lot of it was.... I am not sure the extent of her cheating on it. I know she didn't really completely write the paper, didn't cite sources, and I mean may have partially ripped off her paper from another student so it was, I don't know, pretty ugly. I think she either found a paper of another student.... We were given individual topics, but I think she found it from another lab, they were distributed by lab and she didn't cite sources and nearly copied articles and other papers, so that was ... But it was all to get a better grade. I knew her, kind of fairly well. She lived near a friend of mine, so that was kind of bad.
LILIANA: Yeah, but I think there are problems with citations. I don't know what was going so presentation.....
KIKI: Citation, it was partially that too, and so that was really big deal and I guess.....
JANET: at least she doesn't have a bibliography
JANET: At least you have to credit somewhere, and she didn't know how to say it correctly.
LILIANA: Yeah.
SHANIA: People think they don't get caught.
KIKI: She didn't, no, I mean, yeah
Clip 7
Liz: So how did your experiences in bio 150 have an impact on future classes that you took?
KIKI: A huge sigh for me...
All: {laugh}
Liz: So you didn't want to take any other science classes?
KIKI: I did consider taking.....
Liz: Yeah you said physics.
KIKI: Yeah. I did consider taking more biology after that, but, like time conflicts like for me it was difficult to juggle biology classes with other classes that I was really interested in because it meets four times a week and has a lab. So, that was fairly difficult and I just decided that it wasn't even worth trying when I was so unhappy the previous semester, so yeah.
LILIANA: I chose a better lab partner.
All: {laughing}
WENDY: I guess for me it didn't really change anything Ôcuz I wasn't really planning to continue on anyway but, I guess....
SHANIA: I am focusing on my major now. No, I didn't take more of it.
JANET: I was going to be premed major, so I took Bio 150. Everyone said it was the worst class you, just tend to just get through it. Extremely boring- skip through it, so knowing that I took Bio 200, same exact thing and I never took any Bio after that so....
Liz: So you were in premed and now you are not?
JANET: Yeah, I am an economics major.
Liz: So why did you decide to no longer be premed?
JANET: I guess I wanted to challenge myself more. I did well in both Biology classes: I got A’s in both. I thought they were.... it was all about memorizing terminology.
WENDY: Yeah.
JANET: We didn't actually get to study any processes in detail whatsoever.
WENDY: Yeah, we discussed that.
JANET: Right, ok. It was really bothersome because I loved science so much in high school. I think most of the people that were in the class did, and then class and it wasn't interesting anymore. It was trying to get as much information as possible into your head, which is something we're capable of doing but wasn't interesting to me.
So I started just taking more writing and economic
Shania: Basic theory classes that I liked better.
SHANIA: I actually liked keeping information in my head and that actually made me like the course even better, and I hate the labs by the way.
KIKI: I got so bored with the class and the only good I got out of the class, for me, was lab. And after experiencing the class as a whole I just completely lost interest and just decided I wanted to.... my priorities were elsewhere.
Liz: Just for recording purposes: which section of bio were you in and what year?
JANET: I took it freshman year and sophomore year fall 2004, and I don't remember sections. Names: Y and T’s class.
Liz: Oh ok.
JANET: I just had Y ant T.
Liz: She is the only one who hasn't had the Y.
SHANIA: May be everyone else wants to block it out of their memory.
KIKI: Actually, I did ask people of that section to come and none of them would so, I mean, I mean I only know of one person, that I knew pretty well, that still is in Biology, and the rest of them moved on to other things and really disliked the class. I mean just like the class so....
Anushka: That's out of how many students?
KIKI: 80. I mean that I know personally. I don't know like 15, I knew a lot of people.
Anushka: Out of 15 one person just continued biology?
KIKI: That I knew of. The rest of them.... I mean, not all of them were planning on doing biology, but were interested enough that they would have taken other classes.
Liz: Would you all say that within your class there was a pretty even mix in terms of actual bio majors, people for distribution requirements, and people doing premed?
KIKI: In my class primarily people seemed like they were actually genuinely interested in pursuing biology. I knew two people that didn't think they would. I mean, I even thought I would have for a while, and that changed obviously, but it really did seem like every....I think everyone in my lab intended to major in biology or premed or something.
Liz: So did they all continue, are they all Bio majors now?
KIKI: Say maybe half, may be, so that's like 6 people out of my lab.
JANET: It’s not about intellectual ability, it’s about who is willing to put in the grunt work.
Liz: I keep hearing that, I keep hearing, like, weed people out?
JANET: It’s not about whose more talented, it’s about whose willing to be...
KIKI: ...bored that long?
JANET: To be bored long enough to get something....
