BIOL W3005

4 different tests all done before finals week. No large cumulative “final exam” per se. Mandatory recitation.

Weekly scientific papers discussed at recitation. Midterm (50%) and non-cumulative final (50%). Both easy and only based on stuff done in class--so it's advisable to attend. Half the final is based on the material after the midterm, and the other half on 6-7 papers.

I totally agree about the problems described in the May 7, 2025 review. Other than that, I feel like this specific semester of Neurobiology was great for people working in labs, e.g. at ZI, because the course shows you a lot of papers, methods, names of people, teaches you relevant things that you could apply to your own research, and puts you in contact with lab members (TAs and the professor herself) that can help you with you neuroscience journey. Just the testing process in this class was super disorganized and faulty versus last semester in Neurobiology I with Abdus-Saboor, which was waaayy better in terms of lectures and grading.

In case you're not entirely aware of the intellectual powerhouse that Columbia is, this is the class to take. Rafa's a wonderful, soft-spoken gentleman with an extensive knowledge of the subject. That said, I think he lectured about 3 times. The rest of the class was taught by professors of the likes of Kandel and Jessell, both authors of the class' text book, and the former a Nobel Laureate. So, this class is a great opportunity to meet some very distinguished members of the Columbia faculty, but be warned: a number of them haven't taught for years (or so it seemed), so the lectures tended to border on the mediocre or too technical. But the lecture topics were really fascinating and contemporary, and there was always 15 minutes of Q&A at the end. The exams are really easy and straightforward--just take thorough notes in class and understand the weekly scientific papers. I did just that, and studied the night before the midterm and final and ended up with an A that I don't think I deserved because I did next to nothing for the class. Overall, I think this was a good class, and a breath of fresh air from the rigour of Mowshowitz's bio. It's a good choice for a bio elective. Oh, one last thing: the TA's can suck. I didn't get much out of recitation, but there were a couple that I'm glad I attended. You're better off dissecting the papers with a friend.

The workload is fine. 3 MCQ exams, not hard except her weird wording and the fact that she marks correct answers as incorrect despite using scantrons!!! Final exam based on primary papers (3 options pick 2) which was fine but similar exam and grading issues. Recitation was mandatory and fine.

Weekly mandatory recitations to discuss papers, a midterm and final.

Professor Kelley is clearly brilliant and deeply knowledgeable about neuroscience, but unfortunately, that didn’t translate into effective teaching. Her lectures were often disorganized and hard to follow, making it difficult to piece together what we were actually supposed to take away from each class. The “key points” she provided before exams were somewhat helpful, but they often felt like a crutch to compensate for lectures that lacked clarity and structure. The biggest issue by far was with the exams. Even though we used scantrons, Professor Kelley insisted on grading them by hand which made no sense and caused a lot of unnecessary stress. Pretty much every test I took had multiple grading errors, and I wasn’t alone. Students were constantly going to office hours to get points back for questions that were marked wrong despite being correct. It felt chaotic and unfair, especially when the mistakes were due to poor wording or questions that didn’t have a clear right answer. For the final worth 40% of our grade Professor Kelley told the class she had written it at 2 a.m. the night before and admitted that some questions were “problematic.” That kind of last-minute preparation is just not acceptable at this level. Losing people's exams and misgrading exams is ridiculous, and should not be the hardest part of this course. To her credit, she was usually open to fixing mistakes…

Professor Yuste does a good job teaching the course. His lectures were clear and easy to follow. However, he only lectured maybe three or four times throughout the entire semester, so perhaps he should be rated more on his administration than teaching. The rest of the lectures were taught by various faculty members of the Kavli Institute and the graduate neurobiology program, so, overall, there's a pretty wide spread of teaching quality in this class. The administration of the class was a bit botched though. TA-run exam reviews didn't cover most of the material, and background reading was often posted after the corresponding lectures, which pretty much rendered such reading useless. Furthermore, this class covers a huge amount of information, yet provides no review sheet/practice final for the final exam. Grading is pretty lenient; with enough effort, it shouldn't be too hard to get an A (it's a lot easier than cellular neurobio).

All exams are mulitple choice. Final exam is not cumulative and not based on new material but rather based on 2 of 3 research papers of your choice (also multiple choice). Mandatory recitation section where more research papers will be discussed.

3 midterms (not cumulative, drop 1), recitation papers, final on papers