Claudia Silva Aldana

This professor has taught: BSCI222

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Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/10/2024	If I could give 0 stars I would. I'm not typically someone to review on Planet Terp but if it is to help people to NOT take her and save them from this horrible class I will. I genuinely love genetics and the content; so studying and engaging wasn't an issue for me. Dr. Silva is the issue. Her exams are worded extremely bad which is why so many people did not succeed in her class. She also does not like to give partial credit. Silva also has a very strong Columbian accent which makes it very hard to understand her because she talks extremely fast. Her slides are written partially in Spanish and as someone who has never taken Spanish this is horrible. People on here are saying that they like how she does study guides and lecture tutorials, but these are made by Dr. Paczolt not Dr. Silva. They are used by Silva because it is the same class as Dr. Paczolt so with the material it is structured in the same way besides the slide shows. So sometimes, Silva will put things on our exams that the homework and material from other professors don't focus on.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/10/2024	I wanted to give a perspective from someone a little more average in this class. Initially, I attended all of her lectures and took lots of notes. After the first test, despite doing well on this, I found that this was not the best study method and instead pivoted to making flashcards from the textbook chapters covered. I also cross-referenced my Anki flashcards with the study guides and topic quizzes she provided before tests and scored decently well (I scored between a 78%-88% on T1, T2, and T4. I could've done better on T3 and that dropped me from a B+ to a B). As everyone has said her first and last exams were extremely easy and the middle two were ridiculously hard. I found this made it difficult to prepare for the exam. I think Dr. Silva needs to reevaluate her test design. Many times the questions that people found difficult were poorly designed in a way that it was unclear how we were meant to answer (ex. on T2 we were asked to draw processes in DNA replication on two straight strands when we had only practiced this on a bubble). Otherwise, the question itself was very vague making it difficult to understand what we were meant to provide. As mentioned many of the other issues people had was that it was clear many of her materials had been google translated from Spanish as the grammar and wording was literally translated. If you have a spanish-speaking background, it doesn't really bother you that much, but I can understand the confusion. Discussion was definitely a grade boost. I won't lie, I wouldn't take the class with her again, but I have had worse professors. In the end I was surprised that she never curved given how low the averages were, but she always had said she wouldn't curve.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/10/2024	If you're thinking about taking this teacher DON'T! Absolutely, positively, do not take a class with this teacher. Her class was an utter nightmare, she'd mark correct answers wrong and then double down on her mistake when asked about it. She'd yell at students asking about question that were marked wrong despite NOT being wrong. She doesn't even attempt to correct her spelling or grammar, which are atrocious; while taking her tests, you don't only have to know the material, you also have to decode all kinds of spelling and grammar mistakes, many of which change the meaning of the question being asked. The average on most of her exams was a D or F. And she does not curve at all. Whatever you do, do not take this professor, she is absolutely AWFUL. When the whole class gets things wrong, the problem is not with the class, it's with the teacher. The problem is 100% with her. I don't understand how they can have her teaching this class, she is entirely unqualified.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2024	First exam was very easy, second two were very hard, last one was very easy. She is very nice and wants you to actually learn the content. I never went to office hours. People were lowk mean to her and I felt bad. The errors on her exams were usually like one word in spanish. Her slides had some spanish but you could understand. Most of her exam questions were fair but some were so weird and actually impossible. She gives practice exams which are just like the regular exams and gives you textbook problems to focus on as well as study guides which are super helpful if you answer all the questions/make flash cards for vocab. Lectures are recorded - would recommend reading textbook chapters and understanding content and watching lectures later or just doing it before class otherwise lectures are very hard to understand.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/29/2024	I would give 0 stars if I could. She is the worst professor I've ever had in my life. Taking this class with her was so incredibly frustrating because the content within the class is not difficult, what makes it difficult is her slides, exams, and overall organization. Her slides are so disorganized that its extremely difficult/confusing to follow and the little context that is provided within the slides are in Spanish, which I can't understand. She also makes a lot of errors when trying to explain concepts. Her exams are filled with illegible typos and the questions are so wordy and unclear its difficult to understand what is even being asked. This makes providing an answer hard, takes up unnecessary time during the exam, and is even more frustrating when she provides no partial credit or any feedback. Both the 2nd and 3rd exams had failing averages and she responded with telling the class that it was our fault for not asking enough questions or attending office hours. However, when over 100 kids are failing, there must be a fault somewhere else (the teaching). She also did not curve these exams and took 3 weeks to release the grades. Admin was aware and did nothing. This class was so incredibly unfair and didn't even give students the opportunity for success. The reason I have a B is because I taught myself and read the textbook, I give absolutely no credit to Dr. Silva.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Anonymous 11/27/2024	Literally wish I could give this 0 stars. WORST professor I've ever had. Like I can't even explain with words how horrific. Class averages on tests are like 50% and somehow she thinks that's normal? Clearly she has some serious self reflection to do. I don't know how she's even still hired. Also can we talk about how half her lecture power points are literally in Spanish...do I look like I speak Spanish? Do yourself a favor and SPRINT in the opposite direction because this teacher will have you contemplating your life. If you think she's good, stop lying to yourself.
