Geoffrey Zubay

Tong teaches the first half of the course. I found the material to be extremely random (random memorization of different protein structures without really explaining why they're so important), but Tong did the best he could with decent powerpoints. I thought he was a bad professor but realized that it's really hard to teach this random part of biochemistry. Seriously, it seems like the course gives everything that makes sense and is organized to the second half to be taught by Zubay, and gives Tong everything else. Zubay, on the other hand, was given the task of teaching fairly straightforward biochem pathways. People who sat in the front row somehow thought he was smart and interesting. For everyone else, the guy was hard to hear, rambling, disorganized, COULDN'T REMEMBER WHAT WAS IN THE TEXTBOOK THAT HE WROTE, and class was a complete waste of time. The only reason to go was for the weekly quizzes and to pick up the handouts. Everything I learned at that point was from the coursepack that he helped write (which is totally decent). The guy is 74 year old though, and as a lecturer, he wastes your time.

On the first day of class, groups of students are assigned bio agents to research. Each week, a group of students presents their bio agent to the class. This class is totally worth it just for the time you get to spend with the Zubay. The man is brilliant and is the sweetest professor.

Having been present since approximately the birth of biochemistry he tries to inject a little history of biochemistry into the course. This was my favorite aspect of his teaching, although it wasn't very pronounced and was accompanied by ample name-dropping. Aside from this, he mumbles through the material and is unnecessarily cranky. The final is open book, but when a curve is involved all this means is that you have to spend energy memorizing where things are in the book rather than spending the same energy actually learning the material.

A group of 3 people give a powerpoint presentation. Take home final.

This was the worst class I've taken at Columbia. Prof Tong teaches the first semester, which is boring at best, and gives a 45 multiple choice question midterm that tests you on completely obscure details from Gen Chem. Then Prof. Zubay takes over and it goes even further downhill from there. He is cranky and condescending on a good day. He has no desire to help his students learn anything and only wishes to talk about how brilliant he thinks he is, how other people are idiots, and how many Biochem books he's written. I'm a Biochem major, so I love the material, and yet I still hated this class. It was clearly impossible to demonstrate any understanding of the material on the exams, as they were multiple choice, and consequently the standard deviation around the mean was about two. I did well in the end, but that's because I studied the tiny details of the material like a madman. In hindsight I learned quite a bit in this class, but it was from trying to decipher Zubay's coursebooks a million times on my own, which proved to be difficult given the nonsequitor page layout and the interesting grammer. Steer clear of this class if it's not a requirement. Don't take as an elective if you're a Bio major.

He wrote the book so he lectures from it.

Weekly True/False quizzes that you really should spend a small amount of time studying for (it adds up if you don't) , a multiple choice midterm, and a multiple choice open book final (final is easier than the midterm).

Not bad, but really know where things are in the book before taking the final.

Weekly quizzes (T or F), midterm (45 MC questions), final (75 MC questions). Read the coursebook or lecture outlines before class and you'll have a better shot of taking something out of the incoherent lectures.

1 midterm. 1 final. - open book. Multiple Choice 10 quizes - closed book. True/False Everyone will do pretty well so you need to study.