KIKI: ...accomplished.
WENDY: My friend was actually a neuroscience major and so like premed and she said that she won’t get classes that she really wants to take- that she was actually interested in- until her senior year because…
Clip 8
WENDY: …you have to take all these prerequisites such as Bio 150, like orgo, like three chem classes, you know, the bio ones, physics.
JANET: Yeah, professors say that the reason is you need to like, learn all this terminology before you can actually go and study something, but I say why don't you break it down into smaller pieces and learn, like, not necessarily make it chronological, but make it like, study one area in depth, well, and then move onto something else and have classes that way. Because what they're trying to do is make you learn like all the phylum, like, they want you to know, like all these and that was all what Bio 150 was about
KIKI: And it was a huge waste of time
JANET: Oh, completely.
KIKI: Because I'm sure we all had learned it previously and if we hadn't, we could've easily looked it up rather than like wasting forty minutes of class time learning it I felt, anyway, but…
SHANIA: I actually really enjoyed them. I guess that's because I actually enjoy memorization, categories, and stuff like that.
LILIANA: Yeah, but now I think forgot all of them in less than a semester, the only thing I remember are the annelids yes, that's bad
Liz: Do you guys - I know some of you mentioned that you took like, IB or AP sciences - do you wish that we could - 'cause I know that we don't, you can't actually place out of, like you can't substitute AP Bio for Bio 150É
WENDY: Yeah, I really wish could.
Liz: You wish that was an option?
WENDY: Yeah
JANET: You can do that for chem., though
Liz: Really?
JANET: Yeah, I'm pretty sure, I'm positive
KIKI: I mean, I guess it's a positive thing that if you have taken a class at a higher level in high school and you've already covered that material, you might as well pass it, but at the same time. I have a really hard time allowing people to take high school classes and pass them off as college classes, I don't know, for some reason I really dislike that concept, but I kind of understand it.
WENDY: Yeah, I agree
KIKI: In the sciences, it's kind of necessary, but, I don't know.
JANET: I think if you take like, less classes, like I have a couple, like maybe eight credits that transferred from high school, but obviously I'm going to take sixteen credits every single semester, but you know, I'm not going to like take off
WENDY: I am, my senior year I'm not taking any classes, I'm just like, doing a thesis, yeah, and when I go abroad, too.
KIKI: How many credits did you transfer?
WENDY: A lot.
KIKI: Just from APs?
WENDY: Yeah
KIKI: Oh
SHANIA: Wow, I so wish my high school had those
KIKI: I mean, Mount Holyoke is really great about transferring APs, but IBs, it's really hard to transfer over, which I know they're comparable completely, so, actually it's something I'd like to discuss with the school anyway.
LILIANA: Yeah, I think that's unfair.
KIKI: It's a two year program and they'll only accept a full diploma and that'll cancel out a whole year, but you can't do individual classes because we did higher levels and standards levels, you took three courses at higher levels and three standards so they it's just complicated sorry, for bringing that up but anyway, yeah.
JANET: It's not the same as having an honors course? Because that's what they're equating it to, right?
KIKI: Yeah, I mean, they're definitely equated to AP courses, so, I don't know.
JANET: Because at our school, we had regular biology, honors biology.
WENDY: Yeah, that's what we had, too.
JANET: Three levels.
LILIANA: That's why I am saying it's so unfair, because if you don't come from the American system. I come from a different system, we work harder!
Anushka: Just to add to it, I'm from Sri Lanka and I took A Levels and they give 32 credits.
KIKI: Yeah, they do the same with IB, so are you graduating a year early?
Anushka: Well, I can but I'm not, I'm going to stay, but I also transferred from another college, so I lost credit I think I got more credit from my country, for A Levels, than I did for the college in California but I can graduate, still, I mean, after transferring and everything and doing a semester of study abroad, I can graduate at the end of next year, but.
JANET: Are you a sophomore?
Anushka: Yeah. They say that I'm in the class of '08, but I have junior standing, but I'm going to stay one extra semester, because I might as well just relax.
KIKI: So you're like, a first semester junior, then?
Anushka: Yeah
SHANIA: As I was saying, my high school didn't have anything like that, which really makes me feel kind of cheated a lot of the time, um, I could take classes at the nearby college, but, um, you couldn't actually do that until you'd taken all the courses in your department and it was also Dartmouth College
Anushka: Just to add, I mean it's not that I took any special…
Clip 9
Anushka: …classes, it's the system in my whole country, like everyone, anyone who graduates from high school and comes here would get 32 credits, not that I do anything special.
LILIANA: That is so unfair!
