Biology Help!

naenae1979 · Sep 11, 2009

I have had a similar experience, but I had an "old school" professor who ended up being awesome!! I learned more from her than I ever learned out of all 7 science classes I had!! I have discovered I am a visual learner, and there is a key to these types of lectures. You are lucky b/c he is posting his notes online. I on the other hand, did not have the internet when I first started college. I had to take a tape recorder and record the lectures. I also pre read each chapter the night before class, so sometimes the notes felt like a review! Also... I studied that days notes that night as a review. It helped me a lot. Just hang in there. DON'T GIVE UP THAT EASY!! U CAN DO THIS:) hope I helped.

Coriander, BSN, RN · Sep 11, 2009

Oh man... I've had professors like that and it gets really frustrating. Are there any other sections you can transfer into?

If not, see how you do on the first exam. I would do the same thing you suggested - go over the summary in the end of the chapter and understand as much as you can from that. At the end of the semester, or when they do staff evalulations, be perfectly honest. If this is his first time teaching, he might not have any idea how to communicate effectively.

Good luck!!

browneyes3000 · Sep 11, 2009

I totally understand how you feel. Biology was my first science class, and I didn't understand anything going on. I felt so nervous whenever I came to that class, after the first day, I bought a recorder and recorded all the lectures in class and came home study really hard. Finally I got an A in that biology class. Anyway, English isn't my first language, and I didn't understand the terms and a lot of easy words for native speaker in the book so I try to memorize everything...I wrote each term down about 100 -500 times, used flash cards ....I think it was really helpful. Try your best, everything will be fine.

nohika · Sep 12, 2009

If he's going too fast for you to hear, I would DEFINITELY recommend a tape recorder! That way, you can listen to his lectures as many times as you want and therefore eventually pick up everything. I would also recommend flashcards/writing and re-writing notes, maybe making outlines of the chapters? Best of luck - let us know how it goes!

markuskristian · Sep 12, 2009

My microbiology course was like that. Great professor, but it was his last semester teaching, so he just ran through everything real quick.

I listened to the lecture in class without taking notes, and I wrote definitions and important concepts in my own words straight from the textbook. It did take a little more effort, but I pulled an A in the class.

my4helpers · Sep 12, 2009

Thanks for all your help! I asked the professor last week if we could use recorders and he said yes! So I am going to get one before Monday nights class. It's just so irritating how he is! For example, our very first class was Aug. 31st. and he ran over the syllabus real quick and then quickly dove into his lecture. Like I said this was my first time in college so I thought is this how it is?? Until I saw other students around me getting mad. One lady raised her hand and asked if his lectures are found anywhere on line and he said no and that's why you guys are taking really good notes. He never leaves the slides up long enough for us to copy it down so he must of got it through his head that he is going to fast and hopefully by Monday everything will be online!

Browneyes, it's funny that you mention that English is not your first language because I was just talking to my husband about this because English is not his first language either! I was telling him that I don't understand how people can go to school when English is not their first language and understand what is going on because English is my first language and all these terms seems foreign to me! Congratulations on your A!!!

markuskristian, I think this is what I am going to have to do as well and your right it does take some time! It's aging to take me hours this way, but hopefully when I get finished and go to study maybe I will remember a lot of the stuff that I wrote down.

My sister keeps telling me to not worry about the first test. She said from her experience that you have to wait and take a test to see how that professor is going to be and then I will know what to study for the rest of the test. So my two options are: study his notes like crazy and try to memorize everything or study the end of chapter summary's which will take a lot more work considering I am the type that has to use flashcards and their are around 60-100 terms plus tons of other facts and are test are over 6 chapters at a time. I hope all of this comes together for me!