Stuart Firestein

The first time I asked a question in this class, it was in regards to color blindness, the particular question being: may there have been an advantage to males in being more prone to colorblindness during our evolutionary history. Even though color blindness, or the forms we tend to think of, are Y-linked, it is interesting that it did not evolve via a different mechanism in females (I believe green/red color blindness is what I asked about specifically--females can be colorblind, just very rarely and not via the Y-linked version). The trait of colorblindness seems odd to, shall we say, be kept in the gene pool. What are your thoughts on this? (I asked...) His reply?: "What a dumb question to ask, I mean that's like astrology (??) I mean like, you could come up with any answer and it's all astrology. Moving on." So, my question about why male color blindness may have remained in the gene pool, and why it may have not have evolved independently in females, is akin to a belief that moving bodies in space affect my love life and what happens throughout my day? I was not asking even for an answer (because who knows?), but perhaps a conjecture based on what we know about how color vision assists us in our day-to-day lives, and how not having it may offer some advantages in certain instances. Astrology? Are you kidding? My point: Just because you have a ted talk, it doesn't mean you…

Neuroscience is fascinating but this class is Hard. Firestein is a bit disorganized. He is nice, but the other professor who teaches Jiang Yang, or Yang Jiang, whatever his name is, is much more organized, but even harder than Firestein. Jiang Yang requires alot of physics background. It's all in the book, by Kandel, the nobel prize winner, but the information is overwhelming, and the material is difficult. Don't take this unless you are a neuroscience major who must take it. Humanities majors need not even apply. It will be impossible for you.

Midterms based on the text and final based on reading primary literature. There were some technical challenges with Zoom, but Prof. Firestein did his best to be engaging and cover the portions of the text he thought were lacking. READ THE TEXT. Watch YouTube videos. Exams are entirely multiple choice. Don't let him fool you, the first midterm is the easiest and the last midterm has concepts that even he messes up sometimes. Do yourself a favor and treat the first two midterms like a final, drop the third (don't even bother taking it), and use the time you would have spent studying for the third midterm probing the TA's about the final. You can thank me later. The class is mandatory, so idk what else to tell you.

Standard uber-mediocre cellular neurobio course - Nothing exceptional at all about any of the lecturers (Zafir is, how should I put it, "colorful", Jessica is annoying and misleading about what will actually be on her test, and Firestein is funny and engaging, but has to cover way too much material in too little time, and is solid at doing so) Jessica ran the course, and and in her midterm (the second one) she asked for very minute details as opposed to testing concepts - Memorize all your shit, and don't think hard, they will not test you deeply on concepts. Take the first two tests - The third is on a shitload of material. Class is curved to a B, so beware. If you're a neurscience major, you have no choice - Otherwise, steer clear.

Worst class to take. The teaching was horrible and the reviews for exams were useless. Granted everyone was raving about the class, it was just horrible. there is no curve and they expect you to know so much and spit back all the information in such little time. the three professor for one lecture thing sucks. each professor had a different style of teaching, so as soon as you get used to one you have the next one coming in. Waste of time. I was be cautious when taking the class because it will kill you GPA.

So here's the break down as I see it. Zafir pretty funny and decent lecturer a little haphazard. Jessica a soulless robot of a woman who kept awkwardly chatting up this one kid in the front of the class during lecture. Stuart was either non existent or hilarious and useless when he did lecture. Overall I was very disappointed in what could have been a very interesting course. I'm an engineer and so the first part of the course which is a little mathier than most bio/neuroscience/pre-med kids like was pretty easy, but the what should've been the most interesting parts of the course (the latter 2/3) were taught so poorly it was hard to enjoy it. So, basically the most mediocrely mediocre course for a very interesting field of study.

I feel bad writing that this class is taught by Firestein. It's not. It's taught by Zafir and Brann. That said, I want to review Firestein because he was absolutely useless. If I wanted comedy, I would have bought tickets to a comedy club which would have been cheaper than my 40k tuition. Firestein uses his humor to cover up his lack of knowledge about what he had to teach us. He only taught the last third of the class (if that, he missed a couple lectures there too that Brann had to fill in), and LITERALLY during the last two classes he would not know what he was talking about and apologize and then TELL US TO READ THE TEXTBOOK. Yes, we can do that. Thank you very much Professor Firestein. But if we wanted clarification on any concepts (olfaction and proprioception gets pretty confusing), he was lacking in that. His lectures were confusing and not helpful and the multiple lecturers with different styles of teaching made up a very fragmented and confusing experience with Neurobio 1. eh, it's required. what can ya do...

Neurobiology with Prof. Firestein was a wonderful experience, notwithstanding the first couple of weeks. I had some experience with Prof. Firestein before entering the class, as he taught a couple of Frontiers lectures as well as three Intro Bio II lectures. Knowing that the former is a required class and the latter a prerequisite for Neurobio, I wondered why he would continue to begin his lectures with the same quotes - "the brain is the thing we think we think with" and "the brain is my second-most favorite organ". I guess I still chuckled after hearing them the third time around. That was pretty much the theme of the first lectures: we discussed the same old principles of action potentials and neuronal anatomy that I had learned four times before in Mind Brain and Behavior, Science of Psych, Frontiers, and Intro Bio. Although I know Prof. Firestein just wanted to make sure that we had a solid foundation in the basic principles of Neurobiology, I don't think it was completely necessary to devoting entire lectures on material previously covered in prerequisite classes. Isn't that the purpose of having prereqs? That being said, once we cleared the first exam, the class became much more enjoyable and informative. Prof. Firestein uses his sterling sense of humor to keep the class flowing. I think the majority of the students came to lecture, were focused and not bored by the cla…

Stuart is God. He is hilarious and his lectures were so fun. This class is hard, but manageable. Don't be daunted by the physics in the first part-just memorize it and it will be ok. Yiang of course has it hard, since he comes after Stuart and also lectures on less interesting subjects (Synapses basically). The book is phenomenal (Principles of Neural Science). The final will kill you. Just a warning... i think it is so impossible because it is written by TAs. It is comprised of 6 primary research articles, on which random questions are asked. These can't be discussed in recitation or with any of the TAs, so you are on your own. Questions are scattered throughout the exam (as in, they may ask something about one article and then something else random about another article just to confuse you) and so you have no idea which article they refer to. What is worse, the articles all investigate very similar problems (taste receptors.) Meaning, the possibility of mixing up methods or designs is very likely.

Prof. Firestein is a good teacher, and I would definitely take this class with him. He is often funny and makes most concepts fairly clear, so class usually went by pretty quickly. During the semester there were a couple of topics that Prof. Firestein didn't seem so comfortable with, so he didn't do such a great job with those (I think they are usually taught by a different teacher), but other than that he was really very good. The textbook was difficult to read and he knew it, so he didn't really expect us to use it very much. Even though he didn't have official office hours, he was always willing to stay after class and answer questions. The recitation part of this class (reading primary papers) was a little annoying, but not too bad depending on your TA.