EEEB W3011

2 midterms, mix of MC, short answer, long answer, and essay Essay Question final 5 assignments throughout the semester that shouldn't take longer than an hour Weekly 1 question quizzes

Impossibly difficult open-note quizzes (in other words, the notes you take will have nothing to do with what is on the quiz. It's just a ruse to get you to write down everything he says. A paper and an observation project.

Pretty light for a 5-week intensive. Go to class and take notes, and study, study, study those notes for the 2 exams. 1 taxonomy quiz as well that's not worth much. A final presentation on a primate of your choice (make it fun and choose something you're interested in - research might take a while, but if you're interested in it it's not that bad). She said she preferred if we presented "well", so just do your best, but if you're not a good presenter and have to read off your cards don't worry, she won't penalize you for that.

All the reviews for this class and really old and/or not accurate. Marina Cords is easily one of my favorite professors. She is a fantastic lecturer and clearly cares about the topic at hand. Her powerpoints are well organized and straightforward. She cares a lot about her students and is very helpful if you bother to go to office hours or ask questions in class. She tries to make her lectures as interesting as possible and she can be very very funny sometimes, too. The discussion sections show videos that may be boring but for me that reinforced concepts very clearly and it's super helpful to reference the experiments from the videos on exams. The grading can be a bit hard but if you pay attention to what she says in class and study her material, I had no issue getting at least an A- on every exam. There is also a required zoo visit halfway through the semester and you have to make it up if you can't go with the rest of the class. I found the zoo trip not particularly helpful, but it was really fun and you get to hangout with Cords outside of class. I also had Professor Cords during an interesting time (*cough* Covid-19 *cough*), and she was very understanding of any and all difficulties that students were dealing with.

I dropped this class in the middle of the summer semester because I couldn't take it. There is hardly any actual discussion of primate behavior. Instead he lectures for 4 and a half hours in a maddening style, continually asking questions whose answers could be anything. He is fishing for something in particular that no one can figure out. For example, he asked the women in the class why they shaved their legs and then stood there for several minutes waiting for an answer. No one was amused. He spent most of the time (the first 2 and half weeks of a 6 week course) talking about the merits of logical arguments and his quizzes tested us on our understanding of them. Everyone failed the first one, even though it is open-note, because his questions were so cryptic. During breaks we all comiserated about how terrible the class was. I don't regret dropping the course. My time is worth more than that.

I took Professor Lawrence's primates class last summer and absolutely loved it. I am not a science person at all, so I took this class purely for a science requirement. Let me say that this was my favorite class that I've taken at Columbia, and Professor Lawrence is one of my favorite professors. She is an incredible lecturer, and the 2-3 hour classes were easy to sit through because of it. (Note 2-3 hours - many of the classes did not go the entire 3 hours, and the lecture portion did not usually exceed 1-1.5 hours if I remember correctly.) She delivers the information very clearly, and as long as you write down what she says and pay attention in class you should have no problem getting an A. I, like most others, did not do well on the taxonomy quiz. However, it's not worth a whole lot, so don't worry if you don't do well - you can still get an A. Oh, and before I forget, YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THE TEXTBOOK. Just go to class and take notes (on the movies too since she always includes a question on exams about the movies) and you'll be fine. I wish every class was like this class, and every professor like Professor Lawrence. She is so much fun and extremely approachable, and a great lecturer to boot. Bottom line is you should take this class regardless of whether or not you like science or primates.

Easy weekly quizlets, weekly readings that aren't totally necessary to read, 2 "midterms", a final, and five written assignments usually consisting of answering a few questions. I never felt overwhelmed by the workload, but I did have to put actual effort into all of it.

Open-book / open-note quizzes daily (much harder than that seems though!), primate observation project (difficult but really interesting), final exam (difficult but open-book / open-note because he wants you to learn, not to memorize -- hi, isn't that why you came to college?) and one paper, topic of your own selection, which was fun to write. TONS of reading, but he'll tell you what you need to concentrate on so even the boring stuff is do-able. Plus some of the books are fun, like anecdotes about primate observation. NOT EASY -- don't expect to get away without working! -- but worth the effort 100%.

After taking this class last semester, I'm surprised by how negative so many of these reviews have been. Marina Cords is a woman dedicated to her field and to this class. I found her lectures to be incredibly straightforward and clearly formatted. She readily made sure that all materials for the class were available online, and uploaded review packets before each test that were really helpful. She likes getting to know her students, so I highly recommend going to her office hours and just chatting with her. It'll probably up your grade in the class, and she might even be able to help you with research opportunities on campus. Yes, there are lots of little assignments and tests/quizzes throughout the course. However, I felt like that kept me on top of the material and also gave me lots of chances to improve my grade. I thought the trip to the zoo with the class was a fantastic learning experience, in which we were able to apply our knowledge of primate behavior to the animals in front of us. My only negative comment about the class would be that sometimes I felt like time spent in discussion sections was wasted on watching outdated scientific videos, although some of them were entertaining and educational. Overall, I would recommend this course to any student interested in animal behavior. Marina Cords is a really smart woman and knows what she's doing when she teaches this mat…

Take any class this man offers! He is clearly passionate about this work and his lectures are almost always engaging. I just finished summer school with him, and if I can say that after class twice a week from 1-5:25 (yeah that's right) than he's worth taking. Here's an example of why: he starts the class with general philosophical concepts, to get us in the mode of thinking about the process of science. Not only was it interesting, but it framed the class really well. I am so thankful my last science requirement was this class -- it left a good taste in my mouth about Columbia's core.