BIO 153 or 155 @ UBC

Hey Angel,

I believe to get into UBC nursing, you need to take BIOL 153 instead of BIOL 155 because they require the lab component. I took BIOL 153 a few years ago and the same prof is still teaching it and he's awesome! The lab component isn't too difficult and just as long as you study for the quizzes and write the lab reports, it's not that difficult to get a good mark if you study for it. Usually the lab helps boost up your final mark because it's worth 40%.

BIOL 153 is all about human anatomy and physiology so it's completely different than bio 11 in high school where you learn about plants and invertebrates. It's a lot closer to bio 12 in high school with all the human systems. There's A LOT of memorization in the course but personally, I found it super interesting. It's not too difficult if you do it in the summer but you have to make sure to study/review after each class because he goes thorough a lot of material each class but it's definitely not impossible.

The lab depends on if you're focusing on either anatomy or physiology that week. If it's about anatomy, you usually have to study for a short 10 min quiz with no lab report due. If it's about physiology, you usually do some experimentation and measure some variable with regards to some human system and write up a lab report about it. I don't think we ended up doing any dissections at all the year I took it.

I took it during winter but some of my friends took it during the summer said it wasn't too bad...although a lot of condensed studying.

I took Biol 153 during summer this year. I didn't find it to be too hard, as it was mostly Grade 12 Biology, just with more details, mechanisms and elaborations. I found it to be rather interesting actually--One instructor has a knack of making the lectures animated. He's a very good prof, and makes concepts crystal clear. There is quite a bit of workload involve--you have three classes a week, each class being 3 hours long. Essentially you are covering one week's worth of material in one class...it can get quite overwhelming at times. You have a lab every week, and they divided it up into "wet" and "dry" labs. "Dry" labs are usually accompanied by a quiz, and activity involving the computer, whereas "wet" labs are more hands on. The lab portion was super duper easy in the summer--no formal write up required. Exams are fair, but you do have to study. A good grasp of basic Grade 12 Biology would definitely give you an advantage in this course.

For the nursing admission, both 153 and 155 are accepted (it says so on the UBC Nursing Site), but I would recommend Biol 153...just because that's what nursing students had to take in first year of nursing before UBC Vancouver suspended direct entry from high school to the nursing program.

By the way, are you two applying this year?

Cheers =)

Hey SimplicityGirl,

I applied last year and I will be starting nursing at UBC in January. Are you thinking of applying for next year?

oooh, that's so cool.

I am planning on applying for next year's intake (they changed the intake to September only now)...you'll probably see me with more questions closer to the date of application =)