Please only take this course if you are pre-med. Here's the grading breakdown: 15% In-Lab Assignments, 15% Pre-labs, 30% Postlabs, 40% Lab Reports. The grade cutoffs for each letter grade are only announced halfway through the semester. I got lucky: the overall GPA was 3.5 for the course (most common grades were A- and then A). Max made the grade cutoff for an A- 89 instead of 90 and made the cutoff for an A 93. Each experiment is broken down into two parts (A&B) and takes place over the course of 2 weeks. There is a pre-lab assignment every week and they are very easy. For part A of each lab, there is an in-lab assignment and a postlab assignment that is due nine days later. In-lab assignments are quite difficult, so make sure you get as much help from your TA to do them during class. Of the seven in-labs, three are graded and you will get full credit on the others. The post-lab assignments are very challenging. You must go to office hours to get help completing them. The lab reports are based on the Part B of each experiment. These are also very hard and can be very confusing. The most important thing is that you make sure that you come to class with questions about the lab report and make sure you understand the report fully. Then make sure you go to office hours to make sure that you are not missing anything because the graders are extremely petty. That's another thing: unlike other lab classes, your TA does not grade your work, there are special graders (not TAs) who do so. One more thing, the lab reports and in-lab assignments are group work, which comprises a total of 55% of your grade. If your group members do not pull their weight, inform your TA and switch groups immediately otherwise your grade will suffer. This lab is a lot of work for a one-credit course.
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Ignore anything written before Spring 2024, because the course was completely restructured to drop the exhausting group reports in favor of straightforward pre-, in-, and post-lab submissions that actually fit a one-credit workload. Previous semesters were heavily criticized for disorganization, arbitrary grading, and confusing rubrics that often forced students to carry unresponsive groupmates. Recent terms run much smoother with transparent expectations and high class averages, so your best strategy is grouping up with reliable classmates and using TA office hours when WebAssign or error calculations get frustrating. Put in consistent effort, but don't stress over the older complaints, as the class finally delivers the manageable experience students expect.