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

Dr. Low is a great lecturer. The information in this class can be boring at times since it is so general, but Low really knows how to keep her students interested. Her test is very hard, the midterm average was a 64% but she curves. Book is not necessary, just really focus on the information given in class and write down everything she says.

Super entertaining teacher, love her lectures, but holy moly she crams in a lot of information in her lectures and her test is HARD. Semi impossible, even with tutoring... But the curve will save you. Pretty good professor if you ask me!

Reminds me of my tiny old asian grandma. She is very funny and can make a lecture hall of 900 kids laugh. She covers alot of material so you need to put in time to study in depth outside of class. Her tests are extremely specific and hard. Try your best to know important details. Print out powerpoint slides to bring to class.

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.

Although she was pretty funny/eccentric, she moved incredibly fast in her lectures and didn't really give students time to ask questions. I felt like her test didn't focus on the big concepts discussed in class, but rather on the minor details that were briefly touched upon :( Read the book to prepare yourself for lecture and then memorize stuff

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.

I found Low's lectures to be incredibly disorganized and scattered. It was really hard to follow her slides because there seemed to be no organization whatsoever? It was all bullet points and in a really weird order. She moves super fast and is REALLY DETAIL ORIENTED. Her test was REALLY hard and tricky.

I was really surprised to see the other reviews! I personally love Low. She's hilarious and knows the material well. She does move fast and gives credit for correct iClicker questions but as long as you keep up with the reading, the pace won't bother you. Go to her office hours! She's super approachable and can help with whatever you don't get.

Low moves really really fast. I feel like her portion of MCDB 1B can be an entire one of itself. Sometimes she can be hard to understand and is not really good at explaining things, but she can be funny which is an upside. Overall would not recommend, take the other mcdb professors if you can.

Low is a great lecturer. Funny, straightforward, concise. She gets to the point, make sure you memorize everything she says; it will be on the test. Know the random facts she spurts out they will be tested too. Tests are tricky but if you study hard you will do well.

One of the worst classes at UCSB. This class is made to be much harder than it needs to be. She speaks so fast that you can't keep up even if you tried! Be prepared for a failing grade on the midterm and then for Low to tell you that it's because you're dumb and the test is "totally doable".

Goes at a machine gun pace to teach you volume upon volume of information at the surface level, then tests you in depth on those same topics. It's almost as if she thinks that we should immediately be masters on any given topic that she brushes over on a slide or two. Most unnecessarily difficult course I've taken in college so far.

Fun class, TERRIBLE professor. Lectures are incredibly fast and not well taught at all. The first exam consisted of almost ALL "which of the following is true?" or "which of the following is false?" questions... 51% average. everyone I know failed, even while knowing all the material. Intro bio should not be harder than ochem