Nataliya Galifianakis

Quizzes at the beginning of every class. basically just read last weeks lecture slides right before class and you're guaranteed a 4/5 at least. AND THEN she also lets you get the extra quiz point on the exam if you need them. 3 exams and a final, all pretty straightforward not too hard. Again, just read the lecture notes - she teaches to her test which is great. Her notes were more helpful than the textbook IMO. She's also great to talk to and very sweet.

Really a great and sweet woman. Extremely knowleadgable about her material - you'll ask her a question and she will go like, super in depth to a level you'd be surprised, given the breadth of what she teaches. Exams are super straightforward. THIS CLASS IS A MUCH BETTER PREPARATION FOR THE MCAT THAN MOSHOWITZ. In fact, intro to bio with moshowitz is almost a complete waste of time. Don't be frightened by mosho because of rumors that she 'writes questions for the mcat.' You want to take physio if you're taking the mcat - it covers pulmonary, cardiac, kidneys, digestive etc - all the areas that are heavily tested on the mcats, and in a level of detail commensurate with that exam.

3 tests, daily quizzes, a couple straight forward article assignments/ 'research assignments' that I wrote a page and a half for and got full credit each time.

This class is informative and extremely relevant for the MCAT. Dr. G is a decent professor--she tries her hardest and is a very lenient and quick grader. She also works at NYU med, so she knows what she is talking about. I don't it is hard to understand what she is saying 98% of the time, but sometimes she gets confused or doesn't explain things clearly. Luckily, 90% of the in class notes come from the textbook, so you can always double check your notes with hers. At the start of every class there is an inclass quiz--sometimes with ridiculous questions, but overall the quiz grade is 5% total (or 1.66% of the grade per unit) and you can earn up to 80% of the quiz grade for that unit on the exam. As a result, during the first test, I went to class and paid attention, for the second test I paid half attention, and for the third test I would take the quizzes and leave, teaching myself the material from the textbook. My exam grades did go down little by little, but I earned an A in the class so it is feasible to teach yourself the material. Overall, physiology was an interesting, stressfree course that I think has provided me a good basis for medical school physiology next year.

3 exams, no final. each exam is 30% of your overall grade, while daily quizzes and physio lab make up the last 10%

Nataliya isn't the greatest teacher, and saying that is a huge stretch, but considering how Tong for Biochemistry was unintelligible, she's better than him at least. Nataliya has a Russian accent and is a Neuroscience researcher at NYU (her office is at NYU) but she got a PhD in Russia for Physiology I think, so that's why they hired her for this job. Personality wise, she's adorable and makes these "non-funny" jokes but it's hilarious cause of the way she says it in her accent....that said, she sometimes says stuff that doesn't make sense/her exam questions and quiz questions don't make sense because of the bad english. That said, she could definitely do well in Lit Hum/CC lol, if she were a columbia student, so her english isn't terrible. Nataliya has powerpoint slides and she lectures basically nonstop and gives you a ton of information - she has a page of notes that she refers to when she herself is confused. I've seen it - it's packed with size 6 hand writing. Sometimes when people ask questions and she doesn't know the answer, she takes like 2-3 minutes reading her notes and then sometimes if she still does'nt know it, she BSes you with a weird ass answer and people accept it so she'll move on lol. THe information she gives is 97% from the book, so really attending lecture is not necessary. On the 3rd to last day of class ,Nataliya didn't give us our daily quiz (i'll tal…

Great class. For all those who hated Mowshowitz, this class will feel wonderful. Excellent text and a super nice prof make the learning experience enjoyable an will add depth to your understanding of the human body. Our TAs were VERY nice, too. The professor is entertaining, funny and accommodating - a nice change of pace for premeds. She doesn't pretend to be teaching you the material in significant detail, which is what I hated about Contemporary Biology (Mowshowitz would teach very little and then ask outlandish questions...as I learn more bio in future courses this will becomes more irritating as I feel I have to "unlearn" Mowshowitz misconceptions). But the course actually offers much more detail than cont. bio while reviewing the entire content of that class, minus development. It actually helped me a lot in my research job. It is a great pre-MCAT and pre-med course, that helps to reinforce basic bio with much more depth, and introduce us to the body as a system. You learn to make sense of the various medical tests that a lot of us pre-meds are already working with at our research assistantships - although this part might seem boring if you have no hands-on background, though. The reviews of a couple of research papers in the course add a bit of depth to the content - I would probably recommend adding an additional review of current research in digestion). Unlike the pre…

Daily quizzes that are worth basically nothing, Weekly "virtual labs" that you don't actually have to do in order to answer the accompanying questions, somewhat oddly constructed but generally easy exams.

One of the worst lecturers I have ever come across. Why they got a neuroscience researcher to teach physiology, I don't know. Her command of English is not amazing, but it's better than she makes it seem, as if she uses it for misdirection for her poor grasp of the material. But it may explain her test questions, which are often ambiguous. It honestly seemed like her knowledge of the subject was 1 lecture past ours, if that. She curiously often seemed surprised by her own PowerPoint, with the material on each new slide slightly confusing her. Asking questions is fruitless, she doesn't know the answer and will bullshit you. 80% of the class didn't go to lecture. An easy A though, you just need to memorize the text.