Jian Yang

I feel the need to correct previous reviews, especially because they are very old. This class is nowhere near as impossible or hardcore as the other posts have made it seem nor is Professor Yang a bad guy. In fact, Yang is one of the kindest and most patient professors that I have encountered in the bio department. It is true that the class expects you to memorize some details, but this is nothing a few flashcards can't solve. My method of studying for this class included sitting down after the last lecture for the week, turning my notes into flashcards on Quizlet, and going over those every so often. By the time the exams came around, I knew everything like the back of my hand and was never caught off guard by his questions. Things I found to be particularly important were the numbers that he put on the slide (e.g. quantal size, number of subunits in connexin), any slide arranged in a list or step by step format, and proteins and their ligand pairs. In my semester, when it came to more nuanced things, he emphasized what we needed to know and clearly stated what he did not expect us to remember. Not once did I feel that the details he asked for on exams were unnecessary or completely unrelated to the lecture. That being said, do actually show up to class and listen closely so you know what to study. Yes, the first exam does include math, but it is nothing more complicated than…

I am a Neuroscience major, and enormous lover of all things neuroscience - I read each and every article about the neuroscience world I come across, I have worked in numerous labs on campus and off, I am on the board of the Columbia Neuroscience Society, I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Mowshowitz' biology class and succeeded in it despite it being difficult.... However, this class, Neurobiology taught by Professor Yang, honestly made me question my desire to enter the world of neuroscience. It started with his too-great emphasis on the aspects of neuroscience that are based in physics - without the understanding that not everyone in the class has taken physics yet. The first exam was full of questions that ought to have been on a higher level physics exam, not a neurobiology exam, especially because physics is not a prerequisite for the course. Arguments against this were answered with "Well, you are allowed to drop one exam, so it is fine" rather than attempts to clear up the subject matter. As the course went on, the exams were to continue to test us on small insignificant details (eg. the size of a gap junction channel rather than its purpose/function). Professor Yang also did not stay in communication with his TAs, so they were also unable to really help us, as hard as they might try. During class, Professor Yang repeatedly mixed up information, said one thing while writing…

I enjoyed this class because the material was interesting, but it took me half the semester to figure out how to study for the exams and read the papers. As a professor, Jian assumes that you know more than you probably do, in particular basic circuit physics and experimental procedures. He does, however, speak rather slowly (because english is his second language) and writes on the board which both allow you to take good notes in class. While he does require us to memorize endless details, they all come straight from the class notes or papers. The exams are going to focus not on how something works, but instead on how it would work if you did X to it, and how this increases our understanding of the system as a whole. Neurobio is a field still in progress so the focus of the class is very experiment oriented. You need to know why we believe so and so. The first test is almost all physics and most of the class drops it. After that it gets better. If you decide to take this class, I recommend the following for tests: 1. Write down everything he says in class including anything he says you do not need to know and memorize ALL of it. (do not focus on the book) 2. Study in groups, because you will inevitably miss something. 3. Make flash cards for numbers, statistics and chemicals 4. Understand the "story" of each process (biochemical pathway, different parts involved) using the bo…

Although Professor Yang knows the material and runs a pretty good lab, he has no clue as to how conduct the class, give exams and communicate with students. With his heavy-accented English, he gives lectures that are so boring that students fall asleep toward the end. He also tries to make all the material as hard as possible, even in the easiest topics. Yang constantly introduces the most minute and unnecessary details that only obstruct the concepts. Moreover, on his tests, he asks the most minute and unnecessary details. For example, he would ask you about the Angtrom width of the channel in the lower middle part. Or to recite an amino acid that was a part of some protein that functioned in one of the pathways that was described in 12-page research paper. (And those questions, of course, would be worth about 10 points). Yang does not know how to communicate with his students either. I hated this class, although I must admit that the material we learned was very interesting.

The workings of neurons: how action potentials are propagated and fired within a neuron, how neurons communicate with one another, and how they contribute to the senses.

Sensory pathways, electrical/chemical/mechanical AP firing, synaptic transmission, large focus on ion channels.

Neuroanatomy, electrophysiology of the brain, synaptic transmission, sensory transduction, etc.

how to better read scientific papers as they were tested, in depth neurobiology ie signaling pathways, receptors

I learned about sensory transduction, action potentials, and different ion channels involved in neural mechanisms.

electrophysical properties of neurons, synaptic transmission, and sensory mechanisms