Immunology Quiz and Meal Prep Sunday

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Finals are quickly approaching, we suddenly had a immunology quiz (more on that later), and the term is wrapping up. Today, I thought I would do a post on our immunology quiz that we had last week and a few meal prep ideas.

Immunology Quiz

The class was anticipating a quiz but didn't anticipate it to be in class. So, when we found out about that piece of information, the class frantically started studying for the quiz. The professors agreed that it would be beneficial for the class to take a timed, in-class quiz to better prepare for the finals. While I was studying for immunology, I simply did not understand why the professors would suddenly decide to give a quiz of this sort. In retrospect, they were correct. If it wasn't for the quiz, I would not have made time to re-study the 10-12 lectures. Now, a week after the quiz and 2 weeks before the final, I am so glad that reviewing those 10-12 lectures for the final will be much easier. I have plenty of other studying that I have to complete as well! We have a new professor for immunology this term so it was unclear how the questions would be structured on the quiz. However, as usual, I went through each lecture at least 4 times before the quiz and briefly looked over the Complement flow chart I had made pre-midterm (so glad I looked at the chart). I also found it helpful to make a chart for all the cytokines and the immunoglobulin lectures. For future Term 2 students, start memorizing cytokines early. The material builds up very quickly! 

Meal Prep Sunday

Last week I decided to make 2 dishes for the week. The first is a dish I experimented with a few weeks ago and it turned out great. So, I made it again. It is a spicy Chinese eggplant dish with a hint of garlic and ginger. The recipe recommends green onions, but I used regular onions which worked out well too. I also added green peppers to the dish to prevent them from going bad this week! This dish has become one of my favorites. The second dish I made was a potato and onion preparation which I eat with bread or naan or tortillas. Although I got the idea from my mom a long time ago, it was my first time making it myself. I'm so glad it turned out better than expected. J and I cooked together last weekend and it took us about an hour to finish both dishes. 

Only 3 more weeks until we are back in the US for the holidays!!! Count down has officially begun! :) 

A shout out to our deans who came and spoke to Term 2 students yesterday about a number of administrative and student-related issues. Thank you!

Hope everyone is having a great week! SGU students, only a few more weeks to go! Keep up the hard work! :)

Term 2 Midterms: Neuroscience

Warning: Long Post... Sorry!

Last midterm of the week was neuroscience! The neuroscience course is organized into modules. 7 modules make up the entire class. We had 4 modules worth of material on the midterm. The topics on the midterm were:
1) Neuroanatomy
2) Cellular Neuroscience
3) Developmental Neuroscience
4) Sensory Systems

Out of the 4 big topics, sensory systems had the most amount of lectures and most amount of questions on the exam. Developmental neuroscience consisted of about 4 lectures. Neuroanatomy and cellular neuroscience were taught early during the term and were covered on the unified quiz. Out of my three scores for midterms, surprisingly, neuroscience was my highest. Here are a few methods I studied for the exam and a couple of tips for future students.

Neuroanatomy: 
1) Buy a hard copy of the Neuroscience atlas. I used the Haines 8th edition and would highly recommend it for future students. I think SGU recommends the 9th edition of the atlas, but majority of my friends have the 8th and it works well too.
2) Go through the atlas and highlight the structures you need to know. I highlighted the pages as I prepared for small group discussion on a weekly basis. When it came time to prepare for the exam, it became a lot easier to flip through the atlas and quickly review the structures.

Lectures: 
1) Essential Notes! Essential Notes! Essential Notes!!! They are a life-saver for this class. The lecture slides are good, but the essential notes are gold!
2) Pre-read for the sensory system lectures. Sensory lectures are a lot of material that are compiled into a 50 minute overview. If you have pre-read the essentials, lecture will be more meaningful. I don't usually pre-read for all classes, but pre-reading for neuroscience helped me!
3) Red Glass Test: This is a clinically relevant test that is used evaluate a patient's visual field. It comes up during the vision lectures in the sensory module. I, personally, had a lot of trouble understanding this topic because I learned it incorrectly the first time. So, for future students, make sure you understand this topic well. We had about 2 or 3 questions on this on our midterm.
4) Developmental: This term, we had a visiting professor who taught 4 lectures on developmental neuroscience. Do not get too bogged down by all the small details. The questions on the exam are going to be straight forward. Think of developmental neuroscience as a story. To grasp the material thoroughly, I made a concept map.
5) Cellular: I relied on the essential notes and lectures made a lot of sense.
6) Pay attention in small group discussion because there are questions that will pop up on the midterm solely based on material covered in discussion session.
7) Do all the questions online (Sakai).
8) Sensory pathways: I drew each and every one out in different colors and then put it up on my wall. I ran through each of the pathways at least once a day until it was solid in my head.
9) During the sensory lectures, each pathway will go through parts of the brainstem. Some pathways are lateral. Some pathways are medial. I went through Haines atlas and highlighted where each pathway runs in each cross section of the brainstem.

This was a very quick exam. Typically we get a little over a minute/question in most classes. However, the neuroscience department added a lot of experimental questions (questions that the professors want to see how the students perform on so they can potentially add it to future exams), which are worth no points for our term. We had about 75 seconds per question. I am not sure if this will be the case for future terms. If it is, future neuroscience students, make sure you pace yourself. Neuroscience is a lot of material, but I think the clinical tests that are performed to determine a patient's neurological function are quite interesting. Our first module post-midterm is motor. Speaking of which, I should probably review today's lectures. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day! :)