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Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/20/2023	I may have to go against the grain here, but if you are taking this class with a lighter course load (that is, you are not taking it alongside MammPhys) and you are interested in pursuing neuroscience related research/internships, I would take it with Dr. Caras. This is typically not the case for many people, since this class is usually taken junior year and is a requirement for the Neurobio&Phys major. Although this class is difficult, you will definitely leave the class having understood the content at a much deeper level, relative to the other biology classes at UMD. Will your grade reflect it? Because of the sheer depth and memorization demands, you are bound to miss something while studying, so probably not. Compared to endocrinology and virology, which are both 400-level bio classes, this class was more difficult. It's not because the content itself is more difficult, it's that Dr. Caras requires that you understand these concepts mechanistically. Furthermore, this class is particularly difficult because the content you learn throughout the semester is compounding. If you don't really understand the electrochemical gradient (which is taught early on), the rest of the class is a struggle. Given that her class demands a lot more depth, here are the pros and cons of her teaching style: Pros: 1. Her slides have no "fat". There is no extra content, every single slide is important and fair game. In fact, if you think of her lecture/slides as a supplement for prereading and taking notes from the textbook, you will be in great shape. That's why this class is going to be difficult for someone taking a bunch of other classes. 2. She is generous with help on the graded in-class worksheets and regrade requests. 3. She is enthusiastic about the science (and about particular topics, which tend to show up on exams more). 4. Midterm averages increased through the semester (83, 84, 95 for Exams 1-3, respectively). 5. Slides are posted in advance. 6. Lots of extra credit (we had ~25 points of extra credit across the 4 exams). This must be a new addition to the course since other reviews said that she does not offer EC. Cons: 1. This semester she tended to finish her lectures early. This is sometimes good because then you have more time to ask questions; however, as other folks have mentioned here, that's 25-30 pages of content in about an hour of lecture. If you haven't done the reading (which happened to me several times), it's very difficult to keep up. I suppose that's why we have the pre-lecture textbook reading quizzes (which you could technically finish without having read the textbook, but then what's the point). 2. Final exam average was a ~75%. 3. No practice exams. You can try to compile the weekly worksheets to simulate a practice exam. The worksheets are quite similar to the practice exams, but about 25% easier. If you make comprehensive flash cards (mentioned below), you can bridge that knowledge gap and really master the content. 4. Slides that are posted are sometimes a little outdated (and the additional diagrams are helpful). 5. Readings can be quite long, a good idea would be to split them over 3 days. If you have Dr. Caras next semester, here are some tips: 1. How to take notes: 1) Type up notes when you pre-read the textbook chapter (before lecture). This takes time, but it is worth it. 2) During lecture, add to your notes the stuff that is in red on the slides and names of scientists. 3. Make an anki deck for that week's notes. 4. How to study for her exams in 2 days: 1) Review the slides 2) Complete your Anki cards 3) Do all the worksheets relevant to that exam (if it's the second midterm, do the weeks corresponding to that exam, since the midterms are not cumulative). 5. In addition to mastering concepts, memorize the examples! Examples tend to be the basis of her bonus questions.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Anonymous 08/03/2023	I do not recommend Dr. Lin for neuro. His lectures were not engaging and he was very condescending towards students during class. I remember several times when a student asked a question and he basically laughed at them. The same thing would happen on exams where he would put a question regarding material we have never seen before and when I asked for clarification, I was told to read the question (which was very discouraging considering 1. I did read it and 2. how hard I had studied for that exam). I am disappointed overall because I had really looked forward to this class and did not have a good experience because of the professor specifically.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/30/2023	• content is kinda difficult, especially if you're taking it before mamphys and never properly understood neuro stuff • don't slack off bc it's not an easy class to finesse • he's sweet tho (and fair-ish)
