Reviews for NEUR306

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Melissa Caras NEUR306 Anonymous 12/08/2023	I don't understand all the bad reviews on Caras. I'm a neuro major and I was familiar with most of the material she taught, but she is the first professor who was able to understand it in a way where is all just clicked and made sense. She does go through her lectures fast and I like to take elaborate notes so I can't keep up during class BUT she does post the recordings so you can take notes afterwards. A lot of students just sit and listen to her lecture and ask questions to things they are confused about. I really like this because you are really immersed in the material and retain it quickly (especially after reading the chapter). The other day of class is designated for worksheets about the content which I really thought helped. You got to talk about concepts with students and get a grade boost. The content is really interesting and Caras is a good lecturer so I enjoyed the class and really learned a lot. The exams are hard, but if you study enough and fully understand everything you'll be fine. That being said, this was a required course for my major and it was hard so I wouldn't recommend this class if it's not required.
Melissa Caras NEUR306 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/23/2021	I'm still in disbelief at how this class went... talking to Caras or the TA Sophia always felt like I was talking to a brick wall. Not only were they insanely harsh graders, but they gave absolutely no room for you to get points back even through a formal regrade it was impossible. I swear they want you to go out and conduct years of ground-breaking research and only then will they consider admitting they were wrong and could give you some points back. This is 100% a class where you read and breathe the textbook. She followed the textbook to a T, where it was either verbatim or she would just rephrase it. She spoke too fast and she never gave access to all students of the recorded lecture. She would expect you to know the textbook by heart to do well. The weekly worksheets were mentally draining and were more so based on external applications of the material we learned that week, but that never came in handy for the exams. The exams were very hard and consisted of such specific detail that she wanted you to know from 4+ chapters each unit. Again, I have never experienced such harsh grading and those exams were one and done. If you don't have a strong foundation in the beginning exams (like getting a B) then you will not end up with a C or higher. She does not curve nor round up grades (yes even if you are .1% away from the next letter grade). She does not consider moving the final exam online amidst a surge of COVID cases on campus, whereas the other BSCI353/NEUR306 class did. This was super frustrating to deal with because I genuinely loved the content of this class but it was contaminated by a professor who does not care about her students. If she could just change the exam style and listen to student feedback, it would have boosted everyone's performance in the class. It honestly made me feel so stupid every time I went in to take the exam because my entire major is neuroscience for goodness sake. I read the textbook, I went to every class, I went to every worksheet class period, I took notes, I studied. This energy just didn't match when it came time for the exam. Overall, Caras has no place in academia. She should stick to her electrophysiology training and auditory research with gerbils where she can't harm a handful of students grades, future, and mental health.
Melissa Caras NEUR306 Anonymous 12/20/2021	I agree with the other reviews posted recently. This is the worst class I have ever taken at UMD solely due to the professor. I enjoyed the course material and understand the material when I am learning. The professor decided to make the whole textbook chapters "fair game" and write short answer questions that are impossible. She refused to put the final exam online despite COVID cases spiking. Also, the other professor allowed their students to take their exam online that was not proctered. This put them at an unfair advantage before the exam. My friends and I have been studying for 5 days and still have not retained the information required to know on the final. Furthermore, the amount of information in the textbook/lectures equaled about 150 pages of material. Given that our teacher studies the brain for a living she should be smart enough to know that a student is not capable of remembering this much information, but this is not the case. If she did want us to know this much, students should receive a curve. Instead, she said under no circumstance that she is curving. If I could recommend a 0 to this professor I would. Please save yourselves.
