One of the best professors I had, super nice. Class is very simple and not hard.

Rothman was okay. You could tell that he was not super confident about the material he taught and often muttered things to make up for that. The content is not too hard however the tests are much harder than they should be and have a lot of trick questions. Exams are not a good test of your knowledge. Only the tests are included in the gradebook.

decent bit harder than Olga but a better lecturer. Exam questions are much less straightforward and smith expects you to know the material much more in depth; one off statements that are only on one slide are fair game for exams. Does occasionally bring snacks for the class though

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.

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.

Professor Smith is definitely one of the best instructors I've had at UCSB or really just in general. Her class (Neurocircuitry) is super interesting and the way she orients each week around a different case study/disorder made the class very real life applicable while not being too overwhelming at all. Fun class taught by a nice person :)

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

Extremely monotone lecturer. Teaches things giving no background which makes it sooo hard to understand. The worst professor I have ever had.

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

The most inadequate professor I have ever had. She briefly introduces topics without any consideration that most students have never seen this information. I hope she reads her reviews because something needs to change with her teaching. It is disappointing to see such an interesting class ruined by such an awful lecturer who zero teaching skills.

I actually felt her lecture style was decent. She was definitely pretty organized. However, the test was just gnarly man. MCDB 1B is THE weeder class for your entire UCSB undergraduate biology education. Expect to have to work for it because if you do, you will definitely come with your head above water.

Memorize every little detail on her slides and you might get a C on the exam. Hardest class I've taken at UCSB. In all honesty, I think that this class says more about the intro bio department, which is the least empathetic and caring department I have ever met. I liked biology before taking this class. I don't anymore.

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.

She acts like she does not want to be there. Read the textbook it helps more than her slides. Honestly ruined biology for me