NEUROSC 101L
Neuroscience Laboratory
Description: Lecture, two hours; laboratory, three hours. Requisites: courses M101A, M101B (M101B may be taken concurrently). Not open for credit to students with credit for Psychology 116. Introduction to laboratory methods in neuroscience. Laboratory exercises range from molecular and cell biological to behavioral. Hands-on experience with important methodology and experimental approaches in neuroscience. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
1 of 2
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - This is a review for all 3 professors of 101L I was particularly not a fan of lab work, but took this class bc I needed it. I ended up doing really well and got an A+. Here's my breakdown of the class and the advice I wish I told myself at the start of the quarter: Grisham: you have weekly pre-labs, and then each weekly lab you do some work which at the end of the 4th week you'll use to write a paper. So make sure your'e doing everything right since the start bc you will need it later. The paper is like 88% of the grade for his module, and the rest is prelabs. You sometimes need to read a paper or two for the prefabs, He is a nice guy, go to his lectures or at least watch them after, as they are helpful for the pre labs, they grade nicely, I got full marks on all of them. The paper to me seemed daunting, I had no idea what was going on half the time... it took me a while to do it, maybe over the span of 3-4 days, and I would go to the TA OH a bunch to try and figure it out. I ended up getting a 98% on it. If you're freaking out, don't worry, just go to OH and try and get some pointers, I swear I am still confused abt what I wrote lol but it was good enough. I'd say his module is the most work heavy, but they also grade really nicely. Babiec: Didn't really watch the lectures, sometimes skimming the slides was useful. Only had post-labs and then the final assignments. Grading here was more 50/50. The post-labs were based on the work we did in lab, and once again the material all adds up for your final project, so be sure to know whats going on each week. He is a much more picky grader, I'd get points off for the stupidest stuff... His module was a bit less work that Grisham's for the final. Once again, TA office hours will be your saviours. Lin: the easiest of the 3 in terms of work load. By this point in the quarter you're probably overwhelmed with other classes, so it's nice that his module is easier. No pre or post labs, just the final project. One is based off of work in 1 lab, the other is answering some questions based on the lecture material (I skimmed the slides and watched parts of the lecture, but the majority of the lecture is not that useful). Once again, TA OH will save you. I got 100% on his module and didn't put in more than 2-3 days of work for all of it. Overall I really wasn't too interested in the contents of the class, it's just not my cup of tea. I constantly felt lost in what we were talking about, but somehow managed an A+, so you will be fine! I would literally go to OH almost every week to check my work and ask for guidance, and on the weeks we had finals due I'd even hit extra TA OH to check stuff. That to me is the way to go if you want to do well, since on your own the stuff might seem really confusing. It is not too bad of a time commitment, especially the last module! Outside of the 3h of lab, I'd spend maybe 2-3h a week on this class, maybe 10-15h on the weeks we had a final due, and that was it. Everything is a take home, which makes it way less stressful, so enjoy that! Check your work in OH before turning it in, and you should be good to go
Winter 2022 - This is a review for all 3 professors of 101L I was particularly not a fan of lab work, but took this class bc I needed it. I ended up doing really well and got an A+. Here's my breakdown of the class and the advice I wish I told myself at the start of the quarter: Grisham: you have weekly pre-labs, and then each weekly lab you do some work which at the end of the 4th week you'll use to write a paper. So make sure your'e doing everything right since the start bc you will need it later. The paper is like 88% of the grade for his module, and the rest is prelabs. You sometimes need to read a paper or two for the prefabs, He is a nice guy, go to his lectures or at least watch them after, as they are helpful for the pre labs, they grade nicely, I got full marks on all of them. The paper to me seemed daunting, I had no idea what was going on half the time... it took me a while to do it, maybe over the span of 3-4 days, and I would go to the TA OH a bunch to try and figure it out. I ended up getting a 98% on it. If you're freaking out, don't worry, just go to OH and try and get some pointers, I swear I am still confused abt what I wrote lol but it was good enough. I'd say his module is the most work heavy, but they also grade really nicely. Babiec: Didn't really watch the lectures, sometimes skimming the slides was useful. Only had post-labs and then the final assignments. Grading here was more 50/50. The post-labs were based on the work we did in lab, and once again the