Laboratory in Neuroscience · Neuroscience & Behavior @Barnard
This class has a much lighter workload than many of the other labs I've taken at Barnard. Exams are hard and require a lot of memorization (especially the neuroanatomy exam), but the week-to-week work such as homework and labs is all very chill and requires a reasonable amount of work in my opinion. There is a significant coding portion of this course. Assignments and exams are weighted so that you can succeed in the course even if your performance isn't stellar on every exam/assignment.
Weekly entry and exit tickets with quizzes and assignments; neuroanatomy exam; one small project; multiple lab reports
2 Weekly homework assignments that are not very bad until the end with the lab report. One midterm and one final which I talked about above.
A lot of work in my opinion: entry tickets, exit tickets, homeworks + matlab coding assignments. I would recommend to study/do the assignments throughout the week after your labs so that you don't accumulate. I'd say I studied majorly for the neuroanatomy exam (it was a lot of memorization and concepts, I'd recommend asking to see the sheep brains in person to actually understand where each part is. It wasn't bad though!) and the final exam (written+coding). I've never taken any coding courses before, matlab wasn't exactly hard but it was a lot for someone with no experience.
There was definitely more coding than I had anticipated, but it is totally doable if a bit tedious. Luca is a very chill professor, and although he sometimes came off as a bit strict at first, he was generally willing to answer questions, check our work, chat while working, etc. Overall, you learn skills that will be helpful if you intend to pursue neuroscience, and I definitely recommend taking this class with him–I feel like I gained a lot.
She has set expectations and guidelines so as long as you follow them exactly you will end up doing well in the course. Highly recommend office hours and do not wait until the last minute to start assignments. The work piles up and takes a good chunk of time
My expectations were that it was a hard class, but it turned out to be very reasonable! The class meets once a week for four hours; be warned, a couple weeks go wayyy over 4 hours during the EEG unit. Other than that, everything is very manageable. They really make the class very interesting, and it's super hands on in that you actually get to handle a lot of brains in the class. Expectations are generally very clear and for most of the class the homework was very light. At the end the homework got harder around the lab report though. There are two exams: the sheep brain neuroanatomy exam, and the final exam. The neuroanatomy exam was not bad at all, as long as you start early, since it's literally entirely memorization. I would recommend making flash cards and reviewing the practice exam, since the real exam is very similar in structure. Then the final... which was IMPOSSIBLE and horrendously written. It was worth 15% just like the neuroanatomy exam, but was much much more difficult and unreasonably long for the amount of time you are given. Half of it was on paper, with long problems, and half was done in MATLAB, which was also extremely difficult. Right off the bat they gave us 30 extra minutes to complete the exam, which clearly wasn't enough since at least 8 people were sobbing at the end because it was so bad and the time pressure was insane. The class was great overall…
This professor is great! She is willing to answer any questions or doubts during labs.
High amount. Pre clas HW’s, during class assignments, post class HW’s… SO MANY homeworks…
Make sure to do exactly what the exit tickets say, because they will take off points for any little thing. Professor's grading was strict, but fair. I spent 4 hours per week for work on this class. Honestly, a lot of it was waiting for MATLAB to load.