I thought this class was very straightforward. Just put in the work, and you'll get the grade you want. I disliked two things about the class. First, she never posted the lecture slides before lectures. Second, the grading scheme changed right before grades where due. She assigned us these "quizzes" and randomly assigned them as 10% of our grade.

Literally 20% of our grade came from something that was never even mentioned on the syllabus or spoken about in class. that was super shady

Not only was this class super interesting for a pre-med major like me, Carolina made the material very easy to digest. There is a lot of memorization but it wasn't difficult as long as you can keep up and give yourself time to understand everything. Her lectures are very well-structured and consistent, and tests were very fair and predictable.

Carolina is an excellent lecturer, I'd recommend taking really close notes in order to get into the detail she does in every slide. She's super into figures and pictures- make sure that you annotate all of them! She also makes herself very available outside of class for questions or clarifications on concepts she might've gone through too quickly.

This was an exemplary and fun class, as Dr. Arias was able to address many of the students' questions properly, presented the course concepts clearly, and integrate knowledge from other disciplines of biology into virology. The class does have a lot of memorization, so it may be challenging for those who don't really like virology.

Dr. Arias is very passionate about her subject which makes for a good class. When she doesn't know something, she is honest and then finds the answer and presents it to us the following lecture. Tests aren't too bad, averages in the 70's. I recommend taking notes in class, filling in gaps from the textbook, which she follows closely.