The amount of effort put into this class does not translate into the grade. For context, I am a microbiology major so I understood the content well. The grades for this course depends solely on two midterms and one final. They are very tightly paced. For the written portion, large marks are deducted for not using specific terms (like 2/3 marks), even if the answer describes the same thing. This may or may not be TA-specific (the TAs were Leah and Elise). For the final exam, the high-stake written portion was on a topic related to antibiotics that wasn’t discussed in detail in class. What was discussed in detail in class was the mechanisms of antibiotics and resistance against them. What was tested instead? Something that was shown in passing in three slides, using 4 words. That was wo...read more

Content was interesting. There was pathogen adherence, invasion, and intracellular survival. Specific examples of pathogens were given. Also pathogen toxins and their virulence mechanism and different techniques for studying them. Also a bit of immunology review (innate, adaptive, complements) You will also remember the pap pilus forever. Is that useful? Depends. The content is not extremely difficult to understand, but the sheer volume to memorise is a lot. And the grading is brutal.

Dr. Dave Oliver is good at explaining the content. He is patient and kind. Don’t hesitate to reach out to him and ask for a regrade, because he would say yes. The grades were done by the TAs. Heads up that Dave is not likely to respond to emails. Find him in his office after class, or in scheduled Zoom office hours. Dr. Av-gay is a co-lecturer with a lot of passion. His accent can be hard to understand sometimes. His slides don’t have many words, so make sure to be in class and write down what he says.

That I’d suffer and not receive the grade for it. Having taken three years of microbiology courses in my major, I have a gauge for what my grade would be relative to my effort. This one broke the gauge. This is a massive GPA tanker, void if you can.