An introduction to molecular structures and mechanisms of living systems.
4
UnitsLetter
Grading1
PasstimeNone
Level LimitLetters and science
CollegeLecture
Sections
My favorite professor at UCSB! He made biochem (a notoriously difficult subject) so much easier to understand. His lectures were so engaging and honestly pretty entertaining. His lectures are the only lectures that I can attend in person and not fall asleep. Such a funny and personable guy. Anyone would be lucky to learn biochem from Rothman. GOAT
I liked Rothman a lot. It's not his fault the material has to be rushed since there's so much to cover and little class time. I thought his exams were fair and his expectations for them were pretty clear. He gives lots of practice problems and old exams to study. He makes the material digestible even though it's difficult w/ well-organized lectures
Great lecturer, however, the material was somewhat rushed in my opinion. Professor Rothman was gracious enough to add in extra credit and to give us a decent curve. Besides the ridiculously hard final, the midterms were doable if you study enough.
Rothman's class is pretty challenging. He focuses very heavily on lectures and doesn't make his expectations for what you need to know clear. His exams were toughs well with not much of a curve given. He is not horrible by any means, just not my favorite professor ever. I think he does truly care, I just couldn't seem to learn the material.
Joel is a good lecturer and he makes some good dad jokes. He's really helpful in OH and is a really nice person overall. The average was way lower than the top 8 students so he offered us extra credit which was really nice of him. The final was lowkey hard tho ngl. The midterm difficulty was understandable IMO.
I really enjoyed this class! Material was challenging, but Rothman is a great lecturer. He made a very difficult subject manageable and interesting, but you have to work for it. Problem sets and past exams are super helpful in determining what information is important. From there, I would study the hell out of his lectures and you'll be fine.