Daniel Butts BSCI353 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/26/2023	This class was pretty difficult and required A LOT of memorization. Dr. Butts does provide practice/sample questions before exams which were very helpful since some questions did appear on the exams. He recorded lectures, but there were clickers so you shouldn’t skip class. There were also worksheets almost every week which were done in groups. There also usually isn’t a curve, but there was a ~2% curve this semester because the final exam average was poor. So, there really isn’t “competition” and anyone could get an A.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting an A pavanbhat0710 05/27/2023	Dr. Lin is a really good teacher, he doesn't bombard you with slides and the pace of the class is really good. he also records all of his lectures which is super useful - every Monday there was a worksheet session which we had to go into class for, but besides that, you didn't have to go. His exams were also very fair and some of the questions were pulled directly from worksheets and the weekly quizzes we had.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/24/2023	I did not vibe with Prof Lin. It felt like we dwelled so much on these few topics while skipping over others entirely. There were these weekly worksheets done in class as part of a group, and they were quite frankly the worst. I would much rather have done it as an individual assignment at home than have attendance taken to make sure I'm doing an assignment. I very often found myself falling asleep during class, or just straight up walking out because I did not find the lecture engaging at all.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/18/2023	Dr. Lin is a very sweet person, and is very open to questions - he won't ever make you feel stupid and takes the time to thoroughly answer questions. His lecture style is honestly amazing, haven't heard anyone who didn't like it. He makes mundane topics pretty interesting and makes it seem like you're listening to a story in class. Unfortunately, however, his exams are a different story. You'll think you understand the content in lecture, you'll think you know what the main ideas are, you'll know the concepts of the main experiments, and then he'll throw questions at you on the exam which test minute concepts from one slide of one lecture out of a 50 slide lecture, with the question being worth 15% of the points of that exam. On top of that, there was no curve this semester. Beware that the class is getting harder. tl;dr amazing guy, wonderful lecturer, very sweet, but exams are difficult and the class is getting harder.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 11/03/2022	The bad reviews are trippin: It's neuroscience y'all it's hard but ask questions and understand mechanisms and you will do fine and learn!!! Caras is an extremely helpful professor
Daniel Butts BSCI353 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2022	Glad I took Bsci353 with Dr. Butts! In order to do well in his class you really need to understand the lecture concepts, instead of memorization like some other biology classes. Understand what the graphs and diagrams in the lecture slides and that will help you immensely with his exams. Gave a mini exam worth only 5% before the first big midterm which was useful to understand how he will write exams. He was always nice and responsive to questions. Would take the class with him again!
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/22/2022	Dr. Lin is a great professor and really seems to know his stuff. The only reason why I wouldn't give a 5 star is because of the first midterm exam which pretty much the entire class failed. There were too many questions and some of the questions were vague. The exam completely blindsided the class. Dr. Lin even gave us a mini-exam before the midterm to give us a feel of how the first midterm would be like, all I can say is that is that there was no resemblance at all. But his second and final exams were much better. The quizzes luckily were straightforward. One thing I enjoyed was the clinical scenarios that he put in our group worksheets, the only aspect about the worksheets I didn't like was that my group would hardly show up to class to discuss the worksheet lol. The TAs are nice and answer questions that we have about the worksheets. I would highly recommend reading the textbook for this class, it does a good job clarifying the lecture material plus one of the questions on his exams relate to something specifically from the textbook.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Expecting a D- Anonymous 01/12/2022	This class was intentionally made much more difficult than other sections with other professors to "prepare us for medical school." In almost every class period she would run out of time, and so we were forced to rely on our own research to learn the material. This professor's policies were strict and nonflexible. When missing class due to a severe illness, she would not provide an extension greater than 24 hours. I suffer from a few debilitating medical conditions and she was intolerant of my health, saying "I expect you to have perfect attendance for the rest of the semester no matter what." Once, with an extension, I sent her the completed assignment but she refused to grade the assignment because I had forgotten to cc her, even when I successfully sent it to her a second time. She would inform the class what information the exams would focus on, but would not include those questions on the exam, so everyone was studying the wrong things. Exam questions were very specific and were graded with the utmost scrutiny. I do not understand what she seeks to gain from her teaching policies.