This page is for timely information about the course - reminders, dealing with common problems, &c. The date that anything was last posted on this page is given on the course Home page. Please check this page whenever there's anything new!
December 14, 2007
The final exams have been graded and your grades for this class determined; these are posted on the Grades page. You'll notice that I lowered the grade cut-offs all little. You all did very well - congratulations!
Have a great break!
Cheers!
Jim Brown
December 7, 2007
This is a reminder that the take-home Final exam is due Wednesday (December 12th) at 1:00pm in GA 2207 (the regular class room). Note the time - 1:00, NOT 1:30 (the usual class time). If you wish to turn your exam in early, feel free to do so. Just drop it off in my office (GA 4558A); if I'm not there, slide it under my door. Once I have all the exams, I'll post the exam scores and final grades, and send out an email to let you know that these are available.
In addition, please remember to give me your peer evaluations for the last part of the Team Project. I cannot calculate your scores for this until I have these numbers.
November 28, 2007
In class today we had a slide show on the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park. You can view this slideshow yourself at:
http://www.mbio.ncsu.edu/MB451/lecture/YellowstoneNP/yellowstone.html
November 21, 2007
I have adjusted the scores of the "peer review" parts of the Team Projects. Instead of averaging all of the scores received from your teammates, I am now removing the top and bottom scores, and averaging the remaining scores. So, for example, if your peer scores for one of the project parts were 10, 9, 8, 7, and 1, your "peer review" score will now be 8.0 (the average of 9,8,7) instead of 7.0 (the average of 10,9,8,7,1). As a result, you may see a small change in your scores for parts 2 and 3 of the Team Project (averaging only 0.2 points). These changes are now refleected in the grades posted on the Grades page.
The reason for the need for this is probably obvious - I have some people with good scores from most of their team, then one very low score. Perhaps these are legitimate and perhaps not, but I will err on the side of avoiding having personality clash affecting grades.
November 16, 2007
You need summer research. One of the great summer internship programs is the IGERT program (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship). This is a huge NSF-supported program with summer research internships all over the country. You get experience, you make contact with great graduate schools, you get out of Raleigh, and you get paid - what more could you want?
November 15, 2007
I've graded the assignment (3.1) and posted the scores on the Grades page. You can pick these up in class next time, or pick them up in my office. Also note that your score on Team Project part 3 may have changed a bit as more of the peer evaluations have beeen incorporated.
November 13, 2007
ClassEval, the University's online class evaluation system, will be open from November 26 through December 9. During this period, students will be asked to evaluate each of their classes and labs (including this class) by going to the ClassEval website (https://classeval.ncsu.edu) and completing brief questionnaires.
If you need help, should contact classeval@ncsu.edu.
I encourage you to complete an evaluation for this course. This is the first time I have taught this course, and so feedback from students will be critical as I strive for improvement. In my main teching resposibility, MB 451 (Microbial Diversity), every significant change I have ever made in the course over the past 13 years has been in response to student comments.
In addition to ClassEval, I will have a less formal feedback/suggestion form for you to fill out at the end of the semester.
November 12, 2007
This is a reminder that Assignment 3.1 is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday. Go to the Assignments page for information about this assignment.
October 31, 2007
The web site for CALS Career Servies is: http://ceres.cals.ncsu.edu/career/site/public/index.cfm?pageID=147
From here you can go to ePack (look under Quick Links) to create and post your online resume. In case you missed in in class today, use your Unity ID as the Username, then click the "Forgot your password?" link to have the system email a password to you. Use this password (with you Unity ID) to log on to ePack.
To search for internships, go to iCenter from the CALS Career Services main web page (again, under Quick Links). Use "camelplanet" as both the username and password.
You need to do both of these for Assignment 4, due next week. Note that you do not need to email a URL for your resume - I now haave direct access to these and can look them up myself.
October 29, 2007
I've added an additional class assignment:
Assignment 3.1 (because it is an expansion of Assignment 3):
Due at the start of class November 14th (50 points)
Create your Plan of Work on MyPack. To create or modify your plan of work, you log in to MyPack Portal. The Plan of Work and Degree Audit are located under Academic Info -> Degree Audit. If you have difficulty modifying your Plan of Work, please view the Plan of Work tutorial. When you're finished, print out a copy of your "Degree Audit/Plan of Work" and the "Semester Layout", and bring these to class to turn in.
Some of you may have little discrepencies in your plan of work - courses you think you'll get transfer credit for yet, classes you've already had that you think might be better moved to another category, &c. If so, make notes of these on the material you turn in.
October 28, 2007
I've graded the 4-year plan assignments, and the scores are posted on the Grades page. I'll have these to turn baack to you in claass on Wednesday.
