This post was originally published on January 22, 2009.
by Rose
Hi everybody! Wow… It’s been a while since my last blog post – I can’t believe it’s already been almost two years since I took AP Bio! It feels quite surreal writing this post as a college student.
First, to introduce myself: Hi, my name is Rose Kim. Currently, I am a freshman at Johns Hopkins University and I plan on majoring in behavioral biology, a subject which I first encountered in Ms. Baker’s AP Biology class during my junior year in high school. The subject had piqued my interest so much that I decided to spend four years learning more about it! Haha, anyways, I was asked by Ms. Baker to talk about my college experience so far and I am more than happy to do so.
Last September was the freshman move-in/orientation at Johns Hopkins University. The experience was exactly the way everyone described it to be – chaotic, nerve-wrecking, exciting, fun, and extremely exhausting. Hundreds of faces and names go by super fast and all the events they plan for you go by in a blur. As exciting as the first few weeks of school were, once you settle down and have things mellowed out is when the fun really starts. You don’t have to spend so much time trying to remember names and worrying about whether you’ll get lost and etc.
For my first semester at Hopkins, I decided to take Chemistry, Calculus, Psychology, Biology Workshop, and a writing intensive course. Luckily, Hopkins doesn’t have a core curriculum so I could take whichever courses I wanted to. As I am not a big ‘math person,’ to be honest I have to say that I did not enjoy chemistry and calculus as much as I would have liked.
In college, one lecture class has about 250 students in it and the information goes by really fast. We would cover about 3 chapters in an hour, about three days a week. At first it took me a while to get used to the speed and the way the professors taught. In high school, the teachers are very careful about making sure the students understand and take in the subject but in college, the professors don’t really care whether you’re in class or not. This realization hit me like a ton of bricks because finally, after years of supervision from teachers and parents, it was all up to me (and only me) to make sure I do well.
The freedom to do whatever I wanted was quite overwhelming. I had to learn to discipline myself to keep up with the readings and to make sure that I knew the information and to not spend too much time playing. However, if you go to lecture and take good notes, it’s not that hard (Duh). At first the fact that the responsibility is ALL yours scares the heck out of you, but eventually you’ll learn to deal with it and have fun in the process.
Out of all the courses I took in first semester, I would have to say that Psychology and Bio Workshop were my favorites. Because I had such an awesome AP Bio teacher, I was able to use my AP credits to exempt out of the boring introductory biology courses and labs. This allowed me to delve deeper into all the other interesting bio courses that JHU had to offer. Bio Workshop was a course that covered the current trends in biology by inviting different guest speakers to come and talk about their studies. It was truly inspiring to see just how passionate each speaker was in the subject they talked about.
Those of you who have taken a course with Ms. Baker would know that she loves birds. There are many bird paraphernalia decorating her room and she gets excited when someone brings up a particularly interesting question or comment about them. Coincidentally, the first guest speaker for my Bio workshop class was Professor Gregory Ball and the funny thing was that he studies animal behavior, specializing in the study of birds. I think his love for birds almost surpasses that of Ms. Baker’s. His lecture was both fascinating and funny – he was extremely charismatic and shared these hilarious stories about misunderstandings that occurred while he studied and discussed his research on the ‘Blue-Footed Boobies’ and the ‘Great Tits’ (Both of which are actual bird names).
photo by Max xx
We also learned about the behavior of different birds during mating season and about different types of birdsongs. It was interesting how experiences in college could relate to those in high school in such an unexpected way. It was really cool to see how he used the same clips that I saw during my AP Bio class (If Ms. Baker hasn’t shown you the clips of the different birds of paradise, you should ask her to because they’re absolutely amazing. Also, the clip of the lyre bird is pretty awesome too). It felt nice to know most of the answers to the questions he asked, such as “Why do birds sing?” “Are there local dialects of birdsongs? Why or why not?” and other thought-provoking subjects such as brood parasitism and what it shows us about the process of learning amongst certain birds (I’m sure you guys would have no problem answering these too, right?). After that lecture, the professor’s enthusiasm for birds was almost contagious.
Overall, I think I really enjoyed that course. We covered a variety of different areas related to “today’s” biology – from bird songs and animal behavior, to last year’s controversy about the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, to the genetics of breast cancer and the current research going on to help prevent and cure it.
Psychology was also another course that I really loved. Through this course, I was able to participate in a variety of different psychology experiments. For one, I had to stare at a blank computer screen for about 80 minutes straight in a small dark room by myself. Periodically, a jumble of letters and numbers (about 40 of them) would flash for a second and the objective was to spot which number was the biggest amongst the jumble. I thought I was going to go blind by the end of that exercise. My eyes kept twitching for a bit afterwards. I don’t exactly remember what that experiment was trying to determine, but it was still fun participating – the twitchiness and all.
Something that surprised me about college was how many midterms one had to go through in a semester. After the first month, it seems like there was midterm after midterm after midterm; about one each week for different classes. And when you finally think that you’re all done, finals hit you in the back of the head. Also, the weight of each midterm hangs over your shoulder like a heavy weight. In each class, there’re about 3 or 4 midterms and a final. And that’s it. No quizzes or homework grades to balance things out. Therefore, even failing one midterm can be the end of that course.
With this much pressure, it was hard getting used to the fact that I had to count on myself to keep up with the readings and lectures in order to be ready for a midterm. It’s so much easier to just forget about reviewing the book because the professor doesn’t care, but this mind-set gave me a lot of stress afterwards during finals week. I’m still trying to get used to it for second semester and I hope that this year, it’ll be much easier to prepare myself.
Another thing that I would like to say to all the AP students is that although AP may be tough, trust me when I say that it’s much easier than taking a biology course in college. The information is pretty much the same, but the intensity and pace is a whole different level. It’s usually also less interesting because the information goes by so fast (and it’s a repeat of what you’ve already heard). So please take my advice when I say to try your hardest on that AP exam! It’s so much better to use your AP credits to exempt from wasting a year of precious college time to retake and re-learn a course that you should already be familiar with when you can broaden your options and take more interesting courses to help make your freshman year more intriguing (and worth-it, money-wise!).
Therefore, Good luck on your exams! I hope you will all give a 110%!