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/30/2021	This class was hard. Harder than it needed to be. Lectures were hard to follow because she would not upload lecture slide before class and spoke way too fast that most of the time I felt like I was trying to writer as fast as I can to catch up with her rather than learning the material. Im sure lectures would have been more beneficial if she had uploaded lectures ahead so we could just write down important info that was not presented on slides and actually listen to what she was teaching. She's a very HARSH grader. You have to be super specific in every sentence not to loose stupid points. As mentioned below, I found that watching her Panapto recording was much more beneficial. I would attend every lecture but would not understand much. When I would go home, I watched the Panapto recordings side by side with the slides and I was able to understand the information. You have to read A LOT in this class. Im talking about 30+ pages and memorize every little detail from the book that may see insignificant since she doesn't go over it in lecture. Everything you don't think will be on exams will almost always be. Her exams are also very applicational based so you have to know material inside and out. This was a bit difficult since many of the biology course at UMD are memorization based. This class was work and I dreaded it... I would have multiple meltdowns a week because I felt that that she was making this class harder than it needed to be. She was also very hard to approach and at times it felt like she didnt respect her students based on judgmental comments I overheard her make when someone asked for help. If you are taking this class to check an upper level BSCI course, I strongly suggest not to or choose a different professor maybe. If your a neuroscience major where this class is a major requirement, choose a different professors. At the end of the semester, 6 people failed with Fs, 14 with D's, and 20+ with C's (some students still need to take the final so this will probably change for the worse).
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/30/2021	Any review stated here that is above 3 stars and that states she is a good professor is honestly shocking to me. Yes - upper level biology courses are very hard; no biology major or neuroscience major picks this as their major and expects 300-400 level classes to be a walk in the park. I was taking a 4 credit biology course that is known to be one of the hardest courses taught here at UMD while also taking BSCI 353 (you could probably guess which one just by me stating that if you're a junior or senior UMD student just because that's the reputation it has). The workload of BSCI 353 alone with Dr. Caras was nearly double the workload of the 4 credit biology class. The hours that it takes to even study and review for her exams was way more than the 4 credit course I was in. She herself made the course so unenjoyable and miserable. She made it as hard as it possibly could be for her students. Yes, the material is difficult and every student who signs up for this course expects that. But that doesn't necessarily mean it should be and feel impossible. That's exactly what she did though; made it impossible. She offered no review material, no study guides, so unapproachable, NEVER decided to listen to her student's suggestions or concerns and actively change little things here and there that could've helped majority of the class succeed. She is by far the worst professor I've ever had. Only 13 students got an A+. A, or A- in the class OUT OF ALMOST 100 STUDENTS. 20 kids got below a C- or failed the course. For someone who did okay in this class, I seriously think she is terrible and a horrible professor. Yes, she can "teach" but that alone shouldn't be a deciding factor as to whether or not you're a good professor. She talks so fast too and her lecture slides are quite horrible as well.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/30/2021	If you’re looking to take this class to fulfill an upper level BSCI course requirement, don’t take it if you can’t put in a HIGH amount of effort. Personally I hate reading textbooks, don’t have the time for it, and this class runs completely by the book, so I struggled a lot in that area. I was able to keep up with the readings only for the first unit, and the lecture material wasn’t too bad to understand at that point, so lectures were okay for the first unit. I need to mention she absolutely refused to post the lecture pdfs before class because she works on them up until the last minute before class starts. Majority of the class uses laptops or iPads to write notes and it would have been so much easier if we could write straight on the powerpoint because there’s a million diagrams she refers to with minimal text. On the first day of school SEVERAL students asked her about posting powerpoints in advance, but she refused to comprise to fulfill the needs of her students. Every single step of the way whenever she had the chance, she chose to make our life harder. She acts like this class is our only responsibility. Anyway, after the first unit I started