would not have gotten an A if it was just her teaching the class. bad lecturer and worse tests. shes the weeder prof for a reason. just dont
Funny professor, yet miserable class. Exams are poorly written and not fully reflective of lectures. She does not curve. Exams are fairly difficult. My biggest tips are to go to office hours and never underestimate the difficulty of the class.
Her lectures/lecture slides are so unorganized that you have to organize it yourself to make it understandable. Sometimes is funny. You can't understand what point she's trying to make half the time. Yells in order to sound more clear? Doesn't work.
DEMON INCARNATE DO NOT TAKE BIO WITH HER DO NOT DO IT. SHE IS LITERALLY THE RIDDLER. "what cells do _____" is it.... A) right answer with a number off B) right answer with a word off C) right answer. D) right answer but the word is ambiguous so it hints at something else E) C+D F) None of the above Save yourself from her I can only pray for you
I'm currently in her MCDB 1B class rn and I think her lectures are very clear in information, although she can bombard us with a lot of info all at once. She's extremely funny and knowledgeable and I enjoy sitting through her lectures. Her test questions are very hyper-specific though so pay attention to details in the slides and attend lecture!
Super hard class. She is very funny/entertaining, keeps u engaged. This class takes WORK. Took over summer, 58% on the 1st test. Went to office hours, got some constructive criticism, then locked in. Went to all the TA office hours. 98% on the final, A overall. Anything is possible. LAZER FOCUS to learn this material. Then u know for rest of life!
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.
Emphasis material, when this is done it is not on the test. Material is 50/50 slides and lecture material, but tests heavy things barely talked about. don't take.. do this class with anyone else. She's also not very accessible outside of class.
I took MCDB 1B in the summer, and Professor Low got more negative reviews than she deserved. She knows the material and sets clear expectations. While her lectures are detail-heavy, all intro bio requires memorization. It's essential to learn to accommodate different teaching styles. Just go to her office hours, and you will do better on tests.
The stuff you learn in MCDB 1B is super complicated and hard, and Low isn't the best person to explain all this content to you. She expects you to know the content as she's lecturing, and one of her favorite things to say during her lectures is, "I told you already!!!" She's low-key kinda funny, but funny doesn't make good professors.
Anything emphasized in class will not be in the test. The questions are designed in very ambiguous ways an often times will compare most to least correct. Also seemingly frustrated at questions.
Looks at student as though they are beneath her. Expects you to memorize everything she says. Anything heavily emphasized will not
Exams are ridiculously specific, questions comes from obscure concepts touched on during lectures so you have to memorize every word she's saying on top of lecture slides. When asked about the wording/ambiguity of the questions during the exam, she seemed annoyed and gave brief, dismissive answers that offered no help. Would not recommend.
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
Low gets more hate than she deserves just because her tests are SO HARD. Her lectures are hilarious and you can tell she knows her stuff. I put in more work than I ever have for MCDB 1B and it was well rewarded. If you can truly understand what shes teaching, even the minutia, an A is very possible. Test questions were specific but still relevant.
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
insanely difficult exams, and it's just so much material. she vaguely goes over stuff and then adds them to the exam. she's not as bad as ruth, however combined for this course they're no help. the weeder course is definitely weeding. I went to all the lectures, to CLAS, and rewatched ALL her videos, and I still bombed her midterm. boo introbioteam
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.
