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Jeffrey Diamond BSCI403 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/13/2022	Class was somewhat interesting, low work, lectures kinda dry. Begins with some physics of optics and light (think phys132). The we go through different types of eyes, how they evolved for use cases. The second half of the class is much closer to the stuff covered in bsci353. I recommend the class to those who have taken BSCI353 and PHYS132 since it’ll make it review and much easier. We spent a while on the retina (that is his research area). He tailored the class to the students by including an extra lecture on diseases of the eye since he realized most of the class is premed. He’s a pretty understanding guy. For example , some people did worse than expected on the midterm. Thus, he changed the weights of the midterm and term paper for your benefit. If you did worse on the midterm, the term paper would be worth more and term paper less. If you did worse on the term paper, the midterm would be worth more and midterm less. Win win. He listens to concerns and was always helpful in thoroughly answering any questions during and after class. One thing to keep in mind is the time of the course (5-6:15 PM MW). Tempting not to come when it’s sunny and beautiful one! The good thing is that the class does not have mandatory attendance, and it’s easier to understand the material by reading the slides only. There is a textbook and assigned readings, which I did close to none of and was fine. My one issue was that he can be a DRY lecturer. Often read from the slides. Somewhat monotone voice. I frequently fell asleep in the class or skipped lecture. The good thing is that all you need is the lecture slides to succeed on the exam. The course assignments are as follows: Homework (25%) — these were only assigned during the first half of the semester. They involved some physics type questions on light and then easy questions on eye evolution. These took me 1-2 hours by referencing the slides. There were only 4 real homeworks. Term paper (20%) - you can write about any vision related topic you want covered in the course or otherwise. Average of 46/50 Class Participation (5%) Exams: Midterm (25%) + Final (25%) Jeff says since he is an engineer so he does not make memorization style questions, but I found the exams pretty memorization heavy. For example, he frequently would take key figures from the slides and have you match terms to details of the figures. EXAMS WERE ALL MULTIPLE CHOICE AND MATCHING, big big plus. Midterm Average = 78.71, Median = 80.5 Final Exam Average = 106.39/125, Median = 108/125 OVERALL COURSE GRADES: Mean: 89.87 Median: 89.36 High: 98.19 Upper Quartile: 91.8 Low: 82 Lower Quartile: 87.11