getting behind in readings and therefore getting lost during lecture. I stopped coming to lecture all together because it was just a waste of time at that point. She posts panaptos that are only for students with “excused absences,” but I opened them and watched them all anyway because anyone can open the folder. I don’t know why someone else here said we don’t have access to them. We do, I watched them all. That helped me the most with doing well on the exams. I was able to watch the lecture at my own pace because she goes too fast in class and I can take in the information at my own pace. That is the only thing that helped me pass this course. I don’t remember her mentioning panaptos, and some of my classmates didn’t even know she posted them. She honestly should have encouraged all her students to watch them. Attending lecture, I was overwhelmed with info so I didn’t like her teaching then. But watching her panaptos, her teaching was great I was able to understand everything. Reviewing quizzes is pointless, has nothing to do with exams. Reviewing worksheets have been a little bit helpful with exams. No review sheets or anything, she wants you to memorize every single detail from the chapter and lecture, because all of it is “fair game” for the exams. Interacting with her in person was weird she’s so hard to approach. I was much more comfortable talking to her TA Sophia, she was so kind.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/27/2021	I thought Dr. Caras was clear and concise and communicated complex topics in a way that made them easy to understand. This class is HARD, but this is typical for any upper-level biology course at UMD. She was a hard grader, but her exams were fair and covered the material we were expected to learn for class. I really don't understand the slew of negative reviews, except for the fact that she is a hard grader and people were salty that she refused to move the exam online in response to the COVID outbreak, however, this would've made the exam unfair to those who don't cheat.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2021	By far the nicest and understanding Professor I had at UMD who truly wants his students to do well. Exams are very fair and he is very accommodating. The material for this course is really interesting and you will definitely learn a lot, and Dr. Lin just makes learning this course 1000x better. He never tried to rush through material and answers all questions. He definitely knows what he’s talking about and encourages people to add questions on the discussion board or make appointments with him if we need clarification on anything. This course was the highlight of my semester. Great professor, great course.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2021	Dr. Lin is a kind professor and he is always willing to answer any questions that you might have during class. Overall, he is a great professor, and if you happen to not understand something he provides the textbook pages that correspond to his lectures for reading purposes. I would definitely recommend him!
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/21/2021	Do NOT take Caras for 353/306, you will regret your decision. She seems nice, but she does not care about her students at all and it is very clear. The exams are hard and are graded even harder. You will lose points for the most absurd things, and she does not have any sympathy with curving or extra credit. I have done well in every other upper BSCI class, and this class has completely shattered my GPA. I would highly recommend you take another professor for this class if you care about your grades at all, as I don't know a single person who has above a B+ in this class, and NO it is NOT curved at all.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/21/2021	Overall, she did a poor job of teaching this course. Her lectures are very rushed and she tries to cram 25+ pages of content from each chapter, into one lecture. I realized too late that her lectures are really pointless to go too and I wish I could've just spent all that time reviewing the chapters on my own. She records the lectures but they are only reserved for people with "excused absences" like she even takes attendance. When someone asked if we could get a review sheet for the exams, she just said to use the quizzes and group worksheets. These quizzes/worksheets ended up being poor representations of the exam. I'm honestly surprised she managed to make this class more frustrating than mamm phys or biochem for me. If she would have two lectures each week (instead of one) and just make the group worksheets homework, that would have been better. Rushing through the worksheets made it difficult to intake the information, and almost all the time, we would just be using the textbook to find the answers, so it was pointless to force us to complete it and turn it in by the end of one class period. She was difficult to approach because she would just question if you read the chapter or not (sorry for not remembering every little detail from 25+ pages of content). I don't recommend taking her. I had high hopes for this class but it ended up being the most boring, frustrating class I've taken. And also, she doesn't post any exam key, because why would you ever need that right?
