Announcements & changes: syllabus updated 18 Sept. 2017

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Philip Stoddard AHC-1, 219C 305-348-0378 stoddard 'at' fiu.edu

Matthew DeGennaro OE 205 305-348-6678 MDeGenna 'at' fiu.edu

"If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star
you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and
learning things and who aren't so lazy." - Terry Pratchett, "The Wee Free Men"

Course schedule & Syllabus

Biology Dept. Seminar Series
Monday 3 pm in WC-130.  You must be there unless you have an approved reason for not being there.  

In class we will analyze and discuss the seminar as a group. Skills thus acquired can be put to practical use later. Another reason to attend is that your degree will be in biology and thus you should learn what is happening in other parts of biology as well as your own interests.  These seminars are often at a different time, and may be aimed for a more general audience, but they will be well worth attending. 

Glaser Seminar
Grad students are strongly urged to sign up for the Glaser Seminar, a week long seminar series given every year by an eminent scholar. The field of study rotates from year to year.

Course Goals: (download PDF with complete discription)
The overall goal of this course is to help ensure that everyone is successful in graduate school by bridging the transition from undergraduate to graduate education, and getting everyone a good start on their graduate research. By the end of your first semester, you will have read and thought about a substantial block of the literature related to your graduate research, and will have at least a first draft of a research proposal with substantial feedback. In addition you will have learned some useful things about designing experiments, understanding science, and dealing with ethical and practical issues that pertain to life as a grad student.

Sending e-mail to us: Please follow a few simple rules so we can provide quality of service (i.e., survive).

• In all email to us, please make sure the subject line starts with "IBR" and then contains a reasonable title ("first assignment" or "help on power") so your message doesn't wind up in our spam folders.
• Please name your attached file something like IBR_[your-name-here]_[short_assignment_name].pdf
  Example: IBR_Stoddard_journal_list.pdf
  Otherwise we will receive 25 attachments named "research_proposal.pdf", which makes it hard to sort out which file is yours. If it has your name, you will be more likely to get credit for your efforts.

Hints to the wise:

• Run assignments through your peers for editing and constructive criticism.
• Do all assigned work on time. We'll knockthe grade down for late work but early never hurts.
• Work on this course with your classmates. Science is a collaborative effort. Start now.
  
• Everything you write had better be in your own words (plagiarism results in an instant fail and possibly a slow and painful expulsion).

Grades don't matter as much in graduate school as they did in college, however strong graduate transcripts are important when applying for fellowships, and you do have to maintain a 3.0 average in your graded coursework.