Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Charismatic on November 10, 2008, 03:15:46 pm
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A course in Micro Biology or Botany?
Botany is plants right? And is Biology automatically cutting dead things up?
EDITED!
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Isn't Botany a branch of Biology?
And no, Biology is much more than cutting dead frogs.
EDIT: Micro Biology is another branch of Biology. IMO a lot depends on your preferences.
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Which would be a easier college course to take
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Easier? I'd say Botany...but I don't have a lot of experience on the matter. I don't even know if American courses are similar to Italian ones.
In Botany you also have to deal with macroscopic, well known stuff. I guess it's better.
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Would you rather memorize plant names or bacteria names?
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Botany = Plants. It will be a lot of memorization, but not a whole lot of thinking. If you can memorize and don't want to have to think, botany is for you.
Microbiology = Biology of microscopic organisms, and this traditionally refers to prokaryotes only (that'd be Domain Bacteria). Microbiology tends to involve a fair bit of memorization in the earlier classes, but it is genuinely interesting. Most first/second-year microbiology courses will cover pathogens, food-borne beneficial bacteria, soil bacteria, and pretty much all of them will employ a lab. One of the top 10 courses I took between my two undergrad degrees was a Microbial Genetics class (300-level).
Given your stance on evolution and the distinct lack of knowledge in that area you've displayed on multiple occasions, I would STRONGLY recommend you take the microbiology class. You'll learn a great deal about how simple biological systems work, and that will better equip you in future debates you participate in. Then again, I detest botany with a passion so I'm a little biased too =)
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Why do ju hate flowers?
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y do u hate spelling?
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Take microbiology. You won't regret it. Just be sure to not have it first thing in the morning.
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Microbiology.
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By course do you mean a university course leading towards a full botany or microbiology degree? That's what I'd take it to mean in Australia. If that is the case, then if I were you, I'd steer clear of biology entirely unless you're willing to learn about evolution. Otherwise you'll be doing it wrong, and inevitably fail. Now that that's out of the way:
I did (and will keep doing next year) a double degree in biology and geology, and from the biology side I learnt to dislike botany quite a bit. Lots of memorization and pointless, obvious experiments - overall pretty dull, but there are people who love it. You might be one of those people. My experience with microbiology is more limited, but I found it to be more interesting and more relevant. Plus there's a broader scope for employment - you can go into medicine, lab work, health and safety, applied science (There's some very cool work being done with bacterial reduction of precious metals for example) - lotsa stuff.
If you're really keen on a biology education (and you're willing to learn about evolution) my advice would be to do a general biol course for a year and then specialize. This'll let you touch on all the major aspects (Botany, zoology, microbiology, ecology etc.) and decide exactly what it is you enjoy the most.
all that aside, IIRC you're still in high school, so if it's a high school class you're trying to decide on and easiness is all that matters, do botany. At high school level you'll do algae, mosses, lichens, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms, much of which is fairly straightforward (especially when they start reusing names, and you start to twig to the evolutionary pathways). This would be a lot easier than high school microbiology, where you'd cover all your different bacteria, archaea and micro-eukaryotes, plus you'd go into much more detail on stuff like fungi, algae etc. etc. - much more diverse and harder to study for come the final exam.
So yeah. High school, just want to pass, do botany. Want a career, do micro. IMO.
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If it's uni, then that depends on what you want to do with your life.
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I am 21, and in College. I am not majoring in a science field, i just need a 5 credit science coruce + lab to meet the associate degree science requirement.
I am willing to learn about Evolution. Tho i beleive its false, im not closed minded and i do not mind learning.
I figured microbiology was more interesting, and more applied. But ATM, i will be taking 3 very hard classes at once, so im leaning twards a easy 4th class; botany maby.
But i wanted to know what you guys thought and all that.
BW-nice post.