I have such contradictory feelings towards labs. I have bio labs once a week, for 3 hours, and chem labs about once every 2 weeks, for 2.5 hours.
On one hand, they totally blow away the labs in high school. For bio labs, I saw actual living paramecium and oedogonium, zooming around under the microscope! I use my microscope so much in bio. And they take us to demo rooms to see the stuff we're learning about, and for one lab, we climbed Mont Royal to count and gather data about an invasive plant species! However, I'm always so dead tired and thirsty after 3 hours straight of bio lab, but it nice that there's no pressure to do a write-up by the end of class that needs to be handed in and marked.
CHEM labs, however, are just ugh. Just thinking about it makes me wanna cry. I've had 2 so far, and I'm hating it SO much. First, there's the pressure of time; data has to be gathered during the lab and handed in for marks. No extra time given, so if the experiment isn't done (so data won't be completed), then I'm screwed. Because there's also a chem lab write-up that's due 24 hours after the lab, and that's for marks too- and it requires the data gathered during lab, so if that data is missing or misplaced or significantly wrong, the lab write-up is in BIG TROUBLE.
Oh, and did I mention the FIRE ALARM went off during my 2nd chem lab? With no extra time given, I was in a very panicked/stressed/angry mood. Man. And the 1st lab, which is supposed to be easy-peasy, was just uninteresting, and stressful because I kept falling below the time limit (thank goodness I always manage to finish, but barely) and oh man, the flask incident! I had to put all the stuff back where I found it in the beginning, and so these Erlenmeyer flasks, which are fat at the bottom and a thin tube on top, was wet and I had to put it upside down the way I found it, for it to drain. There were 3. I balanced them, and then I knocked it over, leading to a resounding crash of glass on wood. Then I tried to balance them again. Crash. And again. Domino effect. Crash. I kept knocking them over and on to each other and it was stupid and I was clumsy and it happened about 4 times in less than 1 minute. Aargh!
Monday, October 12, 2009
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Your Bio lab sounds easy... we have to do a poster project + oral presentation on an organism that lives in the intertidal region, and it's worth a freaking 16% of our final mark!!! I feel very screwed for it right now, cause it's due this Friday and I haven't had time to start researching for it yet T_T But on the other hand, my chem labs are so much easier than yours. We do a "pre-lab" design form before the lab, and then we do the lab, write down our observations, and do our lab report at home and hand it in at the next lab. Which is in 2 weeks after one lab =P
ReplyDeleteOh, I had to do a bio lab presentation too- did a powerpoint with my partner =) I was nervous as hell, altho it was only in front of about 12 ppl.. I just don't like presentation ><
ReplyDeleteYea, for chem labs and bio labs, we have to do a prelab writeup/procedures too!
Good luck on your bio! 16% sounds insane..
OMG my bio oral exam is tomorrow, and my killer bio lab midterm is on wednesday! Do you guys have that?? I have to freaking memorize the first 5 labs in my lab manual! hmmp.