Claudia Silva Aldana Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/27/2024	I would actually give zero stars if I could. Please for the love of god do not take her. Extremely unprofessional, rude, and cannot admit when she is wrong. Her exams literally feel as if they have been written in Spanish and then she google translated it to English and then gave them to us. Its really difficult to understand her and on top of that her slides aren't that great at all, I taught the majority of the course to myself using the textbook (but that in itself was a hassle and tedious as some of the concepts in the textbook were not relevant to the course, so you kind of had to filter out information from the textbook). Its super difficult to understand her and she'll pronounce important terms completely wrong and not have them written up on the slides so you will just have no idea what she's talking about. Yes, genetics is a hard class but taking her will truly make your semester miserable and 10x harder than it needs to be. Announcements and assignments are posted super late (like literally hours before), and everything is so last minute. Her voice would give me headaches in lecture, and office hours honestly don't help because half of the time she never actually answers the question you have and unless you have hours of time to spend sitting down and repeating your question over and over again until she answers the actual question you have, there's no point in going. I've had some unreasonable professors before but at least they knew how to teach, she can't teach and she's completely unreasonable. Even the TA's would agree with us about certain questions on exams which made absolutely no sense. Just please do not take her unless it like your only "difficult" class of the semester which you can spend hours of your day on.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/26/2024	Not sure why someone gave her 5 stars.... I would recommend any other professor. Her schedule is partially in Spanish as well as the occasional slide which she doesn't even address or translate. There have been multiple times in lecture where she will misspeak and move on without correction. She is extremely difficult to communicate with and she does not respond well to feedback despite this being her first semester teaching. The first exam average was high but this was likely because it was a lot of 170 content. Her following two exams had much lower averages. The workload is unnecessary and poorly paced through the semester. She frequently will move due dates without announcing it. Overall, I do not recommend this professor and my TA has echoed the same statement.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/01/2024	One of the sweetest professors I've had while being at UMD. She is very approachable in office hours and always encourages us to ask questions. She provides resources such as study guides, additional textbook problems, practice exams, and she posts all the slides on canvas. I believe that some reviews are too harsh. Yes, it is true the average on our 2nd exam was in the 50s, but she gave everyone multiple points back in addition to a 10 point test correction assignment. She is one of the first professors I've had that admitted to failure when the class didn't perform well on the exam which I appreciate. Also, the average for the first exam was in the 80s. Overall, genetics is a hard course and requires time and studying. No matter who the professor is, it is going to be difficult.
Claudia Silva Aldana BSCI222 Expecting a W Anonymous 10/26/2024	Harsh professor. Worst professor I've had at UMD. Gave us a really hard 2nd exam where the average was in the 40s. If you make a small mistake on your test she marks the entire question wrong. She acts like she'd rather die than curve. Her accent bothers some people, but not me, but the way she explains things is even more confusing. Doesn't post the slides, or give answers to the homeworks. Very little practice. Extremely strict and unforgiving. Take any other professor than her. ANY professor. If you can only take genetics if you take her, wait a semester where you can re-register early, or take it over the summer. Do what you can to avoid this class with her. Unless you actually like to gamble with your financial aid money.