As a former KCU-COBer, I figured you newbies who are about to start the program or who are thinking about doing the program might want some inside knowledge to help you out. A master’s program itself is hard. This is basically like a version of your first year of medical school. Any little thing to help you succeed will be worthwhile.
I might get a lot of flack for giving away this information, but the big-little program doesn’t get done right out of the gate for COB students like it does for medical students, so hopefully this can help you out. Although you do meet with your bigs fairly early on, it is usually one big to at least 7-10 littles. Versus medical students get a one-on-one big to little ratio.
I found my big for KCU-COB to be very helpful, but I couldn’t end up staying for my group meeting with her due to other meetings I had scheduled. Thus, I missed quite a bit of information handed off. Even though my big was always available via email, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to keep emailing her.
So, here is the list of professors that I encountered during my program and tips to succeed in their classes. All of them, and I mean all of them, will be more than willing to meet with you, email you, or stay after class to help you out. You just need to ask! All of these professors are extremely passionate about what topics they teach and it shows. If you are willing to learn, they are willing to help assist you. Hopefully some of this information will help you out during your time there!
Dr. Segars:
Dr. Segars teaches epidemiology in the COB program. I had never taken epidemiology before this course, but Dr. Segars knows most students have no idea what that course entails. Thus, he tries to give his students as much practice and exposure as possible. For his course, you should show up to class. I found his lectures incredibly helpful and engaging which helped me learn.
He also gives an ample amount of practice sets and has open office hours. Take the time to do his practice tests/questions and then if you need clarification, go to his office hours.
Tutoring: There is large group tutoring for his course. Go. It gives you a chance to see it again and my tutors gave us so many more practice scenarios which are different from what Dr. Segars gives you for practice sets. For this, you will just need to continually do some practice to make sure you keep understanding how to do his problems. I don’t think most students needed to consider one-on-one tutoring for this course, as Dr. Segars is pretty easy to get a hold of for questions, but if you feel you need it, be the best advocate for yourself.
Testing style: Majority of your tests will be multiple choice, but you will have usually about 2-5 essay questions on his exams. He always gives you the general topics of his essays in class before hand so you can prepare. However, he doesn’t post on blackboard the essay topics. So make sure you go to class (or at least be friends with someone who does).
Book: There is no book. Just his lecture notes, practice questions, and handout materials.
Dr. Agbas:
Dr. Agbas was part of a team taught course in my COB year. He was one of 4 biochemistry professors, and most of his topics were focused on the mitochondria. The mitochondria is his absolute favorite topic! He wears his favorite mitochondria bowtie during some of his lectures so be on the lookout for this!
He teaches about 5 courses in biochemistry, mostly ATP synthesis/CAC and protein folding. He put up a question forum on blackboard for each of his separate lectures for you to ask questions to him and your fellow classmates. I had classmates who would attempt to answer some of the questions posted, but usually Dr. Agbas would swoop in and give a more direct answer to clarify or decrease any confusion on the forum.
He does tend to hover over a few things that he is likely to test on (i.e. which cytochrome does not funnel electrons into the electron transport chain–> #2). But mostly he can pull from the entirety of his lectures to test on.
In biochemistry during my year they did have weekly quizzes, so you should be able to get a feel for how each professor asks a question.
Testing style: He tends to only focus on multiple choice questions.
Book: I found the book to be very helpful as I absolutely suck at biochemistry. I read that book a lot just to get the basic information down. There are practice questions in the book, but I didn’t find them extremely helpful for me. You can also use the Panini book (Medical Biochemistry An Illustrated Review by Sankhavaram R. Panini) on biochemistry. Some of my classmates found that more helpful than the recommended one (Panini is also the recommended biochemistry text for the medical school currently). **Some Professors will take figures from the Panini book without telling you where they referenced them from. They also tend to take some test questions out of this book…
Dr. Zaidi:
Dr. Zaidi is another professor that teaches in the team taught biochemistry course and molecular courses. She teaches a fair amount in both courses. For testing, she will pull from anything. She may tell you to not worry about something as she won’t test on it; but she may still test on it so know it. She may tell you to definitely know something because she’ll test on it; but she may then decide not to test on it. With Dr. Zaidi, you will need to know every aspect of her lectures. Unfortunately, that means you need to know the entire lecture which is hard to cram for, but if you keep up on her material, you should be just fine. Don’t leave reviewing her lectures until the night before the test, you will have a much harder time due to the sheer volume of information.
