BIOE404 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Kimberly Stroka BIOE404 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 07/18/2024	Dr. Stroka is one of the nicest professors in the department and this class was overall pretty well taught. The class is split into 3 general sections and includes a long project. She kind of has a different teaching approach for each section, and honestly I only liked the way she did it for the first section. I had trouble keeping up in the second section since she went over less content in class and it was more through online videos, but this was my fault and contributed to my B instead of A. To future students I'd recommend don't fall behind. The project is kinda boring and long, but fairly easy. Stroka is lowkey a tough grader, so make sure you follow her rubrics. Very nice and flexible with due dates and accepts student feedback well.
Kimberly Stroka BIOE404 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2024	This class is challenging. The overall weekly workload includes some check-in quizzes that you can do ahead of time and homework assignments that are a mix of math, short answer, and MATLAB. The exams are fair and are similar to past exams but can be hard in terms of time management. The majority of exam points are application questions, like solving a physics problem or answering a more theoretical, biological prompt. I would recommend giving yourself ample time to prepare cheat sheets and do timed practice runs on the past exams. If you get stuck or have any questions, the professor is very helpful during office hours and has an ELMS discussion page where she answers all the posted questions. This leads nicely to my next point: Dr. Stroka is one of the nicest and most knowledgeable people I've encountered during my time on campus. She does a great job teaching a wide range of topics, from body-scale physics to cellular biomechanics. She is very good at creating a friendly class atmosphere, and she's very supportive both as a teacher and as a person. On top of the course experience survey at the end, she's always taking and integrating feedback during the semester, from end of class surveys about what worked and what didn't to asking us in class if an assignment needs to be rescheduled because of a conflict with capstone. She even brought us snacks for the final exam. If you ever have the chance to take her class and you're even remotely interested in the subject, I'd highly recommend it.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2014	Although it is somewhat hard to stay focused in his class, Hsieh is a good professor. He is a really smart and fair guy, and wants to make sure his students do well in the class. The grading policy he has is amazing and the tests are fairly straightforward. Make sure to make awesome cheat sheets for the tests and then you don't have to worry about the biology. (I wrote in all of the biology notes in size six font on one side of my cheat sheet for each exam, didn't study it besides actually typing it out, and it worked out really well.) Also Hsieh was really approachable if you had any questions and is happy to help.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/09/2014	Dr. Hsieh, though monotone and boring, is a good professor. He is very straightforward with what material you need to know. So that makes it easy on the tests because not only do you get a cheat sheet, there only so many types of questions he can ask. His grading policy is the best I have ever seen! 30% HW (8 homeworks, drop 2 lowest), 6% quiz (8 quizzes, drop 2 lowest), 20% project, 20% exam, 20% exam, 4% lowest (grade exam), 4% extra credit (which is just attending discussions!). You are almost guaranteed an A. I could have gotten an 0 on the final and a 50 on the project and still have a 90 some in the class. However, try REALLY hard on the homeworks. Homeworks are the most important part of the class! They are extremely tedious and would usually take 5+ hrs during the first half of the semester. Also, the notes he posts online are really helpful, so you don't really need to go to class if that's how you roll.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Expecting a B+ thearn182 12/17/2012	Dr. Hsieh is a pretty decent professor. His class can be tough to sit through since he's a quiet, monotone speaker. Homeworks require some effort, but the exams are usually based off the central idea behind a single homework plus biology. I recommend putting all the biology on your cheat sheet for the exams and just knowing how to do the math. Oh he drops one exam, so do yourself a favor and just do well on the first two because the final usually falls on the same day as 340 which is not fun.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Expecting a B pat 02/29/2012	This guy is pretty amusing - he gets COMPLETELY confused and thrown off by his own examples. It is worth it just to go to class to watch him get vortexed into a blank stare by his own typically simple examples. This class starts out pretty awesome actually. You gain the ability to analyze some interesting statics and dynamics problems applied to the musculoskeletal system. The second half is when this class is just a complete drag because of soooooooooooooooooooo much superfluous biololgy. We literally spent 4 or 5 weeks straight on just straight bio (which constituted a LARGE amount of his exams (this is where I lost all of my points.)) This wouldn't be a big deal if he directly connected it to what appeared to be upper level mechanics theory, but he did a HORRIBLE job in this regard. His notes are generally very vague, but if you really understand them (stare at them for long enough) then you should be able to do the homeworks just fine. The project turned out to be great. Like I said, I got particularly boned on the exams by all of the truely superfluous biology that I didn't give a shi* about. Bottom line - memorize the stupid biology crap for the tests, forget it, move on. Also make a really good cheat sheet with as much bio on it as you can.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Expecting an A zhangsta 11/04/2011	Dr. Hsieh is a fairly approachable professor and pretty helpful in his office hours. His exams were very straightforward, but tended to cover a lot of material so to do well, you need to know just about every small detail from lecture. He also loves to use matrices to solve just about everything so this class might be a little hard to follow unless you know linear algebra. Typically, his homeworks tended to be very mathy and based on examples he would work out in lecture so if you were careful and knew what you were doing, those were easy points. His exams tended to cover mostly the anatomical stuff he goes over in lecture with one or two math-based questions.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/22/2010	Dr. Hsieh was quite disorganized in the material that he covered and never really settled on what the course was to be. He was frequently confused by his problems. The tests were very easy for people who had recently taken mechanics but those who had forgotten it did badly.
Adam Hsieh BIOE404 Anonymous 04/14/2010	Straightforward, very good notes and explains everything very well. Make sure to go to all of the lectures, or the class will become very confusing very fast.

