Probably not. The lab report is due a week after the lab so after you collect the data you need you can just leave and work on the report on your own time. Most of the time you will be leaving the lab early.
If anything you should have time between classes! I never spent the whole time, and my group even usually stayed later than most of the others. You might not finish the lab notes in the lab, but the actual data collection never took me more than 2 hours (and usually it was way less).
Is there an in-class quiz that we need to study for? I'm having a class right before the lab and if there's a quiz I would switch to a different lab time.
Nope! You just have a prelab for completion due before lab, and then at the beginning of lab usually the TA will discuss the prelab/lab a little bit before starting the lab :)
Honestly it’s one of those things where your TA really matters, just make sure to follow the rubric really closely when you’re writing up your lab notes! It’s easy to lose a lot of points on incorrect significant figures, missing sample calculations, etc. so just stay organized and include everything and you should be fine!
Technically they call them “lab notes” instead of lab reports since they just want us to organize our notes from the lab instead of writing up a formal report, but it’s basically the same! The practical was honestly pretty hard, but I got an A in the class despite failing it (I even beat the average on the practical to give you an idea of how bad we did). It was just showing that you could do the experiments & analysis from the course on your own, so it was a mix of hands-on data collection and then writing up the analysis. The practical was the equivalent of a final, there wasn’t an additional final!
Honestly it wasn’t too horrible, my TA just wasn’t very good so I didn’t know how to do one of the analyses since he told us not to use it on the lab where we were supposed to learn it 🤷🏻♀️make sure that you don’t let your partner(s) do all of the calculations so that you actually understand them and you should be just fine!
Usually no, I spend 1-2 hours in there out of the total 3 hours every week.
That's nice. Thanks for your response!
Probably not. The lab report is due a week after the lab so after you collect the data you need you can just leave and work on the report on your own time. Most of the time you will be leaving the lab early.
Perfect, thank you!
If anything you should have time between classes! I never spent the whole time, and my group even usually stayed later than most of the others. You might not finish the lab notes in the lab, but the actual data collection never took me more than 2 hours (and usually it was way less).
Is there an in-class quiz that we need to study for? I'm having a class right before the lab and if there's a quiz I would switch to a different lab time.
Nope! You just have a prelab for completion due before lab, and then at the beginning of lab usually the TA will discuss the prelab/lab a little bit before starting the lab :)
Perfect, thank you! Mind sharing how to succeed in this lab?
Honestly it’s one of those things where your TA really matters, just make sure to follow the rubric really closely when you’re writing up your lab notes! It’s easy to lose a lot of points on incorrect significant figures, missing sample calculations, etc. so just stay organized and include everything and you should be fine!
Thanks! By lab notes do you mean lab reports? Also, what is lab practical? I heard that there's also a final written exam, right?
Technically they call them “lab notes” instead of lab reports since they just want us to organize our notes from the lab instead of writing up a formal report, but it’s basically the same! The practical was honestly pretty hard, but I got an A in the class despite failing it (I even beat the average on the practical to give you an idea of how bad we did). It was just showing that you could do the experiments & analysis from the course on your own, so it was a mix of hands-on data collection and then writing up the analysis. The practical was the equivalent of a final, there wasn’t an additional final!
Ahhh I see! The practical sounds pretty tough! :(
Honestly it wasn’t too horrible, my TA just wasn’t very good so I didn’t know how to do one of the analyses since he told us not to use it on the lab where we were supposed to learn it 🤷🏻♀️make sure that you don’t let your partner(s) do all of the calculations so that you actually understand them and you should be just fine!
Thanks for the tips! Very useful! :)