October 18, 2007
Your should have recieved an email with your group scores for Team Project part 2. I've also updated the Grades page to include these scores, and your peer review average scores as well.
In addition to the comments I emailed to each of you, I have one final comment for everyone - PLEASE make sure you spell the name of your organisms correctly, each and every time, and be sure to capitalize the genus and not capitalize the species. In addition, these should be either italicized or underlined (they're latin), e.g. Escherichia coli. Getting this wrong will strip you of credibility - and from now on is likely to cost you points. On the other hand, getting it right, and pronouncing these names correctly and easily, boosts your professionalism dramatically.
October 8, 2007
The registration calendar is available, so you can check to find out when you can register, at:
http://www.ncsu.edu/registrar/calendars/registrationsprg.html
October 7, 2007
If you will be giving the Powerpoint presentations on Wednesday, and if you use Microsoft Powerpoint 2007, you should be sure to save the presentation in Powerpoint 2004 format.
The reason for this is that the 2007 software isn't yet available for Mac's (we will be using my Mac). The departmental PC laptops don't yet have Office 2007 installed.
September 26, 2007
HELP FOR WIKIMASTERS
Most of your groups that have chosen organisms for the Team Project that already have entries in the MicrobeWiki. This means that after you copy the template "genus brown", if you do the search for your organism, you'll come up with a preexisting page, which you cannot edit. SO, instead, do the search for your organisms name followed by an astericks - for example, if you're doing Mycobacterium tuberculosis, search for "Mycobacterium tuberculosis*". There will be no such entry, so you can create a new page with that name, paste in the template, aand go from there.
September 26, 2007
Focus on Your Future will take place October 2nd from 3:00-6:00 pm in 2215 Williams.
Space is still available for your chance to meet hiring managers from GlaxoSmithKline, Inspire Pharmaceuticals, RTI International and Wyeth on Oct. 2nd from 3 to 6pm. This workshop will prepare you for the biggest CALS Career Event of the year, our Career Expo coming later that month. Learn about finding a great summer internship! Please reserve your seat on line. Students who have class for part of the three hour time frame are permitted to come for the time they are available. Register today! It is free and you might figure out what to do with your life in the future-
Go to the Focus on your Future web page
Another option is to attend the Internship Seminar on Wed. 9/26 at 12:30 in Ricks 2 or Thursday 9/27 at 6pm in Fox 104- no sign up needed- just stop by.
September 19, 2007
Some of the dates on the Assignments page were out of date for the Group Project parts. The Schedule was correct, and the Assignments page has been corrected.
September 18, 2007
There have been a few questions from students about what is expected for tomorrows assignment (part 1 of the Team Project). All you need are the names/authors of the sources, not a printout or copies of the entire source. The written description of what's in these sources need only be one or two sentences for each. In addition, if there is a MicrobeWiki page for your bug already, print out a copy to include with your other information.
September 12, 2007
FREE FOOD & LEARN ABOUT CAREERS IN BIOMANUFACTURING
The Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (commonly called BTEC) is having an open house from 5:30-7:00pm on Thursday October 18th in the BTEC building (850 Oval Drive - next to Engineering II on Centennial Campus). There will be tours of the facilities by NCSU graduates now working at Novartis, Biogen-Idec and Diosyth. There will also be information on hand about BTEC careers and BTEC classes - which generally can be used to fill Microbiology restricted electives. There is also a great BTEC minor!
Registration is not required - just show up. If you have questions, call (515-0213) or email (winnell@ncsu.edu) Winnell Newman.
September 11, 2007
The NCSU Health Career Expo is Monday, October 8th from 1:00pm to 5:00pm in the Talley Student Center. If you're considering a career as a health care professional, you should plan to participate. There will be representatives from at least 75 (!) health-care graduate programs on hand.
September 8, 2007
I have 3 students who either didn't turn in their "Assignment #1" planner or showed it to me after class and forgot to sent me an email to remind me that they'd done so. If one of these people is you, please drop me an email ASAP.
September 5, 2007
I've graded your planners, & if you gave me your actual planner, you can pick them up in the entryway to my office under the fish tank any time.
Remember that there is another assignment due for next week, the Learning Style Assessment. Be sure to bring this to class on Wednesday.
August 10, 2007
As the semester aapproaches, I've been refining the assignments. Please be aware that these are subject to change until the semester starts - and even afterwards. This class is a work in progress!
June 27, 2007
The CALS Career Expo is scheduled for October 25th from 9:30am-3:30pm - please consider participating, it'll be well worth it.
June 23, 2007
Welcome to MB 103! I look forward to seeing you all on August 22nd.