material all adds up for your final project, so be sure to know whats going on each week. He is a much more picky grader, I'd get points off for the stupidest stuff... His module was a bit less work that Grisham's for the final. Once again, TA office hours will be your saviours. Lin: the easiest of the 3 in terms of work load. By this point in the quarter you're probably overwhelmed with other classes, so it's nice that his module is easier. No pre or post labs, just the final project. One is based off of work in 1 lab, the other is answering some questions based on the lecture material (I skimmed the slides and watched parts of the lecture, but the majority of the lecture is not that useful). Once again, TA OH will save you. I got 100% on his module and didn't put in more than 2-3 days of work for all of it. Overall I really wasn't too interested in the contents of the class, it's just not my cup of tea. I constantly felt lost in what we were talking about, but somehow managed an A+, so you will be fine! I would literally go to OH almost every week to check my work and ask for guidance, and on the weeks we had finals due I'd even hit extra TA OH to check stuff. That to me is the way to go if you want to do well, since on your own the stuff might seem really confusing. It is not too bad of a time commitment, especially the last module! Outside of the 3h of lab, I'd spend maybe 2-3h a week on this class, maybe 10-15h on the weeks we had a final due, and that was it. Everything is a take home, which makes it way less stressful, so enjoy that! Check your work in OH before turning it in, and you should be good to go
AD
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - Neuro 101L is a pretty cool class. To be honest, I don't feel like I learned a lot that was new in terms of neuroscience material, but doing the lab write-ups have been pretty helpful in understanding how publications are written. Word of advice: know your statistics, it will come in handy! I took Stats 10 two years ago and forgot most of the material, which came back to bite me in the behind since I had to spend a couple of hours reading up on ANOVA and F-scores and whatnot. Another word of advice: make sure to play close attention to anytime you see or hear the word 'pre-lab.' Sometimes he'll notify you by e-mail about it, sometimes it'll be on the syllabus as well, but there were a couple of times where it was only mentioned briefly in class and the actual assignment wasn't made very clear, so some students ended up not doing the pre-lab correctly (or didn't do it at all) and missed points for it. In terms of lecture, I thought going to class was helpful, but not particularly mandatory especially on days where he just lectured on what to include in your lab report, since all the info is in the slides. He did give out cookies on the last day though, so I'm kind of bummed I missed out that day... :( From what I remember, this was the same for the other modules taught by Walwyn and Ghiani, although I did think their material was interesting and worth hearing about in class. It's a pretty easy A if you show up to lab and do the work. Labs can be tedious/not very interesting at times (or gross--thinking about the cricket module makes me shudder), but Grisham keeps things lively and will crack a joke every now and then. So I'd definitely recommend Grisham for 101L...not that you have any other choice anyway ;)
Winter 2017 - Neuro 101L is a pretty cool class. To be honest, I don't feel like I learned a lot that was new in terms of neuroscience material, but doing the lab write-ups have been pretty helpful in understanding how publications are written. Word of advice: know your statistics, it will come in handy! I took Stats 10 two years ago and forgot most of the material, which came back to bite me in the behind since I had to spend a couple of hours reading up on ANOVA and F-scores and whatnot. Another word of advice: make sure to play close attention to anytime you see or hear the word 'pre-lab.' Sometimes he'll notify you by e-mail about it, sometimes it'll be on the syllabus as well, but there were a couple of times where it was only mentioned briefly in class and the actual assignment wasn't made very clear, so some students ended up not doing the pre-lab correctly (or didn't do it at all) and missed points for it. In terms of lecture, I thought going to class was helpful, but not particularly mandatory especially on days where he just lectured on what to include in your lab report, since all the info is in the slides. He did give out cookies on the last day though, so I'm kind of bummed I missed out that day... :( From what I remember, this was the same for the other modules taught by Walwyn and Ghiani, although I did think their material was interesting and worth hearing about in class. It's a pretty easy A if you show up to lab and do the work. Labs can be tedious/not very interesting at times (or gross--thinking about the cricket module makes me shudder), but Grisham keeps things lively and will crack a joke every now and then. So I'd definitely recommend Grisham for 101L...not that you have any other choice anyway ;)
1 of 2
