MICROBIOLOGY / IMMUNOLOGY / VIROLOGY (6.0 credit hours)
Faculty: Dr. Timothy Steele, Dr. Mary Johnson, Dr. Suzanne Bohlson, Dr. Andrew Brittingham, Dr. Marie Nguyen, Dr. Jeffrey Gray
Ingredients:
Lectures by Microbiology faculty
Lecture handouts
Required reading assignments
This course consists of:
One 3-hour laboratory session
8 section exams
Recipe for Success (from the kitchen of Krysta Schroeder & Leslie Joseph):
This course is broken down into two parts Immunology and Microbiology -- but results in one letter grade at the end. The immunology block, which begins in January after Winter Break, consists of two exams that cover 8 lectures each. This portion of the course is taught almost entirely by Dr. Steele, who most students would agree is an awesome professor. He is very interesting to listen to, inserting his cheesy sense of humor anywhere possible during lecture. He responds very quickly to emails and lets students know that he will be roaming around the school on the nights before exams (typically from 5-8pm) for any last minute questions. Listen to lectures and take notes on what Dr. Steele emphasizes in his PowerPoint slides. He may tell you during lecture to focus only on one or two sentences of a slide set or to disregard an entire slide. Knowing the material on the PowerPoints with what Dr. Steele emphasizes in lecture is more than enough to succeed in the immunology portion of this course.
For the microbiology block, PowerPoints are detailed and well-organized; the handouts are good supplements if you are looking for further explanations, but test questions come from information on the slide sets. Lecture material is presented by the faculty in a “systems-based approach” -- you will learn about several of the microorganisms that attack the respiratory, GI, and vascular systems, among others. There will be many organisms to keep track of, so I’d recommend that you create tables or charts to organize the information (or check the Google drive for pre-existing tables). For the audio-visual learners out there, programs like Picmonic and Sketchy Micro are great study tools. You’ll have to purchase a subscription to either program for a small fee, but the price may well be worth it to learn all the information for this class and for the board exams. There is one 3-hour laboratory session towards the end of the course that does last the entire time allotted, but it goes by fast because you’re always doing something! It was actually pretty fun culturing organisms and trying to identify your unknown based on a series of enzymatic reactions; you’ll work with a group during the lab to identify an unknown organism and take an individual 5-question quiz worth 10 points at the end of the session.
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