C&S BIO M187
Research Communication in Computational and Systems Biology
Description: (Same as Bioengineering CM187 and Computer Science CM187.) Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Requisites: course M150 or M186 or Computer Science M182; and research experience (course 199, Bioengineering, Computer Science 199, or equivalent). Closely directed, interactive, and real research experience in active quantitative systems biology research laboratory. Direction on how to focus on topics of current interest in scientific community, appropriate to student interests and capabilities. Critiques of oral presentations and written progress reports explain how to proceed with search for research results. Major emphasis on effective research reporting, both oral and written. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - C&S BIO M187 is the crowning capstone of the CaSB major (required for the CaSB minors and an elective for other major like CS). On paper, the class is fairly easy and straightforward: Your goal is to submit a research poster to the W9 poster session (graciously paid for by the department, which is pretty cool), a research presentation for the final W10 grading, and a final paper. You have regular assignments (weekly practice presentations, biweekly paper submissions, & one poster submission) to keep you on track. Another plus is that you get to see/hear a lot of pretty interesting of research projects that other people are doing. But as any senior who's taken this class or been in the major will tell you, there's a glaring lack of communication that seems to characterize the CaSB department. In some ways, it's small things like not having a Canvas page for the class and instead running the class via a shared GDrive folder + emails. People with PTEs (required if you haven't taken C&S BIO/EEB M150) -- good luck with getting all of the emails because there doesn't seem to be a centralized email list that's shared between TAs and the professor. You will also only see each TA/professor twice the entire quarter, which prevents meaningful feedback the first time they see it (so, half of the quarter), and generally limits how much the research presentation can be improved. Make sure you join the groupme because you/your classmates emailing the professor will be your main source of class updates. After all, TAs are *not* briefed before class on what the structure/due assignments are for this & next week, so they will all (to no fault of their own) make an educated guess different from the next TA/professor you ask; to this day, I still do not know how/if my weekly presentations were graded. Many of us were frequently confused throughout the quarter -- things like what was due (and when), where classes are (e.g. the first meeting was on Zoom but this was only shared a day or two before iirc + some sections moved classes and there was confusion about that too), when and how to get our poster printed. I won't even get into the whole "people scrambling to get research to complete this mandatory capstone class" mess. All in all, I feel that the TAs & professors were genuinely trying to do their best to make things work, but it felt more like they were taking water off a ship with cups when the issue is that there's actually a gaping hole at the bottom. I'm sure things will improve as the department gets more established, but for a mandatory, final class that completes the major, there are definitely things to improve. TL;DR easy ✅ organized ❌
Spring 2024 - C&S BIO M187 is the crowning capstone of the CaSB major (required for the CaSB minors and an elective for other major like CS). On paper, the class is fairly easy and straightforward: Your goal is to submit a research poster to the W9 poster session (graciously paid for by the department, which is pretty cool), a research presentation for the final W10 grading, and a final paper. You have regular assignments (weekly practice presentations, biweekly paper submissions, & one poster submission) to keep you on track. Another plus is that you get to see/hear a lot of pretty interesting of research projects that other people are doing. But as any senior who's taken this class or been in the major will tell you, there's a glaring lack of communication that seems to characterize the CaSB department. In some ways, it's small things like not having a Canvas page for the class and instead running the class via a shared GDrive folder + emails. People with PTEs (required if you haven't taken C&S BIO/EEB M150) -- good luck with getting all of the emails because there doesn't seem to be a centralized email list that's shared between TAs and the professor. You will also only see each TA/professor twice the entire quarter, which prevents meaningful feedback the first time they see it (so, half of the quarter), and generally limits how much the research presentation can be improved. Make sure you join the groupme because you/your classmates emailing the professor will be your main source of class updates. After all, TAs are *not* briefed before class on what the structure/due assignments are for this & next week, so they will all (to no fault of their own) make an educated guess different from the next TA/professor you ask; to this day, I still do not know how/if my weekly presentations were graded. Many of us were frequently confused throughout the quarter -- things like what was due (and when), where classes are (e.g. the first meeting was on Zoom but this was only shared a day or two before iirc + some sections moved classes and there was confusion about that too), when and how to get our poster printed. I won't even get into the whole "people scrambling to get research to complete this mandatory capstone class" mess. All in all, I feel that the TAs & professors were genuinely trying to do their best to make things work, but it felt more like they were taking water off a ship with cups when the issue is that there's actually a gaping hole at the bottom. I'm sure things will improve as the department gets more established, but for a mandatory, final class that completes the major, there are definitely things to improve. TL;DR easy ✅ organized ❌
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