Dr. Finkelstein is accessible outside of class and truly cares about students who try. Although the expectations for students are slightly unrealistic and tests are made extremely difficult, she wants to make you a better student

teaching technique confused . Hope she retired quickly.

This professor was one of the worst that I have had. She decided to change the grading structure after the final because students did better on exams/materials not given by her. She covers material never before discussed in MCDB 1A and yet assumes everyone knows basic information she never gave.

Professor Finkelstein can always come up with some fun question formats and include 15 true/false questions in your exams. Try to distinguish between A, B, and C, while D and E are "A and B" and "A and C"; its not going be harder than discovering the theory of relativity.

Class was pretty bad. Lectures were incredibly boring and final was very difficult. There are a lot of resources to help you learn, but she is not one of them. I think she is retiring now, so be grateful you don't have her

Reading her lectures deadly.

I can't even find the words to describe how little? she actually teaches. Lectures' so monotonous and feels like she just uses iClicker to take up time instead of actually teaching. Average for the last midterm was literally so bad. Instead of maybe reflecting on her teaching style, sent out an announcement to reflect on how WE should study better.

"If I had only known that all I had to do was avoid this dude, I would have done much better" (quote from a former student)

If you don't read the textbook and spend hours engaging with outside material, you will fail this class. Half of the material you are required to know on exams is literally not mentioned ANYWHERE in the textbook or in the slides. Her lectures are incredibly disorganized and vague. Avoid at all costs

Not a pleasant class to take. Lectures consist mainly of reading off of slides without any extra information, so it feels like it is self taught. Finkelstein doesn't add anything to lecture when she stands behind the podium, not making eye contact for the entirety of the period. Tests were infinitely harder than what was taught in class.

I am traumatized. Never again.

It is genuinely impressive how much information from the textbook she skips in lecture. We're still responsible for knowing everything, of course, yet the only thing she herself "teaches" is her absolutely barren slides and unhelpful diagrams

Professor Finkelstein's class is a real challenge. Her tests are brutally detailed, requiring complete mastery of every tiny concept. Studying hard with resources like Unstuck study helped me survive, but it's still one of the toughest classes I've taken.

Professor Hayes is a unique guy. He's nice, understanding, and very knowledgeable, but sometimes he's blunt. A lot of material isn't found in the notes, so definitely show up to lecture. Provides study guides and practice tests. Grade is made up of exams only, textbook was a good supplement but not necessary. Exams seemed very fair to me.

Worst professor I've ever had. Got high/low 60's on every test and ended with a B-, that just shows how much everyone struggled. She seems like a nice person but her tests and lectures are literally insane. You will think you did good on exams but end up blindsided. But dont worry, youre in good company. AVOID IF YOU CAN. If not good use CLAS

Ruth is one of the most unorganized and unclear professors I have EVER had. I spent so long attempting to parse her lectures and put them in somewhat of an order. The plants section of the final was brutal and felt unrelated to much of the material that she had haphazardly taught us. She laughed at students who asked questions/ got iClicker wrong.

Genuinely the worst teacher I have ever had in my 20 years of existence. Boring, monotonous, poorly taught lectures followed up by the most unreasonably difficult and unnecessarily detailed tests of my life. Bio majors, I implore you to not make the same mistake I did and take little bio instead. AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS.

Her tests are so detailed. Be prepared to know every single detail about every single topic. I reviewed the slides at least 8 times and reviewed for hours, just to get completely thrown for a loop on the test. You need to know and remember everything, search for the smallest error in the answers.

Do not take a class with Professor Finkelstein. Not only is she a very monotone teacher, but she is also very bad at teaching. She will make the exams very detailed yet barely explain anything during her lectures. She should retire soon or look at her ratings and fix the way she runs this class.

Awful professor. Please retire

I absolutely despise Ruth. Her exams are insanely difficult. She will mention something once and put it on the exam. It doesn't matter if you learn the material, they care about you memorizing all the slides (impossible). The exams are purposely made to trick you, so you must know every detail. I'll be lucky if I pass, and I studied like crazy.

Finkelstein ruined this class for me. Her lectures are unbelievably monotone and she often explains topics using scientific vocabulary never previously introduced. To top it off, she'll casually introduce key terms/topics without any indication of their importance and her tests will focus on specific details of these underexplored topics.

She isn't terrible to learn from if you have a basis in what shes teaching. However, because you do need to actively seek outside class resources to understand whats going on (the book is meh) this makes her an awful professor. Only reason I'm doing decent is because I have heavily relied on Khan Academy and then watched the lectures.

RUTHlessly hard exams, monotone asf, do not take