 Hey there, my name is Wendy Riggs and I'm recording this video to welcome you to the spring section of online general biology and basically encourage you to drop the class. I'm excited to be teaching the class. I'm excited that you are enrolled or on the wait list or wanting to get into the class. And I feel like it's super important that you know what you're getting into before you commit life and resources to accomplishing this class, because it's really hard. And there are two things that make this class hard. First of all, it's a general bio course. All biology courses are vocabulary dense, concept dense, super interesting, but challenging sometimes to get the content to actually stick in your brain. So in addition to being challenging, dude, I'll tell you right now, I would not take this class online if I had the choice of taking it face to face or in this modality. And I say that because I'm teaching it in both modalities and there is no question that the online scene is harder than the face-to-face scene. And I say that with full awareness that it's exactly the same content, same exams, same number of exams, same number of labs. Everything is the same about this online class when compared to my face-to-face class, but not having access to me or your peers makes it, I think, much more challenging. So there is a scene, there is a person out there who needs this class online. And if that person is you, then, dude, that's why we're here. And that's also why I'm trying to get everybody else to drop so that there's enough room for the people who really need it and who know that they will be successful in this modality. First, I'm working on getting the Canvas course published so that you can get in and take a look at the syllabus, the schedule, you can get your materials. It's a lab course, you guys. And so what that means is you are going to be prepping for and conducting labs every week on your own time and dime. There's a lab kit that is required. It's $170. And previous students say that it is worth every penny. And our textbook for this class is an open educational resource, so that's free. And you don't have to drive to campus, so you're saving some gas money there. So I think in the end, it actually shakes down to being like, okay, a good expense and the convenience factor of having access to pH indicator and test tubes and not having to go to the dollar store and find them yourself. I think it washes out in the end, but know that there is an investment in time or in resources that you wouldn't have to make in the face-to-face class. So the purpose here, I'm going to be publishing the Canvas section soon, but what I really wanted to talk to you about is the schedule for the class and what is expected of you. So I have put together, my brain is a color-coded brain, and so I color-code everything. And I've set up the class to have a lecture and a lab in most weeks, twice. So and check this thing out. All the pink boxes are lectures and they're video lectures in this class, and each video lecture is associated with a discussion board that you must visit multiple times and engage with in a meaningful manner. That discussion sort of simulates what we would do in class. For every lecture, you have a lab activity. Most lab activities are actual, like you get stuff out of your little lab kit that cost you 170 bucks, and you throw some things together, you make some observations, you participate in a discussion board, you update a lab notebook for every single lab. Most weeks have two labs, one lab to go with every lecture. Every week, in addition to your lectures and your labs, you also have a quiz that is through Canvas. You take it twice. You take as long as you want. Use whatever materials you want. That's cool. But it just kind of keeps you checking yourself. Are you on the right track? And then you have this weekly check-in where you actually are going to record a video for me answering some question that I post asking you to think about how the week is going for you or what you need in the class or whatever. Some people have had the video be a deal breaker for them. In addition to lectures, labs, quizzes, videos, you also have exams. There are four proctored exams in this class. That means that four times you are taking a closed note, double choice, short answer, little tiny essay type exam that covers the content that we're going over. Proctored means you can either take it on your computer with a webcam or you can come to campus and take it in the testing center and they will hook you up with everything that you need. But there's four of them. And then on top of that, the comprehensive final exam. I'm only telling you all of this because you need to be able to look at a week and go, okay, I can see how I can fit that into my life. This is not a class where you jump through hoops and then expect that you will get an A+. Because, oh, I did the quiz and I did the discussion and I participated in making the video and now I did the exam. You actually have to do well on those things which means you have to be learning the content as we go. So in addition to all that stuff, you got to be having some time in there to study. And some classes don't require that extra studying like that solidifying note cards or talking about things. And this class is not one of those. So please consider what you're getting yourself into. Consider how much time you have in your life and consider your capacity and your interest in biology itself. I personally find this stuff fascinating. All my video lectures that we will use in this class are all posted on YouTube. So you can go check it out, get a sneak preview of the fun stuff that's coming your way, see if you're into it. The textbook, like I said, is free and open. It's online. You can go check that out right now, see if the content is interesting to you. Sometimes if you have a little more structure than this online class provides, it might help you get through something that you need. It's a lab science course and most of us need those to transfer or to get our degrees. But be really thoughtful about whether or not you want to make this happen. If you decide you want to make it happen, I will be publishing the Canvas course soon. If you are like, yeah, I don't know if this is for me, then drops now so that other people can get in. The $170 lab kit, you got to have that thing by the first week of classes. If you don't, I will drop you and let somebody else in who's ready to go. So make good decisions and feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or want to see what I think about your readiness to take the class. All right. If you're cool with this, then stay tuned. I will be publishing the Canvas course soon and getting more videos up for you to check out and holler at me if you have any questions. I, Peeps, bye-bye.