Don Melnick

Melnick is a charismatic lecture, if a little full of himself. The material is not inaccessible, but can be deceptively easy: for the midterm and final (which compose almost the entirety of your final grade, along with a discussion section) you have to know the concepts absolutely cold. You won't need to understand complex math or serious science, but you will be graded harshly on how well your answers adhere to Melnick's lectures. Again, the material isn't complex, but you have to have a very firm grasp on the bigger picture that Melnick wants you to understand. It seems unclear how exams were graded in this class -- as some other reviewers have commented, the A seems pretty elusive. Force yourself to go to lecture and pay at least half attention.

Hey, previous people...I though Melnick was pretty good. You guys should have just focused on your assignments when you were doing them and you would have been find. Basically, Frontiers of Science is not really about Science. It is actually your ability to roughly write down anything on an exam that mentions something you have learned. Then you will be fine. All you non-science people, do not worry. When you are doing something hard, it is not a big deal, mostly because it won't be on the exam - seriously.

Intelligent, focused and well-dressed. As an important leader in the field of Environmental sciences, Melnick is an eco-pimp. Class participation is not valued or encouraged in large classes, a fact disceranible by his visible discomfort when answering the occasional student question. The Human Species class is a relatively painless way to satisfy the science requirement and leads into the Behavioral Bio course as a sequence. A fair amount of time is required to memorize time-lines and genus/species names. Still, his interest in the field and tight organization makes it a good class. The textbook is reminiscent of High-School science (margins loaded with definitions, pictures and the occasional illustrated guest essay).

Biodiversity ain't easy, folks. If you want to do well, you really have go through each of the lectures, learn the concepts, think through the implications of Melnick's concepts. While this class doesn't have homework, you do have to keep up with the lectures, which Melnick (thankfully) provides on Courseworks. The midterm was difficult in terms of time, but the final was perfectly fair: if you didn't study for either of these tests, however, you probably failed, so definitely study. Hara Woltz was a fabulous TA for this course: she's always willing to meet and answer your e-mails about questions. If she's teaching it again, I recommend signing up for her section. Melnick's lectures are oftentimes filled with incomprehensible graphs and a miasma of data: don't worry about the specifics too much: just go for MAIN IDEA. Keep asking yourselves, "What is the main idea of this graph? What is this picture trying to tell me about genetic/demographic variation, etc.?" The course, all in all, was interesting, but it's not an automatic A by any means.

It's true the course sucks but at least Professor Melnick was a good seminar instructor. He would spend at least a half hour of each seminar reviewing the lecture details and answering questions. It was great if you needed the review, but otherwise it seemed like doing the same thing twice. He was always very open to questioning, and would inquire with another professor if he didn't know an answer. More than anything else, what made the class bearable was that he was very approachable and was always willing to go further into a particular area or explain something in detail. Through his sometimes amusing anecdotes it became apparent that he is really passionate about his field. It seems strange that he would take time out of the many things he does in order to teach a required first year class. It's too bad Frontiers itself is such a disaster.

There are several problems. First, previous posters have indicated that reading is unnecessary for a decent grade. Wrong. You definitely need to do the assigned reading. Second, Professor Melnick will spend about 15 minutes in the beginning of each lecture reviewing material from the previous class. This is a huge waste of time. Third, he needs to post on Courseworks the 65 page or so .ppt deck prior to the class for better note taking. Yes, the .ppt decks are that huge. Fourth, it is ridiculous to consider how for months we learned about cells, chromosomes, DNA, plus a lot of crazy calculations. There were so many terms to learn. Lastly, the TAs had to be the all time worst. They nit-picked over every single word so that it seemed they were looking for anything to not give you a point for a particular exam question. One of the questions on the final was if there is actually more species at the equator. Well, I think Professor Melnick mentioned that in class or did he say that there was more species diversity at the equator? More species and more species diversity are totally different but meant to trip us up. Bottom line is that the TAs were researchers and graded us as such. They were not educators looking to see if we understood the concept and grade us accordingly even though we might have messed up some of the jargon along the way. However, I'm not sure there are any clas…

Melnick is a really cool guy. He is active in the international community and brings a great amount of prestige to the University at large. The seminars seem to be rather informal affairs and are not like other class environments to which I have been exposed. The material extremely interesting and engaging. The lectures seem to be a vaudeville type event and are accessible. The class is structured in an interesting way and delivers breadth without too much depth. Very good for non-science majors. Not recommended for science majors though. The assignments are quite manageable and in some cases enjoyable. You'll actually want to do the reading in some instances. Very recommendable class overall. Can get a little math heavy as they hammer out foreign concepts but definitely doable.

This course is absolutely ridiculous. While Prof. Melnick (a charming guy and excellent lecturer, by the way) acknowledges that he is aware he is lecturing to a group of non-science students, both he and the TAs proceed to deliver a semester full of information that is totally incomprehensible to the overwhelming majority of students in the classroom. Even with a HIGHLY curved grading process, many students actually FAILED the mid-term. This class is just full of jargon, inaccessible formulas and equations, and is a wonderful way to convince non-science students to avoid any science class however possible. The arrogance, the self-satisfaction, and the refusal to tailor the class to the needs and abilities of students is shocking. Sure, there is not much actual work to be done. That is part of the problem. The Professor smugly announces at the beginning of the semester that the grade is based entirely on the mid-term and final. Maybe that is why so many students will be failing. Avoid this class by all means necessary.

I have to disagree with the last review. Prof Melnick is a very cool guy, extremely approachable and nice. Sure, he did go off on tangents sometimes, but who cares... He understands a lot about biodiversity and was quite honest with us when he wasn't very familiar with what was being taught. He is far from arrogant. In fact, I would recommend being in his discussion.

The Jan. 12, 2006 review gets it all right. Melnick is a nice guy, and even sort of funny, but this class is primarily for non-science majors and moves slowly. As a result, he spends a lot of time repeating slides from previous lectures and telling the same almost-funny anecdotes that quickly become irritating. No one does the reading (it's no necessary if you go to lecture), the exams are curved but most people get B+'s so it works out, and the syllabus reviews a lot from AP Bio and other high school courses. Kind of a waste of time, but harmless.