Dr. Finkelstein is a nice human being but an awful lecturer. Each lecture covers too many materials and you never know what will or will not be on the tests. Sometimes you checked on your phone for a second and could not follow her since then. Get ready to review recordings of the lectures. Questions are very tricky and very difficult to answer.

She knows her stuff but had a monotone voice which made it impossible to pay attention. Went to lecture for the iclicker points and watched lectures later at home. She went way too fast in lectures so even if you paid attention you'd have to go back and watch it again. The content is interesting but she made me hate bio. Tests are tricky

Very very boring teacher. Only plus side is that she makes everything accessible online including Ex credit, lecture videos, additional videos.. etc

Quite possibly the worst professor I've had so far at UCSB. She's almost impossible to follow, and doesn't present any of the concepts clearly. Memorize even the tiniest details on her slides, her tests are completely unreasonable and one word is enough to get the questions wrong if you don't know every single thing she mentioned. Awful

worst professor ive at at ucsb. she does not explain anything so majority of the class is lost and gets the clicker questions wrong. instead of taking this as a hint that shes not teaching well, she laughs when she sees that theres an even spread among all of the answer options. never had to use the textbook for bio at ucsb before but need to now

too much work! should be worth way more than 1 unit!!!!!!!!

She has written down on the course policies that she gives makeup exams but she doesn't. Says you can contest your grade but when I complained about a grading mistake on my practical (and I'm 100% sure), the staff refused to fix it. Reuses questions she threw out other quarters because 1/2 students got another very close answer.

negligent, incompetent, disorganized, lazy

Several videos to watch in order to take a weekly quiz, reading the lab manual before lab, a ridiculous amount of questions in the manual that you need to answer, two practicals, and a fat research project without ANY guidance and sources that hardly make sense or cover necessary material. Good luck!

Trust me, too much work for 1 unit class. Lab manual is so unorganized

I'm going to come off as so extra but I swear, this is most disorganized class that I've ever taken w the most disorganized lab manual that I've ever read. The lab manual constantly has conflicting information in it, is written out of order, is so grammatically incorrect and vague, etc. yet we are graded on our knowledge of extremely specific info

Dont expect to pick up details in her lecture as you will be easily distracted due to her dull tone and forget a lot of precious details right after you are out of Campbell; look at her slides and recordings at 2x, you will see that she covers a lot of tiny things that you need to memorize on the exam

Haters will hate. It is true that she is boring in lecture, hard to pay attention. However, her slides are easy to follow and her lectures are doable once you watch it at 1.5x. Study the old tests since she copies exact questions from them. Ask your biomentor for old tests and really cram those you can get a solid A.

Her lectures were dry and she had such a monotonous voice. She didn't really seem interested in what she was teaching, although she was very knowledgeable in her field. I do agree that her tests are unreasonable - you really have to memorize everything she says and not just what's on the slides. Review the material consistently and don't cram! GL

She clearly is just at UCSB for research, as her teaching skills are nonexistent. Boring to ungodly levels, teaches the most irrelevant and tiny details, makes her tests far more challenging than they need to be, and includes small one word differences causing questions to be wrong. Avoid at all costs, shame she is the only professor for MCDB 1B.

I have an IQ of 170, I'm a straight A student, but this class is the only one that has given me trouble. Not only do you have to memorize such minute details, but you also have to apply those irrelevant details to other irrelevant situations.

memorize EVERYTHING she says, and then some. Not only is she a terrible lecturer, her tests are completely unreasonable and expects you to know stuff she spent less than 30 seconds on in lecture. multiple choice answers would be wrong because of a single word.

Its so frustrating seeing her try to play a video using a pen tool on her power points then complain about the video not playing... But also her powerpoints are difficult to follow and contain short fragmented phrases that make no sense unless you listen to her give her confusing explanation of it. Terrible professor overall.

I read RateMyProfessor on her last quarter before taking her, and thought "she can't be that bad, i'll be fine" I learned now that I was oh so terribly wrong. Finkelstein is by far the worst professor and test giver in all of the intro bio series. Her lectures are incomprehensible and she shows she obviously doesn't care about how much we learn.

really amazing professor and super rewarding if you put in the time into the class. you can't expect her to make everything super easy, she wants you to work hard!! definitely study lectures and the book and you should be fine

Get ready to sit through an hour of mumbling 3 days a week. Make sure to read the book before class because you'll be falling asleep 10 minutes into lecture. show to class with iclicker and just study the slides for the final.

Objectively graded class, no curve or very low curve. Make a good connection with your TA because they grade your paper that is worth about 20% of your grade. Do all the pre-labs and labs on time, these are the easy points. 1 unit class, but if you want to get a good grade, study hard for the practicals.

May be one of the most disorganized people for this job. She is in charge of coordinating the lectures and labs for intro bio classes and fails to do so well. The class is over complicated and the lab doesn't match the class at all. During my final she repeatedly screamed out errors she made on the final in a disruptive way. Very negative person.

Very disorganized. Overcomplicate concepts in an intro class. The experiments she design barely match lectures. Has a lot of attitudes. Practicals are hard to study for. She really doesn't deserve this job.