BIOL BC1500

SimBios (easy, many thought they were graded for participation, ended up being for an actual grade), exams were all MCQ (still pretty difficult), the third exam was the hardest, weekly open note quizzes

3 exams, each counting for 25% (none are cumulative, 50 questions, curved, but hard) weekly mindtaps, counting for 25% (time-consuming but not that hard)

quick 5 pt. lab quizzes at the start of each lab, midterm with a practical portion, final -all written with diagrams. only 2 lab reports. Most labs had a somewhat quick lab homework assignment, but not all labs did. oh and an American Museum of Natural History assignment! pretty simple, not too difficult.

Workload wasn't too bad. He assigned textbook readings, but they weren't mandatory to do well in the class. Studying for the last 2 exams took some extra time.

Not a huge fan. Pretty disorganized. He read from the slides, but sometimes it did not seem like he knew what he was talking about. Lots of extra credit opportunities tho. Take this class with literally any other prof.

I'm gonna start this review by saying Paul is a good guy. He's nice, he tries to keep the material interesting, and seriously is invested in what he's teaching. The lectures are by no means miserable to sit through because of this, however, he does not take attendance and its at 9am 3 times a week, so I found myself skipping a lot. Try not to do this. He knows kids do this and will put a good 4-6 questions on each exam, sometimes more, on stuff he only says in lecture and it can be hard to miss, but if you are invested, it will be obvious to you on the exam. I found the workload to be a little much, he covers 2/3 of the textbook (that comes directly from his mouth) so its an insane amount of reading, but if you spend about an hour or more a day you should be fine-- again, I found it hard to do this and ended up cramming the textbook reading onto weekends, which is quite miserable. The material itself is not hard, its extremely simple plant botany, evolution, Darwin-based stuff that I'm sure you've heard of before in any environmental science/ecology/biology class. It's just A LOT, and because he knows the information isn't incredibly challenging, he will nitpick from the textbook and make the questions on his exams pretty difficult. Definitely pay attention to the little things, even though that can be difficult with the amount of chapters each exam covers. Do well on the mind…

The first day I walked into bio lab I thought this semester was going to be HELL in lab, but I really ended up liking Wanda. The first day she came off as a total bitch and I was scared to say the least. However labs 2-9 she was nothing but wonderful. She is a very knowledgeable woman and very intelligent and she explains things VERY WELL! (far better than my lecturer professor Hertz). I don't know why she seemed rude the first lab, but she was never that way the rest of the time. She smiled and made jokes proving that she is not a stuck up bitch as the semester went on. Her grading on assignments was very fair. I only got a B on each lab report but I don't think that is terrible.Her corrections made perfect sense and the points I got off were definitely my own fault.Unlike other lab professors, Wanda very clearly describes what she wants EXACTLY in her lab reports (i'm talking she tells you exactly what words to use in each sentence for each section). Each time we had a lab report due she would spend an hour going over what we needed to do on the lab report.This made the lab reports a no brainer. I would actually highly recommend Knauss. I learned way more from her than my friends who have other lab professors. I'm not sure why she has such scathing reviews from the past, but I am here to tell you that you do not need to worry. Trust me I was terrified the first day but I fel…

I was ultimately disappointed in Professor Marcondes and this class. While he is clearly passionate about biology, Marcondes was overly condescending and rude to students, especially those who asked for help. I thought lectures were disorganized and sometimes confusing--he was inconsistent in how much content he covered from lecture to lecture, and slides were often unclear. His tests were based off his Pollev questions, and some questions were phrased weirdly or he intentionally tried to trick students. Our test averages were lower compared to other Intro Bio sections, which could be frustrating. I would advise other students to take this class with other professors, if possible.

3 midterms and one cumulative final each weighted 18.75%. the rest of the grade is take home online quizzes which are open note and you can collaborate on as well as attendance.

Reads off of the slides and going to lecture isn't really necessary except for occasional pollevs which measure attendance but you can take those from anywhere. Fair curves so that a good amount of people get A's, B's etc.