BI OCC3501

online homework quizzes for every class which you can use notes (some are based on papers, others on video lectures), internet, and collaborate with others on. in class audience responses for participation points, and team problems for the end of class for actual points. 2 open note/internet/collaborative midterms, 1 in class open note cumulative midterm, and 1 in class cumulative open note final

Weekly True/False quizzes that you really should spend a small amount of time studying for (it adds up if you don't) , a multiple choice midterm, and a multiple choice open book final (final is easier than the midterm).

Three exams, psets that you should do if you know what is good for you.

Two take-home midterms: I hope you're familiar with wikipedia. Open book/notes/slides final- very long and irrelevant to much of the course.

2 tests worth 44% each (1 per prof) and 8 quizzes with the top 6 scores counting for 12% (4 quizzes/prof).

This year we've had 2 take home midterms on Canvas that we can collaborate with others on as well as use notes and internet. Both were fine, though the second one was significantly more difficult than the first. Corrections are available on all assignments including homework quizzes, all exams except for the final, and you can get half credit back. so, if you get a 90/100 you can bump your grade up to 95, if you get an 80 you can bump it up to a 90, etc. This makes up for the fact that the grade boundaries are strict (93.99 is an A-, 94 is an A) and there's no curve. This is great because in a class full of premeds no one is trying to screw anyone else over because it literally doesn't matter how other people do. Also, Professor Stockwell is such a kind teacher. Whenever I review the lectures or video lectures I'm reminded of how genuinely he cares about his students - in one lecture someone was asked to draw a product on the board and she was like "I don't know if this is right or not," and he goes, "that's okay, right or wrong doesn't matter, this is an opportunity for all of us to learn together." Most recently, he ended the video lecture by saying "I look forward to seeing you in class." These are little things but are unique for a professor in a large science lecture. In my experience, professors like this, though they are very smart, can be arrogant and uncaring about te…

Tong teaches the first half of the course. I found the material to be extremely random (random memorization of different protein structures without really explaining why they're so important), but Tong did the best he could with decent powerpoints. I thought he was a bad professor but realized that it's really hard to teach this random part of biochemistry. Seriously, it seems like the course gives everything that makes sense and is organized to the second half to be taught by Zubay, and gives Tong everything else. Zubay, on the other hand, was given the task of teaching fairly straightforward biochem pathways. People who sat in the front row somehow thought he was smart and interesting. For everyone else, the guy was hard to hear, rambling, disorganized, COULDN'T REMEMBER WHAT WAS IN THE TEXTBOOK THAT HE WROTE, and class was a complete waste of time. The only reason to go was for the weekly quizzes and to pick up the handouts. Everything I learned at that point was from the coursepack that he helped write (which is totally decent). The guy is 74 year old though, and as a lecturer, he wastes your time.

I took this class because my schedule conflicted with the undergraduate biochemistry course. It is not easy. I don't think any biochemistry class can truly be called "easy," but his exams are somewhat similar to Mowshowitz exams - deceptively simple questions, especially on the 2nd and 3rd exams, that require you to know every single detail of every one of the twenty metabolic and synthetic processes involved. Lecture is only once a week, which may be useful depending on your learning style, but you can do well without going to lecture and just reading his lecture summaries in the back of the syllabus that he will hand out. If you are good at organic chemistry it will be made somewhat easier for you. There IS a pretty generous curve based on class averages.

I should preface what I'm about to say by mentioning that this was Birck's first time teaching a lecture course, not only at Barnard, but ever. With that in mind, you'd think that being so close to college himself, he'd remember that grades do matter. In any case, Professor Birck's class was an absolute nightmare. The lectures were based on slides that were copied directly from the textbook which he hates so much. He ran through slides with pictures of large complex molecules and showed mechanisms with a laser pointer. He used the blackboard maybe 5 times in the whole semester to draw out a full mechanism. Good luck finding any in the book. Every morning he came in and informed us "it's Monday" or "it's Friday" almost as if an excuse for how tired he was or how incoherent his lecture was about to be, so it was somewhat surprising how he managed to speed through every lecture. But worry not, nothing that was mentioned in class will be relevant any time you are tested in that class. The two midterms were take-home, and only an exercise in who could google and/or use wikipedia the best. The questions were far from specific, and when he made the test more specific, he still expected certain information that he had not asked for. The worst though, was that the questions had very little to do with anything that he ever mentioned in class. The only way to begin to answer them was to…

Biochemistry is heavily encouraged and mandatory in some cases for different medical schools, so you'll be taking this class like it or not. The course is co-taught by Tong and Stockwell. Tong first: he made biochemistry an unpleasant experience--not because he is an awful person (he is kind of funny) but because he mumbles a lot during class time and expects us to memorize all of his slides (or this is the feeling I got as on his quizzes and midterm he literally changed one word and asked true or false). We had 800+ slides for the midterm, and there was only 1 "apply your knowledge" question--the rest was straight up memorization. He assigned a ton of textbook reading (the text was interesting) but I did not enjoy Tong's section at all. Stockwell's half of the course was much better--he was clear, concise, and interesting. Stockwell incorporated research papers into the course and I found Biochemistry to actually make sense. Stockwell's quizzes (and in turn, final, I'm sure) incorporate more orgo which I like and his questions are easier to follow. Stockwell made me enjoy the last 12 lectures, and made me love them as compared to the 1st. Overall, yeah, this course is nothing like Mowsh bio, but its definitely not a cake walk. Good luck.