Russell Romeo

Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience is a major requirement for neuro, and it does feel like it in class. It's a big lecture, and Professor Romeo mostly reads off the slides. But the material he covers interesting, and he covers it well. I definitely enjoyed the class.

I really did not expect to enjoy this course so much or learn as much as I did, as I went in only being vaguely interested the topic. However, it changed my perspective on what "stress" actually is and means. The style of the course is seminar/discussion based. The first few classes, Professor Romeo presents different research papers, ranging from cellular level to behavioral and human studies. Each week the papers are centered on a different topic in stress. After the first few weeks, the students take over and each student presents on a different paper (2 per class or week, since theres one class per week). After the papers are presented, he opens it up for questions (of which there are usually many) and discussion. Professor Romeo is excellent at answering questions without making students feel bad. Even on days that I felt exhausted or for papers I didn't even think I was interested in, I was able to and wanted to generate ideas, questions, and wanted to engage in discussion, because of Prof Romeo's ability to stimulate discussion. One of my favorite professors ever, if not my favorite!

This was my favorite class of my entire college career!!! He’s such a sweetheart and honestly the best lecturer I’ve ever come across. Unlike previous semesters there’s no need to read the book at all. Just make sure you come to class, take really good notes, and an A is super manageable. I literally just went to class and took meticulous notes and ended up with an A+. His lectures are also really interesting so you won’t get bored.

Romeo is awesome. He quite possibly knows everything about everything. Ok not really but people asked some pretty specific questions in class and he almost always knew the answer. Wasn't BS'ing his way through it either. Very approachable and yes, there's a lot of information, but take some time with it and you'll be fine! There were some questions on the textbook readings. I thought the reading added some good depth, but I can see how it would be overwhelming for a non-science person. If you don't read the textbook you aren't screwed. But do know everything in the lecture notes. And don't worry he goes at a good pace.

Dr. Romeo is one of the best professor I've had in my 4 years at Columbia. He's patient and down to earth; he hasn't forgotten the demands of life as student nor the curiosities.

Definitely the easiest Barnard Neuroscience course I've taken. Professor Romeo's teaching style is not the most thrilling (reads off the slides) but the content is simple and, depending on your interests, interesting!

Soooo interesting, taught very well, and relevant to life. He covered almost everything that was on the test in class, although he purposefully put a number of book questions on the tests (especially on the second). It was a lot of memorization and I wouldn't say an easy A, but the material itself seemed far more straightforward than the convoluted stuff you see in many of the other Chem- and Bio-heavy classes. It definitely felt more like an intro to chem and bio through the crazy interesting lens of the brain, so to me that felt like the perfect taste of science without having to do the boring intro classes. For a non-science major, this was challenging but by no means impossible :)

Great class! The material is interesting, relevant, and doesn't require a strong background in science to grasp. Though the textbook goes into extreme detail it is not entirely necessary to read it in order to do well. In class, the lectures are well organized and paced with allowances for questions. Later in the semester, in addition to the lecture material you also discuss recent and classic studies relating to the chapter being covered at the time. If you have any interest in psychology definitely take this class.

MY FAVORITE PROFESSOR AT BARNARD. This man must be protected at all costs. He is an amazing lecturer and a super sweet guy, and he gives extremely fair exams that as long as you study the lecture slides will be super easy for you. Made me so much more interested in neuroscience as a field. I wish every single science professor at Barnard took a note from Professor Romeo's book.

Probably one of the easiest classes I have ever taken. I did minimal studying and I got only 2 questions maximum wrong on one test... The others I only got 1 question wrong. He presents his slides very clearly, so it is easy to understand what he is talking about. He is also very open to people asking questions during lecture. Honestly though, I think that this course does not really go that deep into the science. That made it really easy to learn. For example, I was taking Hormones and Behavior with Kara Pham at the same time, and we had to know SOO many more details. The lab for this class is harder, but it's not bad either. Overall very easy to do well in this class.