Kimberly Stroka
BIOE404

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
07/18/2024

Dr. Stroka is one of the nicest professors in the department and this class was overall pretty well taught. The class is split into 3 general sections and includes a long project. She kind of has a different teaching approach for each section, and honestly I only liked the way she did it for the first section. I had trouble keeping up in the second section since she went over less content in class and it was more through online videos, but this was my fault and contributed to my B instead of A. To future students I'd recommend don't fall behind. The project is kinda boring and long, but fairly easy. Stroka is lowkey a tough grader, so make sure you follow her rubrics. Very nice and flexible with due dates and accepts student feedback well.

Kimberly Stroka
BIOE404

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/18/2024

This class is challenging. The overall weekly workload includes some check-in quizzes that you can do ahead of time and homework assignments that are a mix of math, short answer, and MATLAB. The exams are fair and are similar to past exams but can be hard in terms of time management. The majority of exam points are application questions, like solving a physics problem or answering a more theoretical, biological prompt. I would recommend giving yourself ample time to prepare cheat sheets and do timed practice runs on the past exams. If you get stuck or have any questions, the professor is very helpful during office hours and has an ELMS discussion page where she answers all the posted questions. This leads nicely to my next point: Dr. Stroka is one of the nicest and most knowledgeable people I've encountered during my time on campus. She does a great job teaching a wide range of topics, from body-scale physics to cellular biomechanics. She is very good at creating a friendly class atmosphere, and she's very supportive both as a teacher and as a person. On top of the course experience survey at the end, she's always taking and integrating feedback during the semester, from end of class surveys about what worked and what didn't to asking us in class if an assignment needs to be rescheduled because of a conflict with capstone. She even brought us snacks for the final exam. If you ever have the chance to take her class and you're even remotely interested in the subject, I'd highly recommend it.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/17/2014

Although it is somewhat hard to stay focused in his class, Hsieh is a good professor. He is a really smart and fair guy, and wants to make sure his students do well in the class. The grading policy he has is amazing and the tests are fairly straightforward. Make sure to make awesome cheat sheets for the tests and then you don't have to worry about the biology. (I wrote in all of the biology notes in size six font on one side of my cheat sheet for each exam, didn't study it besides actually typing it out, and it worked out really well.) Also Hsieh was really approachable if you had any questions and is happy to help.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/09/2014

Dr. Hsieh, though monotone and boring, is a good professor. He is very straightforward with what material you need to know. So that makes it easy on the tests because not only do you get a cheat sheet, there only so many types of questions he can ask. His grading policy is the best I have ever seen! 30% HW (8 homeworks, drop 2 lowest), 6% quiz (8 quizzes, drop 2 lowest), 20% project, 20% exam, 20% exam, 4% lowest (grade exam), 4% extra credit (which is just attending discussions!). You are almost guaranteed an A. I could have gotten an 0 on the final and a 50 on the project and still have a 90 some in the class. However, try REALLY hard on the homeworks. Homeworks are the most important part of the class! They are extremely tedious and would usually take 5+ hrs during the first half of the semester. Also, the notes he posts online are really helpful, so you don't really need to go to class if that's how you roll.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Expecting a B+
thearn182
12/17/2012

Dr. Hsieh is a pretty decent professor. His class can be tough to sit through since he's a quiet, monotone speaker. Homeworks require some effort, but the exams are usually based off the central idea behind a single homework plus biology. I recommend putting all the biology on your cheat sheet for the exams and just knowing how to do the math. Oh he drops one exam, so do yourself a favor and just do well on the first two because the final usually falls on the same day as 340 which is not fun.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Expecting a B
pat
02/29/2012

This guy is pretty amusing - he gets COMPLETELY confused and thrown off by his own examples. It is worth it just to go to class to watch him get vortexed into a blank stare by his own typically simple examples. This class starts out pretty awesome actually. You gain the ability to analyze some interesting statics and dynamics problems applied to the musculoskeletal system. The second half is when this class is just a complete drag because of soooooooooooooooooooo much superfluous biololgy. We literally spent 4 or 5 weeks straight on just straight bio (which constituted a LARGE amount of his exams (this is where I lost all of my points.)) This wouldn't be a big deal if he directly connected it to what appeared to be upper level mechanics theory, but he did a HORRIBLE job in this regard. His notes are generally very vague, but if you really understand them (stare at them for long enough) then you should be able to do the homeworks just fine. The project turned out to be great. Like I said, I got particularly boned on the exams by all of the truely superfluous biology that I didn't give a shi* about. Bottom line - memorize the stupid biology crap for the tests, forget it, move on. Also make a really good cheat sheet with as much bio on it as you can.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Expecting an A
zhangsta
11/04/2011

Dr. Hsieh is a fairly approachable professor and pretty helpful in his office hours. His exams were very straightforward, but tended to cover a lot of material so to do well, you need to know just about every small detail from lecture. He also loves to use matrices to solve just about everything so this class might be a little hard to follow unless you know linear algebra. Typically, his homeworks tended to be very mathy and based on examples he would work out in lecture so if you were careful and knew what you were doing, those were easy points. His exams tended to cover mostly the anatomical stuff he goes over in lecture with one or two math-based questions.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/22/2010

Dr. Hsieh was quite disorganized in the material that he covered and never really settled on what the course was to be. He was frequently confused by his problems. The tests were very easy for people who had recently taken mechanics but those who had forgotten it did badly.

Adam Hsieh
BIOE404

Anonymous
04/14/2010

Straightforward, very good notes and explains everything very well. Make sure to go to all of the lectures, or the class will become very confusing very fast.

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