Man, do I feel old. I registered for a General Biology course at Marquette. Of course looking around the class makes me feel old, seeing all the youthful cherubic faces that surround me. The content of the class makes me feel old too. Freshman biology, the short course I took, was a lot different way back when. In class, we talked about stuff (phylogenetic trees) that I learnt not too long ago in a graduate class. Granted the depth of coverage is much less intense but still I hadn't even really heard much about it until a few years ago. The course setup makes me feel old too. Essays required for the class aren't submitted to the instructor, but to two websites: one for plagiarism checking and the other for calibrated peer review. The instructors don't even see the essays, although they are used for class grading. The breadth of online material for this class is also rather overwhelming to me. The website has announcements, real flash cards (made with, ahem, Macromedia Flash), lecture outlines, quizzes, previous exams, and more. At first I thought this class would be a breeze but I'm not sure anymore. For now it still makes me want to get up in the morning so I suppose even if I flunk this class it's a good thing.