The best BBB classes

Advanced registration closes on Sunday so take a look at these classes if you haven't already registered. These classes were handpicked by a group of BBB seniors as some of their favorites.

BBB 231, animal behavior: This class will teach you to look at the systems of animal behavior from a completely different perspective. Using game theory, evolutionary concepts, neurological studies, and more, you gain a multi-disciplinary understanding of the natural animal patterns of behavior that we see around us. It's really interesting, even for someone who doesn't love ecology and evolutionary biology that much!

BIBB 251, cellular neurobiology: This is an incredible class. You get the benefit of having four different lecturers during the semester, each with his own wealth of information about neurobiology. The class certainly requires some work, it's worth it!

BBB 269 - Autonomic Physiology with Dr. Heerding: This is one of my favorite classes I've taken at Penn. The material covers a range of pathways and mechanisms in the nervous system (i.e. neurotransmitter mechanisms). You can expect it to be pretty dense and require a lot of memorization. That being said, Dr. Heerding is awesome and does a great job keeping you interested (and awake). I really loved learning everything we covered in class, and Dr. Heerding makes a lot of real world connections so after every lecture you get to walk away thinking, "Wow, so that's how that works-- that makes so much sense!" Also, for pre-meds: I was pleasantly surprised to find how much stuff I had to learn in the class was MCAT material. Not having to memorize (or even review) all the hormones again or the different pathways of the nervous system was definitely a bonus.

"Introduction to Brain and Behavior" (BBB 109-401): In the class, you start out by learning about the basic mechanisms of the brain and nervous system, things such as action potentials, axons, etc. The end of the semester is really cool because it ties everything into the five sensory systems and you see a real connection between the small scale bio-chem and your macro-level human senses and behavior.

BBB 451: behavioral genetics: This is a small seminar class and has been one of my favorites. In the first part of the semester there is a guest lecturer each class who talks about their own research and in the second students give presentations on current journal articles. I loved this class because you get to hear from a wide variety of professors and learn about studies being conducted at Penn. The workload isn't hard at all and if you're interested in research this is the class for you. I do wish that Dr. Price had done a slightly better job fascilitating discussion after each lecture; there were times when presentations were followed by silence. However, this is a risk in any seminar and depends just as much on the particular group of students in the class.