CORE · Columbia University
The midterm tends to be much more difficult than the final because the more difficult units are first. The final is not cumulative in content (only concepts), which is incredibly helpful. She really enjoys creative term projects, so put your all into it for a grade boost.
Brief homeworks graded on completion, smart sparrow assignments (completion), participation, final project (all of this is somehow combined into 60%), midterm 15% and final 25%. Grading was not super clear, but this the general Fro Sci policy. Probably 5-6 hours per week including lecture (1.5 hrs/week) and seminar (2hrs/week).
Dr. Karni-Schmidt is a FroSci gem and a wonderful discussion leader. Her office hours are incredibly helpful and her review sessions helped me solidify essential topics. She tends to breeze through slides during discussion, but will stop and take time on the more complex ones.
Dr. Karni-Schmidt is a great professor, and you are lucky if you're in her section. She's very accommodating with deadlines, super lenient grader, and a generally kind person. Fro Sci is a generally useless course for all majors, but Dr. Karni-Schmidt does her best to make it reasonably engaging/interesting
60% seminar performance (all your work is graded on effort and completion) and 40% exams (15% midterm exam, 25% final exam). The exams were graded fairly and with lots of partial credit. There are weekly readings, tutorials, and homework questions. There is also a relaxed and interesting semester project.
We have a weekly SmartSparrow and Written HW assignment that is graded based off of completion. There is a group project, which is graded easily. Then there is the midterm and final.
Dr. Karni-Schmidt is the best professor you could possibly have for FroSci and one of the best ways to start your time at Columbia. She is kind, caring, thoughtful, and knowledgeable. She genuinely wants the best for her students and wants them to succeed. She provides ample extra practice resources, posts her slides and materials, and is extremely good at answering student questions. Each of her seminars helps clarify the lecture materials. She also just genuinely cares about students outside of the course. She always asks how people are doing, checks-in throughout the semester, hosts individual meetings, and is always warm and kind. I had a pretty good relationship with her, and after submitting the final exam, I thanked her, and she immediately asked me to stay in touch. I'll stay in touch for sure just because of how amazing this course experience was. As a humanities student, I have become more interested in pursuing courses in the sciences.
Dr Karni-Schmidt is a very very kind professor. I really did enjoy getting to know her as a person. However, at times, I felt like she breezed over what we learned in the lecture, which honestly made me a bit confused as to what I had even learned. Also, I felt like my understanding of the lecture was not furthered in the seminar, as it's supposed to be, and compared to the other sections that my friends were in. Despite those issues, I will say that I really did like Dr. Karni-Schmidt as a person, but she definitely was not my favorite professor. She does care about her students a lot and I definitely think that helped. Also, go to her office hours, they really help! I would definitely recommend her, but only if you have a stronger understanding and background in the concepts of science that you learn in fro sci.
Fro sci is overall not too difficult, everyone wants you to succeed so its really up to you how well you do.
She is so kind and lovely, you can tell she definitely cares about the students and the class in general. Definitely recommend her as a seminar instructor!