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/21/2021	If giving a professor 0 stars was an option, I would in a heartbeat. I wish I was kidding when I said that this is probably my most dis-liked professor at UMD, and I’m a senior pre-med student so that says a lot. The structure of this class is ridiculously poor; you have basically one lecture PER WEEK to retain information that corresponds to 25-35 pages of textbook material. And this isn’t a normal “textbook”; this is almost a graduate student level textbook. For many students that are not neuro majors like myself, this was the first time taking a neuro class. However, the professor teaches at an unreasonable, insane pace where she thinks you’re quite literally a neurologist yourself. You’d think for a course that sounds this challenging (and i’m not exaggerating), she would show some empathy — No. She has 0 empathy. Despite it being the first time she has taken this class, you would think she might ask other neuro professors who are experts at teaching this class for advice, tips, etc. Nope. She is an extremely prideful professor, which I’m sure in HER LINE OF WORK, she has every reason to be. But teaching a course this challenging and having no regard to help her students really showed our class that she simply does not care about us or want the best for us. Their were moments throughout class where I genuinely thought she was making it harder for us on purpose. I can’t emphasize this enough — do not take her. You will regret it SO MUCH.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/21/2021	Professor Caras is a nice person on the outside, but she does not accommodate for students whatsoever. My issue with her is that she thinks that she is doing a good job of preparing us for exams, but the structure of the class has made it difficult for me to retain information in an engaging way. I'm sure the other reviews attest to this too. Perhaps worst of all, her exam questions are not straightforward and her grading is EXTREMELY harsh. She also refuses to curve the class, despite the averages for this class being at a historic low according to planetterp data. One of the worst experiences I've had at umd (only second to Dodson for online chem271)
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2021	I have to go against the grain here and say that Dr. Caras has been a relatively normal teacher in my experience at UMD. This is an upper-level bio class, so I had high expectations with the workload and textbook dependency of this class. Her lectures aren't that bad, but IMO, what worked for me was doing the textbook in its entirety before viewing the lecture. The information is a lot, but it is doable and certainly not impossible. I had a lot of other obligations at home due to COVID and the stress of medical school applications and other upper-level classes. However, I still managed to (hopefully) squeeze out an A or A-, but you have to maximize how to study for this class because it is a lot of work and it is hard. She has been very receptive and kind to me when I ask her questions and such, so I don't think some of these reviews are entirely fair. Sure the COVID situation was pretty bad on her part, but she has not made the class impossible to pass. It may be more challenging than the other BSCI353 course, but I definitely had to readjust and refine my study habits to keep up with this rigorous class, so I do not regret taking this, even if I don't get the grade I want. Overall, her class was fairly standard in my experiences with upper-level bio classes. Usually, the upper-level bio classes I have taken never got curve, so I didn't feel cheated there either.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/20/2021	"There will not be an exam review sheet, you have quizzes and worksheets to use to study" **Worksheets and quizzes end up being a poor representation of the exam Her lectures are pointless to go to. I realized too late I could've just spent that time reviewing the textbook chapters more. She rushes through the topics in her lectures so it's hard to grasp what's going on. The only reasons you would need to come to class are these annoying worksheets you have to rush through and exams. And also, NO EXAM ANSWER KEYS BECAUSE WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU NEED THAT? gg
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2021	These fools trippin. Professor Caras was straightforward with what she expected. You have one quiz and one worksheet per week, two midterms and a final. If you just go to lecture, read the book and review your notes before the exam you will know everything. There are no trick questions but this class does have a lot of material. Professor Caras answered all questions as best she could but she couldn't get to everything because there's a lot to get through.
Melissa Caras BSCI353 Anonymous 12/20/2021	I agree with everything these people have said about Caras. I talked to people who previously took this class and they said you could get an A with a decent amount of work but she structures the class extremely poorly to the point that lectures are hard to follow. She talks very fast and refuses to slow down. She doesn’t care at all if we actually understand the material and says that we should just look in the textbook when we have questions. I was so excited to take this class but instead because of her this was the worst class I’ve taken in my college career. She designed this class to be harder than biochem and that’s not an exaggeration. She makes questions from textbook material even if she doesn’t go over it in class but the textbook is columns of information that are hard to follow and consolidate. Please don’t make the mistake of taking her for this class.
