Danielle Levine (’15, Biology)
To complete the Biology major at Colby, one has to take a minimum of six biology lab classes. As a senior biology major who at the end of the fall semester needed to take one more biology lab class, I chose to sign up for BI265 Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology for my January course rather than take an additional lab course (I will be taking the second semester of physics, which also has a lab) in the spring with my busy tennis team schedule. Having been warned before the class started that anatomy and physiology courses are a lot of work and a whole lot of memorization, I was expecting and prepared for an intensive month – but as the first week started, I found I was not quite ready for this class! During the first week, I was very nervous about the class – very concerned and stressed about the workload – and I remember wondering if I made the right decision to take the class, or if I should have just taken another lab course in the spring. After having now finished the class, I am very grateful for the opportunity to have taken BI265 with Dr. Klepach, as I truly enjoyed the class (excepting, of course, that first very difficult week!) to the fullest extent. I would recommend this class to every biology major, pre-med student, or any student at Colby just interested in learning how the human body works.
The class was, in fact, a lot of work, from studying for quizzes for almost every lecture, to listening to podcasts of lectures and labs for the next day, to making and presenting a Grand Rounds powerpoint to physicians and nurse practitioners, to studying for hours on end memorizing and identifying different anatomical structures and features on plastic models in the lab. However, the amount of material I learned and the understanding I achieved with respect to the structure and function of the human body was unimaginable to me before I took the class. The sheer volume of knowledge to be gained from this course is reason enough to recommend this class to other Colby students.
As a pre-med student, I am easily caught up with concern over my grades, GPA, exams and assignments, but taking this class reminded me of the importance of seeking to understand and learn material for oneself and for one’s own knowledge rather than for the primary purpose of getting a certain grade on an exam. As I hope to become a medical professional one day, this class had many practical aspects beyond the classroom; I was able to practice presentation skills via the class’s Grand Rounds presentation project, build a foundation of human anatomy and physiology for medical school (which I hope to go to!), learn how to succeed under stressful situations, and finally, balance my schedule keeping in mind the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
In taking this course, I was given many wonderful opportunities, such as being able to perform a wet dissection of a pig heart, and then being able to help visiting high school students perform a dissection on another pig heart, teaching them and sharing with them the material I had learned about the cardiovascular system the week prior, listening to guest lecturers, including Dr. Zak Nashed, who discussed interventional radiology and peripheral artery disease, and Dr. Peter Millard, who spoke about the field of epidemiology. Overall, I enjoyed this course very much, as it was a wonderful opportunity that I believe prepared me for the future after I graduate from Colby this spring, and reinforced my decision to pursue a career in medicine.
Here are some of the models used during lab and for studying for the lab practical exams.