Lecture and lab in different semesters

I tried searching through past posts about taking lecture and lab in different semesters but didn’t find anything. I’m planning ahead for Summer and Fall 2013 and none of the upper level bios that want to take have both an evening lecture and lab (and there’s also a pre-lab lecture which is held on a different day and time). With the way the course schedule is laid out, there really would not be a way for me to work full time and take the lecture and lab together.


So my question is, does it matter if I take the lecture and lab in different semesters? Does it matter if I don’t take the lab at all (for non pre-req courses)? The classes I’m thinking about doing this for are genetics and maybe cell biology. And I might have to do it for physics II (lecture in the summer, lab in the fall).


Thanks for your help

It depends on your school. At my university, it honestly didn’t matter for any but Bio I and II (where lab/lecture covered the same topics about 50% of the time). For every other bio, chem, phys and organic lecture the lab was totally unconnected. In fact, it was better to take the class the semester before the lab, so you actually had a clue what was going on.

I took genetics lecture and lab almost 2 years apart because of scheduling issues. The disadvantage is that I had to go back and review topics as we applied them in lab. But I feel the advantages are great because it forced me to basically “learn” the topics for a second time, making them stick better than just one pass through (if I had taken the components together). So ultimately I don’t think it matters - you just might have to factor in a little extra time for the lab.

I’m jealous that you even have the option.


My university combines all the lectures/labs into a single course. Not only do you have to take them the same semester, but if you fail one part you automatically fail the other. For example if you have to retake one of the organic chemistry’s because your lecture exam scores were low, you have to retake the lab even if you got perfect scores there on the previous attempt.


On the flip side, while most of the labs feel like massive wastes of time, they end up being worth somewhere between 15-25% of your grade (depending on the lecture professor). So at the end of the semester it feels a lot like free points if you stayed on top of the experiments and such.

Prodigal: That’s how my science classes were at my undergrad school. The whole notion of taking the lecture and lab separate is new to me. I like that I have the option to take it over different semesters but I’d rather take them at the same time. Genetics is the pre req for all the rest of the upper level bio classes but the lab is 6 hours a week. I’m leaning towards not taking the genetics lab initially.


I also stumbled across a univ that has genetics (lecture only) online. It’s through a brick and mortar school (UT-El Paso). UT-San Antonio has human embryology online. Would it be viewed negatively if I took those 2 classes online?

  • corewr Said:
I also stumbled across a univ that has genetics (lecture only) online. It's through a brick and mortar school (UT-El Paso). UT-San Antonio has human embryology online. Would it be viewed negatively if I took those 2 classes online?



Different schools have different policies on online courses for pre-reqs. Take a look at the MSAR, it details them all in there.

You usually can take lab and lecture during different semesters without too many issues.

My school also required lecture and lab in the same semester, but only bio labs really seemed to parallel the lectures - I think for physics it definitely would have been easier to take the lab a semester after the lecture.



LUC let’s you take it separately, a lot of the post bacs take them that way. If you have the ability to do it, it could be very helpful. Some of the stuff in bio lab was pretty intense and the people who had taken lecture before hand seemed to have a better grasp on things.