Reviews for HONR289A

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Marcia Shofner HONR289A Expecting an A+ CrazeddRabbi 01/13/2021	Like the other reviews say, she is a really sweet person. Makybe it was because this class was online or because it was an honors class and teachers usually have a more laid-back attitude towards honors classes where it isn't as important as regular classes, but this class was a hot mess. In the first phase of the class, an ungodly amount of terms and biology information (it was like reading from a medical journal) were thrown at us in asynchronous lecture. However, that wasn't very concerning, as all we had were reading quizzes. We would also review the material during our weekly meeting on Zoom. After the first few weeks, however, these Zoom meetings started to simply degenerate into students talking politics. They also stopped teaching us new material, but we (at least those of us who weren't bio students) never really learned anything in the first place. Finally, we had the final project. First, it required an extraordinary amount of work, far more than any other group project I've ever done, especially when you look at the fact that we were expected to do it in just a week or two. Additionally, the requirements for the project were unclear and constantly changing. The requirements and guidelines were split onto two different documents instead of one ELMS page for some reason, and they were completely unorganized without being split into sections. While this may not sound that bad, it meant that if you wanted to know if something was or wasn't in the rules or required, you would have to read through BOTH documents COMPLETELY. There were also often contradictory instructions and requirements in the documents, and the teachers themselves (two teachers, but Dr. Shofner was the one in charge) were unresponsive to questions, taking a few days to respond by email - and even when they did respond they often said "I am not sure. Let me ask the other teacher". Sweet teacher, but a dumpster fire of a class.
Benjamin Rosenthal HONR289A Expecting an A ganelo 11/30/2007	The readings for this class can be a bit much; the class itself is just a discussion of the readings, with students moderating the discussions in the second half of the course. You must write 6 reaction papers to the readings, of which 5 are graded. He grades very leniently on these. The final paper is on a relevant topic of your choice, and is 12-15 pages (double-spaced). Don't take this class unless you're actually interested in the material, because otherwise it's understandably rather boring. He has a real passion for the material, and he does research in a closely related field, so he knows what he's talking about. As previously mentioned, the class is just a mostly unstructured discussion: he provides just enough direction that it doesn't devolve into nothing, and when there's something he wants you to grasp, he'll ask the right leading questions for you to figure it out.