Chan Lin BSCI353 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2021	I noticed that there aren't too many reviews on here, so I figured I'd leave one :) If you're taking BSCI353, I HIGHLY recommend you take Professor Lin!! He is an incredibly accommodating professor and very easy to approach for questions and course suggestions. The material isn't too bad, though it does take some time to get used to it. His lecture pace is quite lovely and I never feel like I can't catch up. He uploads all of his lecture recordings onto ELMS so you don't really have to come to class (but it's much nicer to sit in the lecture room tbh). The exam material is VERY fair, includes extra credit, and there is a good mix of multiple choice and free-response application based questions on there. He recommends that you read the textbook to keep up with the material, but his lectures cover pretty much everything you need to know for exams and the hw quizzes - the textbook is helpful for clarification or to answer worksheet questions tho! Overall, highly recommend if you have the option to take him :)
Chan Lin BSCI353 Anonymous 01/12/2021	fair, obviously cares about teaching, reasonable, flexible, communicative, knows what he's talking about. What's not to like?
Catherine Carr BSCI353 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2020	She is absolutely terrible. Never coherent, rambles incessantly on material that isn't relevant for the tests, and is never prepared for lectures. She doesn't respond to emails and makes it clear she doesn't care about you. She also writes pretty awful test questions that she thinks are coherent and straightforward, but are absolutely awful. The class is very very unclear.
Richard Payne BSCI353 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/25/2014	Dr. Payne has been my favorite professor since I have been here (7 semesters). I took BSCI330 with him as well and I love how passionate he is, and how he really wants us to work hard in his class. He is super quirky and is a stickler for the way you phrase a question (all in good intentions, but annoying when you want to understand a concept and not get boggled down by semantics), but overall I really enjoyed his lectures and he presented the material in a very interactive way One day we all brought in flashlights and practiced doing optical illusions. Advice: if you want to learn, and also enjoy interactive lecture series, go take Payne.
Patrick Kanold BSCI353 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/31/2014	I thought this class was pretty boring but on the easier side, if you have a little neuro background and some first year physics background. I had a friend who didn't have that background and she struggled a lot, eventually dropping. I studied a lot for this class - but unlike other classes, the studying paid off. There's a reasonable curve and if you use his slides supplemented with the textbook, you'll do well.
Richard Payne BSCI353 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/30/2013	I'm sure it's been repeated enough, but to do well in Dr. Payne's class, you need to know everything on his slides. Practice tests are a good depiction of what you should expect on the tests. I thought he was a great teacher and his lectures were interesting.
Richard Payne BSCI353 Anonymous 11/15/2013	Sure, he can talk a lot I'll give you that. He knows the information he teaches quite well, but he comes off quite rude at times. Don't be fooled by your impression of him during lecture. I went to his office hours for help, and all he did was confuse me and make me feel like an idiot for wasting me time going to ask for help. He doesn't answer your questions during office hours, but instead consistently tells you that all the information is on the slides for us to work out. His exams are full of nonsense that test us on the details of his lectures. His exams are straight from the slides, but poorly written. He tests you on maybe 25% of everything we learn, so you can technically study over 80% of the material and end up getting a C. If his tests reflected more of what he taught, his class wouldn't be so bad. Thankfully, professor Quinlan taught the last third of the class. She wasn't bad at all.
Richard Payne BSCI353 terps010 01/02/2013	I have loved many biology professors and it pains me to dislike this one. He is a nice person but an AWFUL professor. He is terrible at explaining concepts and highly unprofessional. I sadly learned nothing from this man and wasted 3 credits. I was actually surprised when I saw how high his ratings were because I completely disagreed. Take someone else.. you will learn nothing. Class consisted of two tests and a final.