- there are a lot of criticism about the order of courses Biomolecules and
Biokemian menetelmät I, which suggest that Biokemian menetelmät I should be the first, and Biomolecules after that.
As a practicals teacher, I would also like to comment on this subject.
The reason why first year students want to change the order of Biomolecules and Methodology I is simply the subjective experience of the working load in these courses. I have understood that Biomolecules practicals are a kind of shock for the first year students. The course is really compact and short, requiring really hard working and long working days. Since the laboratory is loaded with students and the amount of teachers is limited, organizing such a course is an admirable achievement. But still the students are shocked.
On the contrary, Methodology I practical course is far less compact being a 3 weeks course. The students to teachers ratio is reasonable allowing more guidance and more oral explanation on the theory behind the experiments. In this course the students also should start planning more their experiments by themselves which means that they have more time/experiment compared to Biomolecules course. Due to these things the subjective experience of the students is that the Methodology I course should be the first one.
This was only a description how students see the things. My comment is that considering the course contents the order should definitely be the one Lloyd suggested. But considering the working load and timetable, this I simply don't know because I never taught in Biomolecules course. And it's always hard to say what is best for students. They are lazy (as I a... was too) and verbally talented, and usually from Finnish culture. This means that on average they are not used to hard pressing, they can defend themselves verbally, and they maybe think short-sighted and want to make studying easy and fun. So maybe Lloyds hard pressing is simply very good for them...
With best regards, Mikko