Hey Gang!
I'm a glutton for punishment and this semester I'm taking Organic and Embryology. I'm terrified about Organic but excited at the same time…I'm ready to use Nanon's X-rated O-Chem study aids and I've been digging for a couple of days for other resources…
BUT…I have no frame of reference for how Embryology is going to be…I've already purchased all of my books but have not had time to peruse them. My base assumption is it's going to be processes/development from fertilization to free-standing organism and all that it entails. (including tails)…
has anybody taken this course at their respective school? could you give me some ideas?
btw…this course either has an incorporated lab or something…there's not a separately scheduled lab…which is interesting to me.
Thanks in advance!
Andrea
At my school, the lab goes with the second half of O-Chem. The first half is lab-free. Good luck with it all!
Embryology makes me break out in hives! The professor who taught our Embryo, an extremely nice gentleman, has been doing embryo since it's infancy. Problem was, he interchangably used archaic terms, from the good old days, and the more modern terms for things…yielding a lot of confusion, at least on my part.
The text by Moore & Persaud is the quintessential embryo text – the ones by which all others are gauged – and I believe we have used copy of that text available for purchase off of OPM Used Books --> see the home page for the link.
OMD,
Did you find it to be a good class, a horrible class, an extremely difficult class???
I reviewed, briefly, the texts last night…One I believe to be a medical text-it is optional. The other I believe is a standard bio type textbook. The author is Gilbert (not remember currently who the other author(s) are). The optional text is way over my head, at this stage. It honestly strikes me as an advanced genetics/embryology/neonatal/prenatal medical text. I think the other text, our primary text is going to be the basics plus.
I'd be interested in finding out if you found the course to be heinous or lovely or something in between.
Andrea
Andrea,
I took Vertebrate Embryology - liked it so much I also took Developmental Biology, Molecular Basis of Development, Reproductive Biology and even Plant Development.
Your assumption about what will probably be covered in your Embryology class is correct. Typically, Embryology is comparative and limited to either vertebrates or mammals - depends on your instructor and/or department. Because it is comparative, you may spend time memorizing or finding a way to look for similarities. I found Embryology to be fascinating - thus it was an easy class for me.
My Vert Embryo class went into a lot of details about hormones, tissue induction, evolutionary relationships, and organ development and function. We also touched on signal transduction, hormones binding to receptors and induction down a concentration gradient.
I may be biased because I find the developmental process so fascinating, however, Embryology is a fabulous class. Embryology introduced me to cell biology, histology, biochemistry, evolutionary relationships, endocrinology and the developmental process. It gave me an overview of entire systems, how they developed, how they functioned and how they evolved.
As for the lab section, there really isn’t a lot of lab work you can do in an Embryology class. Most of our lab time was spent looking through a microscope identifying stuff.
Have fun and Good Luck 
– Rachel