Melissa Caras NEUR306 Anonymous 12/20/2021	To preface, like the other reviews left thus far, I have done considerably well in every neuroscience course offered at this university, and have had no negative experiences with a single other professor within this department. But this was a completely different experience; I have despised this course, the professor and the way in which material is presented. The course is structured to be a one-day lecture, one-day in class assignment (which is generally useless in preparing for exams). The expectation is that we read upwards of 25 pages of double-column textbook material, which is dreadful and hard to maintain focus on. Especially when the "lecture" is not beneficial whatsoever, and topics included on the exam have a significant stretch beyond what we discuss in class. That is, the majority of information pulled for exams (which average around 70%) comes from an arbitrary passage in the readings we probably did not cover during a nonessential lecture. Just don't hold a lecture at that point. The worksheets are not applicable to exams in most cases, and the quizzes are too basic to help with preparing for examinations. Now, this would not be an issue if we were provided resources, GSS sessions, or even an actual review day before exams (she just turns the "review time" into office hours, which for many of us in our third or fourth year don't have time for). At the beginning of the semester, someone asked if we would have a review sheet available before exams; the answer was no, that we had quizzes and worksheets to review from. But they have (from experience) no correlation with what will be on the exam. It is near impossible to study for her exams; you can study general themes, sure, but you better remember every definition of every term of every process possible related to the theme if you even hope to produce a proper answer. This is the single worst experience I have had at this experience. She is NOT a good lecturer, NOT a good exam-giver, and is NOT who you should take for this course if other options are available. Oh, and she is blatantly ignoring the soaring cases in COVID-19 cases on campus, and forcing students to take the final examination in person, putting people and their families at risk for severe illness. Horrendous.
Melissa Caras NEUR306 Anonymous 12/20/2021	I have to agree with the other recent review on here regarding professor Caras. I have always loved every neuroscience course I’ve ever taken at UMD and have always done well in them, with the exception of this class. This course slowly turned into one of my most hated classes I’ve taken at UMD. This is her first time teaching this course and while i hoped that would mean she would offer extra credit or curve the class since we have an average of a 70 on exams, it didn’t. Instead it just meant she made the class impossible to do well in. She expects you to read 30+ pages of content rich information, which takes forever to get through and honestly was discouraging to do. Her lectures were fine, but didn’t really prepare you for exams. I put a lot of work in this class but because there is just so much information and the exams are essentially all short answer or essay questions, it’s impossible to do well on them or to even feel prepared. The other section of this course had their final online because of the drastic spike in COVID cases, and also had their final be all multiple choice. I would absolutely not recommend her as a professor for 306. I am now in a position where I have to pass the final to pass the class and that may potentially impact me graduating.
Melissa Caras NEUR306 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/19/2021	I've gotten an A in every neuroscience class at UMD except this one. From the beginning of the course, Dr Caras was judgemental and harsh. I asked her for help one time on a worksheet and she judged me for not knowing the answers to the questions she was asking. She said things like "So you're telling me you don't understand X? You're telling me you don't understand something we have been building on for the past X amount of days?". It is her job to help students through those humps not get angry at them. This created an atmosphere where I did not feel comfortable talking to her, personally or academically. If you devote a lot of time to this course, you will do well, but as a student taking 21 credits, the final will determine if I pass or not. It also will determine graduation for me, so don't put yourself in a bad position with this professor. She refuses to put the final exam online despite a very large spike in COVID cases on campus and is actively putting students at risk. She only lectures once a week instead of two which would maximize retention, and she expects you to read 30-page chapters where every page is columns of text beforehand. You are responsible for everything in the textbook regardless of if she covers it or not; she calls her lectures "summaries". She is trying to prepare students for graduate school, so hopefully, that would come in handy at a later date for you(?). She takes off way too many arbitrary point values on exams when the answer is mostly correct, and the majority of the exams are short answer questions. There are so many short answers it is impossible to perfect each one in the allotted time. She thinks a 70% average on exams is good and refuses to curve the class under any circumstances. She does no one any favors, and sometimes it feels like she is actively trying to make things more difficult than is necessary. I never write reviews for professors and I do not take writing a review like this one lightly. I absolutely love neuroscience and the content in this class IS very fascinating; it is a shame that I grew such a distaste for it given the setup of the class.
Melissa Caras NEUR306 Anonymous 11/20/2021	Super nice teacher; exams are hard, quizzes and lecture assignments weekly that require you to read ~30 pages of text. She does not deviate from the text whatsoever; literally reads straight off the slides, of which the information comes straight out of the text. Questions asked on exams hardly relate to those asked on lecture assignments or quizzes. Would not recommend for NEUR306/BSCI353 if there is another option available.