I suggest you spend sometime in her office hours as well if you need help grasping information. I did not take advantage of this, but some of her test questions were very hard and I should have spent more time with her to gain a better understanding of the material.
Tutoring: Biochemistry also had large group tutoring when I attended. I didn’t find the biochemistry tutoring helpful, but if you feel you need to see the material again, go to tutoring and decide for yourself if its helpful for you. If you feel you need one-on-one tutoring, be the best advocate for yourself.
Testing style: She tends to focus only on multiple choice questions.
Book: For biochemistry, see Dr. Agbas’s blurb. For molecular, I used the molecular textbook a fair amount just to get a better understanding of the topic. But remember, I didn’t really show up to class so I needed the extra help.
Dr. Kincaid
Dr. Kincaid is the course director for both biochemistry and molecular biology. She only teaches a handful of lectures in biochemistry, but she taught most of the first 5 weeks in molecular.
The easiest way to ask questions with her is through email or after class. If you feel you need additional assistance or clarification with her, catch her after class and see if you can go back with her to her office for the explanation.
She will tell you exactly what you need to know. She also taught my elective microbiology class, and in all of the courses during the review she would tell you exactly what she will pull test questions from. So make sure you go to her reviews, it’ll greatly help.
Tutoring: Biochemistry is offered as noted. There is no large group tutoring for molecular or microbiology. However, if you feel you need one-on-one tutoring, be the best advocate for yourself.
Testing style: She is also a fan of asking questions from multiple choice, short answer, and fill in the blank. You will need to know your material for this, but again, she points you in the right direction if she gives a review. For her essays/short answer she mostly wants bullet points so she can easily look to see if you have the information or not.
Book: For molecular I used the book a lot for her just to get the finer details. But our molecular book had a ton of additional information that wasn’t directly tested on. Again, I needed to read the book as I didn’t always show up for lecture. For micro, I only somewhat used the book; her lectures had more than enough information to study with.
Dr. White
Dr. White is the current dean of the COB and also teaches the last bit of molecular. He focuses mainly on cancer and genes. His lectures tend to be long, but the good news is that you’ve seen a chunk of it already through the various courses throughout the year. So if you struggled with it then, you should hopefully have a better grasp on it when his classes come around.
Tutoring: Again there is no group tutoring. However if you strongly feel you need one-on-one tutoring, you need to be an advocate for yourself.
Testing style: He likes essays. So you will have a combination of multiple choice and essays. He will give you the essay topics ahead of time. Usually, at the end of his lectures he has practice essays with the topics. Those are the topics he will pull from for his essay questions and where most but not all of his multiple choice questions will be pulled from as well. For his essays, he does not like bullet points. He wants the full essay style to be used. He does dock points if you don’t write in an essay format and instead just give him bullet points.
I found making multiple choice answers for his class helpful to help memorize the large amount of information over time.
Book: I didn’t find the book super helpful for his sections as his lectures were pretty all-inclusive of information.
Dr. Anderson
Dr. Anderson teaches both anatomy and physiology I & II, and also teaches the electives histology in first semester and embryology in the second semester. All of his courses, lectures, and testing styles are the same for every single one of his classes. This should be the first professor that you can grasp how testing will be for the entire rest of the year as he does not change much (with the exception of how he runs his reviews).
