Biochemistry · Chemistry
Spent 20+ hrs reading, doing problem sets, attending office hours, and studying for exams. Scored consistently above average and spent significantly more time in this class than others to end up with a B.
like 20+ hours a week for the grade that i got... mary ann price the person that you are
Much of my COVID depression came from having Danny as my prof. The amount of tangentially important, obscure, and out-of-scope questions this man puts on his tests is obscene and would make Jeffrey Dahmer scream bloody murder. The thing is — Biochem doesn't have to be miserable, but Danny sure made it so. Save your grade while you can and choose another Professor.
take danny ho's class anything other than this because i can tell you i didn't learn a thing!!! and i did great in intro bio!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why in the world does she teach the class differently from every. other. professor. on the PLANET???? i do not care about a random protein from a paper from 2010 somehow this class ended up being worse than i ever could have imagined
A problem set due and a quiz given at the start of most classes (not so bad but sometimes a lot of memorization necessary). Two midterms (can't drop either) and a cumulative final. One larger group research project that's not bad at all (large groups = good division of labor).
Nam (Prof Ho goes by Nam) is a fantastic professor, and his biochem class – though notoriously challenging – is amazing and well worth the effort. It certainly won't come easily: there's a metric ton of material, a lot of memorization, and the concepts themselves can be fairly difficult. However, the course is super well organized, and I promise you will learn a TON. Most importantly, Nam is super invested in the material and the course; his excitement and commitment to his teaching and how much he cares about our learning are infectious and make the class much more engaging. It's definitely one of the most rigorous courses I've taken at Columbia (it's actually pretty similar to Mowsh bio), which I love, and you'll need to put in a lot of work to do well. Nam's care, enthusiasm, and sense of humor/sass, for me at least, made me look forward to every class.
He's a sarcastic jerk and does not care about his students. Do yourself a favor and take Stockwell's class instead.
I learned that competence in the subject matter does not always correlate with a professor's effectiveness as a teacher. Some biochem was also learned. The average interpretation of Danny Ho's effectiveness as a Professor would most likely be unfavorable for Danny Ho. He reads directly off the slides and fails to adequately convey higher concept information to the students in a way that can be understood. He also comes off as rude to the students. Occasionally the manner in which he answers student's questions in office hours and in class does not create an environment that promotes intellectual curiosity or enthusiasm. He would also routinely talk about his day job, which one might expect to stem from his reluctance to teaching this course. Giving the difficulty of the subject matter you would expect Danny Ho to be more available to his students, but he only schedules a 50 minute "office hour" once a week. There are many other science professors who teach equally difficult subjects that are more available to their students. The effectiveness of the TAs is also hampered by the limited information they receive from Danny Ho. This course was ultimately very dissatisfying, which is very disheartening due to the importance of biochemistry for premed students. This class was not organized very well. Answers on exams and quizzes were consistently coded wrong on courseworks with no e…
If you want to preserve your GPA, steer clear of Danny's biochem class. I'm pretty sure I spent >25 hours a week studying for this class and squeezed out all of my brain-juice and came out with a B. Danny himself is an ok lecturer -- I'm sure he would have been much more engaging in person but since last semester was online, lecture boiled down to Danny reading off the slides and showing off his fabulous fingernails on zoom (this I am not complaining about). His exam questions were really difficult. First of all, he told us during OH that he TA'd for Mowsh Bio and vowed to write his questions after her guidance. OKAY :0. Furthermore, Danny won't tell you this himself, but he never reuses exam questions from previous years. Congrats! You just wasted your weekend doing practice exam problems that won't ever appear on Danny's exams. He lets his TAs write one long-answer question each on every midterm, so there's really no consistency to the difficulty or the content of his exam questions. If I could travel back in time I would say this to my past self: - Don't take the class! It's true that Danny might be a better lecturer than Jonelle White, and that his class might prepare you better for the MCAT. But is it really worth it getting a lower grade? I can retake the MCAT again and study longer on the biochem sections of the test, but my grade in Danny's class is permanently stamped…