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Class Reviews
These are reviews on courses that are outside of the MVP
program, written by students.
BIOM
BIOM 501 - Molecular Mechanisms of Disease and Therapeutic
Intervention (Fall 2006)
This class is amazing. The structure is a 2 hour seminar, once per week. There
is a good amount of reading material involved, including a heavy focus on watching
Virtual Curricula outside of class. This amounts to ~10 hours of reading/watching
videos/studying case studies per week. But it is well worth it. The class format
is a 2 hour discussion in which a specialist on the subject mediates a discussion,
generally based around case studies. The classes are very interactive and all
students are expected to be well-familiarized with the material by the time class
begins. It is a bit of the Socratic method, so the professor/mediator WILL call
students out and force them to explain things to the rest of the class -- BUT
this is very instructive and the class is really tailored in the direction that
its students take it. In addition, in some of the classes, Carolyn Cambor, M.D.
brings in organ samples from the hospital to directly illustrate pathology. One
fabulous feature in the class is the Virtual Slides, which are used extensively.
These slides are found online and can be magnified, etc. to demonstrate the cellular
pathology resulting from different disease states.
BIOM 501 (Fall 2006)
This class was fantastic. It greatly exceeded my expectations. The course
was
designed such that students were assigned material to learn each week along
with disease cases or journal articles which would be discussed in class.
The information was available through lectures on virtual curriculum, lecture
notes, or readings in the textbook, and the students selected the medium or combination
of mediums by which they best were able to learn. In addition, slides correlating
with the disease cases were also available on virtual curriculum and were interesting
as well as helpful. The time commitment was about 3-4 hours a week outside of
class for preparation.
Class discussions were always engaging and were taught by professors and
clinicians from the Medical School. Often, the professors would call on students
to explain a slide or answer questions, so it was important to be prepared. The
material did a great job of bridging the gap between lab science and the actual
disease therapeutics. This class went well beyond simple information to be memorized
- it required thought and analysis and often there were no clear-cut answers.
It was overall a great class - fun
and informative - and I highly recommend it.
CAMB
CAMB 609 - Vaccines and Immune Therapeutics (Fall 2006)
Offered in the fall semester, this class provides an amazing
opportunity to not
only learn from those whose work at Penn centers on vaccine
development (Paul
Offit), but also from outside sources who are in charge of
determining which
therapeutics are worthwhile to pursue. These lecturers come
from diverse
companies and backgrounds which provides an interesting and
unbiased look and the steps taken from animal research to
clinical trials. A highlight of the
course is the annual trip to Merck to see how actual manufacturing
takes
place. All lectures are 2 hours, twice a week, though the
lengthy period is
supplemented with breaks and food (very useful) and the final
grade is dependent
on a single 15min presentation at the end of the year. All
in all, a very
interesting class for someone with little knowledge of vaccines
and why
different strategies in development are employed, but a background
class in
Immunology might be helpful before taking this class on.
CIT
CIT 591 - Intro to Programming I - Java-based (Fall 2006)
A perfect example of the problems encountered when you take
classes outside of your graduate group! I'd never taken a
computer programming class and was told this class went from
basics. It did, and the teacher was good at explaining things
to the level of a non-programmer. He was very understanding
and available to help with assignments. But the material
towards the latter parts of the course became more involved
and less applicable to my needs. The biggest problem was
that the amount of time required for assignments was a real
strain for someone also working in a lab - almost everyone
else in the class is a full-time non-thesis masters student
so they are willing to dedicate 15 hours a week to assignments
in addition to three 1.5hr classes. The assignments were
also done in pairs which was invariably a total disaster
- my experience was that I ended up doing two people's work
every week, which I really did not have the time to do. I
learnt a lot from this class, but it was detrimental to my
sanity!
CIT 591 - Intro to Programming I - Java-based (Fall 2006)
Professor is fantastic, very understanding and a good lecturer. He is very knowledgable
and quite approachable. The class is structured VERY poorly though and requires
an inordinate amount of time. There are weekly homework programming assignments
that require 10-20 hrs of work per week. In addition, random partners are assigned
to these assignments which is NOT beneficial at all. Progress takes place at
the pace of the slower student, if not even slower than this, in all cases. The
class meets three times a week for an hour and a half.
Overall, the class is very informative because one learns by doing, but the amount
of time required for the course is substantial and for most people in MVP, will
probably not be all that useful.
IMMUN
IMMUN 506 (Fall 2006)
I thought it was a very good course, though a little rigorous.
We covered a lot of material and went into significant
depth. I thought it focused more on the development of
the immune system rather than on responses to pathogens.
I think what I liked the best is that it strengthened my
critical thinking of data and the design of immunological
experiments. It also covered innate responses better than
courses I've taken in the past. I would recommend it to
people with interest on immunology and who have already
taken a previous immunology course.
PUBH
PUBH 500 - Introduction to Public Health (Fall 2006)
Intro to Public Health is a survey-type class which has a
different speaker each week that lectures on a public health
topic. The class is 3 hours long, once a week. The first
half to 2/3 of the class is the speaker presentation. Then
the speaker or course director gives the class a discussion-based
problem or question and the students discuss it in small
groups. The topic range is HUGE, with very little devoted
to infectious disease topics. We learn about public health
policy development, environmental health, occupational
health, etc. One lecture is on epidemiology, which is relevant
to infectious disease. The work load was very light; just
an article or two to read before each class period. The
grading was based on class participation, a midterm, and
a final group project (paper and poster presentation).
The midterm was take-home and very simple. Grading was
very generous for both midterm and final project. The project
was one of the only useful aspects of the class because
it allowed students to learn about something in depth (that
they were interested in), instead of glossing over everything.
I would not recommend this class to someone who just wants
to learn a little about public health from an infectious
disease standpoint, because those aspects
of public health are not really covered at all. However,
if you are required to take it, it's not hard to do well
and shouldn't be very stressful.
PUBH 500 - Introduction to Public Health (Fall 2006)
It's a requirement for the public health certificate program.
I wouldn't really recommend it for someone to take as an
elective - it's too vague, and doesn't really give you any
concrete knowledge about public health. It's a fairly easy
class, with little real work, but would be a waste of time
for an elective.
PUBH 519 - Intro to Global Health (Fall 2006)
This was a great class and a fantastic first formal exposure
to global health for me. The class met for only 3 hours
once a week, which I felt was very reasonable. The discussions
were stimulating and the attitude of the organizing faculty
seemed reasonably laid-back and more interested in conveying
ideas and stimulating thought than enforcing rules and
regulations. We were provided with lots of food for thought
and resources with which to explore them - my only problem
was that I didn't have as much time as I would have liked
to dedicate to it.
PUBH 519 - Intro to Global Health (Fall
2006)
I thought that this class was very well designed and provided
a comprehensive and clear introduction to priciples of global
health. The lectures were almost all good, even when they
were about topics that did not immediately seem interesting
or exciting (finance, ethics, economics, etc). The organization
was relatively good, and there were plenty of opportunities
for student discussion and participation. This was the first
year that this class ran, so there were a few glitches, but
the course director, Neal Nathanson, was very dedicated and
will address any problems for next year's course. The work
load was relatively light; we had to participate in a discussion
section and write a final term paper on a relevant topic
of our choice for the final. I certainly learned a lot and
enjoyed the class - I would recommend to anyone with an interest
in public health! |