Liz: Sorry, I just want to jump in because we only have like five more minutes and I just want to get to the last question. I just wanted to ask, to what degree do all of you feel connected to the science tradition here at Mount Holyoke, because it's a huge, huge part of the community here and both as biology majors and people who did premed and people who are just totally doing it for distribution - I'd be really interested to find out how connected you feel?
JANET: I always brag about our science department.
Anushka: You used to?
JANET: I still do, like I think like, um a huge percentage of women with Ph.D.'s in the sciences come from Mount Holyoke, and that's like, period, in the United States. We have a great science department. At the same time, I love science and I didn't want to study it here because I was so turned off by the way they teach it, so, I don't know, I don't know what to say it's conflicting.
Anushka: Do you think that in any point in your life you will pick up science again, or you have totally switched over?
JANET: Yeah, I started taking Econ classes and I love it. I find it more mentally challenging, intellectually challenging.
Liz: Anyone else?
WENDY: Actually, I have a question for you when this is over. I want to know what Econ class to take. Um yeah, I don't know, I don't have that strong of a connection to the sciences anymore, not after, I mean, I think that once people decide that they're going to leave a certain venue behind, then they become more passionate about their major or want to go into something, like you, with Econ, like you find something that you absolutely love, so you kind of let other things fall by the way side.
Liz: But you still think it's important to have the fact that we have the distribution requirements?
WENDY: Yeah.
LILIANA: My only thing is that maybe I want, like to see what there is in humanities but I still don't feel comfortable speaking in English or doing papers so I'd rather stay in science where you do one plus one equals two no, I prefer to stay in the sciences.
JANET: Are you still a science major?
LILIANA: Yes
JANET: Oh, okay. Biology?
LILIANA: Yes. Maybe neuroscience, who knows? Less requirements.
JANET: Neuroscience has less requirements than biology?
LILIANA: Because Bio is asking me like, so many bio classes, but neuroscience is kind of a mix of math and psychology, so I can and I don't need a minor, it's like a major.
JANET: Yeah.
WENDY: Oh, it's like sixty credits, instead of being like 32, plus your minor.
LILIANA: Yes.
Liz: What about you?
SHANIA: Um, I don't have any connection to the sciences here.
KIKI: I certainly have no attachment, I mean I think it's really interesting and obviously, like, it's a great department so it's definitely something to maybe kind of brag about when people are asking about the science department here and but I have no attachment to it at all.
SHANIA: I have friends who are science majors.
Liz: Do you wish there was more a connection with the sciences, um and the other departments the other academics on campus? Because there is, there's like, sciences, and then, you know, there's like everything else I guess at least that's how Admissions often presents it.
KIKI: I don't know. I'm not sure that that's necessarily accurate, but I don't know, it's hard to say.
Liz: You don't think it's necessary, that we…
KIKI: No, I don't think it's necessary, but I don't think that the sciences are necessarily on their own either. I mean, they're certainly not mixed in with humanities, but, they have math and what not.
JANET: I feel like with sciences you have like a direct career path, you're going to be premed, a doctor. Or you're going to be doing research. A research scientist. And because I didn't want to do either of those two things, there was just no point in sticking through biology.
LILIANA: And maybe because yesterday I went to lab and my lab instructor was like, ‘What do you want to do?’ and I'm like, ‘I'm a premed’ and she's like, ‘Oh, you know they don't have a financial aid so you better do something else!’ Life is hard! I'm going to do Econ, maybe.
SHANIA: At least you're not an Asian studies major, I have no specific paths to go to after graduation.
JANET: I kind of like that, it's challenging you can like, create your own path.
SHANIA: Yeah.
KIKI: It doesn't really matter what you graduate you know, like what you major in as an under grad.
WENDY: Yeah.
JANET: Yeah.
SHANIA: Yeah.
KIKI: I mean, unless for like…
Clip 10
KIKI: sciences I mean, it's hard to go premed if you're like an English major.
WENDY: Even then I know someone who's a classics major and she's actually already in med. school, and has been since she's a sophomore.
Liz: That's really cool.
JANET: Wait, she's currently in med. school?
WENDY: No, she's currently here she's a senior now but she got into med. school when she was a sophomore.
JANET: Oh, she was already accepted.
Liz: That's really impressive.
KIKI: Wait, she got into med. school when she was a sophomore?
WENDY: Yeah, she was a sophomore.
KIKI: How?
JANET: She took her MCAT's already?
WENDY: Yeah.
KIKI: Wow.
WENDY: And she's a classics major. She's writing her thesis in classics.
KIKI: Why did she apply so early?
WENDY: I don't know, I'm not, yeah, particularly sure.
Liz: Is it time?
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