Dr. Anderson likes micro detail. It can be a lot to learn, but you will soon start to notice that the same information from lecture one or two for that test block will show up a few more times in his later lectures for the same test block. This means this information is important and you will see it on the test. He is also one who will blatantly tell you if he likes to test on something, so circle or star it, because if he mentioned it would be on the test, it was always a question on the test.
Go to his reviews. Dr. Anderson has done his reviews a few different ways, and because we had jerks in our class he had to change it frequently because people would cheat or find a way to directly replicate the information. Sometimes we would sit without phones or iPads and do his multiple choice questions given (which were very similar to his tests), or he would give us short answers, or he would provide us the list of slides that he pulled questions from. A couple of times he gave us the objectives he pulled questions from and to know how to answer those objectives. Every time was different. But the questions/topics that you see in his reviews will most definitely be on the test.
Oh and for embryo, he pulls a chunk of his questions from the end of the chapter book questions on the test. So know those.
Tutoring: No group tutoring is offered for any of his courses. There may be one-on-one tutoring available but I never checked this out. Again, if you feel you need this after talking to Janelle and your professors, you need to be an advocate for yourself.
Testing style: Only multiple choice.
Book: I did not find my anatomy book helpful at all. Instead I used the Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy if I needed reference or used sites such as Kenhub. I did use my physio book quite a bit though. I needed the explanations in the book for the figures he used if I didn’t have enough time to grasp what he was explaining in class or I needed a second look at the figure while studying. For embryo, he loves the book, so make sure you have access to that.
For histology, he provides you with all the slide images you will need to know. So you don’t need the book for any of the histological images. Dr. Anderson also provides you with the actual images from the book, and will point out what you need to know from them. The image captions from the book basically repeat the text. For the class, you do not need the book. My boyfriend stated he wanted the book so he could use it for later reference in medical school.
Dr. Shnyra
Immunology is hard. The topic is hard to grasp until you have all the moving pieces at the end and then everything starts to make sense. Which of course is too late because you all of a sudden show up to your last test and just then start to understand the topics… He teaches his immunology course the same exact way that he teaches it in the medical school, so expect it to be fast paced and hard, but if you have questions he is more than willing to answer them. He knows it’s a hard topic.
Dr. Shnyra bases his powerpoint layouts based on the book, and the powerpoints are pretty comprehensive; they just can be difficult to organize all of the information. The book itself was hit or miss for me. I actually used a separate book How the Immune System Works by Lauren M. Sompayrac which was recommended to me by Janelle. I found this to be incredibly helpful, but unfortunately I didn’t bother to look at it until a week before my final exam. The figures are great for understanding, there is usually a summary portion or you can find a subsection to look at if you have specific questions, and I bought an edition or two older than the current, so it was only like $5. Just know that you may find slight differences in facts between the internet, the textbooks, and his powerpoints: If this is the case, go based off of his powerpoints.
Testing style: Multiple choice only. He gives you practice sets before the test and you may see the same questions on the first test or very similar questions. Also, your first test is only worth about 10% of your grade. Your second is worth about 30% of your grade, and your final is worth 60%. The reason he does this is because he knows most people fail or do awful on the first test given the difficulty of the material. It’s to ensure you don’t flunk the class by the first test. (Now is not the time to throw the hissy fit about it. We all did it. But by the end of the semester we were hella happy he did it this way).
Tutoring: There is large group tutoring. Go. Sometimes it is hard to grasp the flow of his lectures just because of the new content. My tutors did a fantastic job of changing how they organized the material which helped make more sense to me than did the original powerpoint. It gave me a second chance to look at everything again and they were great at pointing out the high yield testing topics.
Book: Again, hit or miss for me.
I did not have Dr. Bittel as a professor as I did not have genetics, and a previous biochemistry professor is no longer teaching there. There were 1-2 professors who started to teach physiology in my second semester but I am unsure if they will show up for this next year. Thus, I will not be providing input as I do not feel it’ll be helpful!
Let me know in the comments below if there is additional information on this I can assist with, and what you would like to hear about next!