Biologia Computacional

The MAPS were in line with the material being taught, although the first one had too many questions for only 45 minutes, so the professors had to give us some extra time. There's also a project that doesn't weigh heavily on the grade but requires some work. I enjoyed the classes, especially the practical ones, but I think the theoretical classes dedicated to the project could have had more elaborate slides, because there were many images but I felt the information was scarce. The professors are excellent and always willing to help. My tip for students is to never miss practical classes, since...

The evaluation consists of 2 MAPs and a group project on the final two weeks of the course. The MAPs are very doable if you attend the practical classes, where professors present exercises very similar to those that appear on the tests. The project is very time consuming for how little of your grade it's worth, but the evaluation is very relaxed, with a report and an informal "presentation" (you don't need to prepare anything) where the professors ask you questions about your methodology, mainly.

A cadeira está dividida em 3 módulos, sendo o da professora Susana Vinga o mais extenso e interessante. Aborda algoritmos, curvas de sobrevivência, cadeias de Markov. Matéria muito interessante! As aulas práticas são muito úteis para se ir percebendo a matéria, no entanto, sugiro que se vá estudando à medida que a matéria é dada pois as aulas práticas assim tornam se mais produtivas e dps não é tao stressante na altura dos MAPs. Foi das cadeiras que mais gostei de fazer! Há um projeto sobre transcriptomics (relativo ao último módulo), que será interessante para quem gostar dessa área...

If you are even remotely curious about this field, you should 100% take this course.

I decided to take BC on a whim because I was tired of pure CS courses, and it was probably my favorite course ever and made me rethink my specialization. Professor Susana Vinga is one of the best and sweetest teachers I've had (up there with Luísa!) and the course is very well structured.

I do consider the workload heavy, since being from MEIC meant I lacked a lot of bases to understand some things (you'll be taking this course with mostly students from MEBiom/MBioTech/MBio for whom it's mandatory) but the...

Project is very time-consuming for how much it ends up being worth in terms of grading.

The lectures are very full of information and each class pdf has 50-150 slides. The labs are fun and the professor explains everything so you will understand them even with minimal or zero revision beforehand. The MAP are easier than the labs because they’re only 45 minutes so while the exercises aren’t hard you don’t have time to hesitate. You will pass the tests if you go to the labs and study the slides. There’s a final group project that isn’t too hard if evenly divided by the group, the project is in R but they don’t care about the code they only care about the report

An interesting course for those in CompSci with an interest in biology.

Classes: The theoretical classes had 3 different teachers, I thought all of them were ok. Some of the subjects we talked about, like sequence alignment, are better explained in labs than in class. None of the biology concepts were too complicated, most if not all of the topics were talked about in high school biology. In general, I believe it's a relatively easy course.

Evaluation Methods: The course had two tests during the semester, which I felt was an effective way to test our knowledge without being...

The only part I liked about the course was the beginning, where you apply algorithms related to the subject. I feel like that was the only thing I actually absorbed from the entire course.

The way the professor presents the material is way too confusing, and again, it’s too much content, which even turns simple things like the labs into seven-headed monsters if you rely on the slides (not to mention we had to do mathematical proofs in a bioinformatics course, something I never really understood the point of).

On top of that, the professor wasn’t the same throughout the semester:...

Bad course. There's an overload of material: in some lectures, the professor goes through 150+ slides, each with different content, without giving you a real chance to understand much of it. The course is driven by quantity over quality: you’re expected to 'learn' tons of information superficially, but never go in-depth on anything. The issue with this is that when the exam comes, you’re left with piles of material to memorize, since you never really know what will be asked.

The labs and projects are easy and fun. The content itself is actually interesting, the only problem is...