Coming into this IDC I was expecting a boring and dull class and curriculum. Many people I spoke to said that this IDC was one of their worst, so my standards were pretty low. However, after taking this class I can gladly say that it has been my favorite so far. Most of the things we covered were interesting and relevant and it was made enjoyable through fun activities like labs and 3D printing.

 

I really liked the poster presentations, steam festival and the 3d printing. I thing this part was my favorite part of the class. The 3d printing was something novel and intriguing that I may never be able to experience again. However, I do think we presented our posters in class way too many times. By the time we finished I was able to present every other groups poster. I felt as we wasted time presenting too many times. Sure it obviously helped when presenting at the festival but we could have prepared more on our own time. I do like that we were definitely the most prepared and well-presented groups at the festival. People were constantly amazed at how professional our poster looked, how well we presented and how cool our 3d printed objects were. The time consuming work definitely ended up paying off. I also liked the in class presentations we had to do on the plants and drugs. I felt as those taught us interesting and cool new information regarding scientific stuff. Presenting also helped improve our communication and public speaking skills which was also a plus.

 

One thing I disliked was Bioblitz. The concept seems cool, getting hands on experience and everything. But I feel as it was a mess, wasn’t relevant and didn’t really teach us anything. We just had a mush of data of organisms. I felt as it was very random to the coursework and it could have easily been avoided. Another thing that was a little confusing was the eportfolio website. There were so many assignments, things to complete and due dates that everything became confusing. I had to constantly check the syllabus and texts others to find out what we had to do. I felt it could have been more simplified.

 

Overall, I really did like this course and would recommend it to other students. The classes were captivating and the course was well structured.

 

Thank you Professor Greer and thank you Jake.