| Information | Review |
|---|---|
|
Ricardo Araneda
BSCI446 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/08/2019 |
Ricardo is a poor professor. Plain and simple. Does not communicate expectations to students and then gets angry when these unspoken expectations are not met. Unenthusiastic with teaching; seems like he is being forced to do this as a component of his contract with the university. Condescending when asked questions; if he decides he's above answering a question of yours, he won't do it and will instead try to make you feel bad by indirectly insulting your intelligence. Overall, not a people person, no teaching ability, and little interest in the well-being of students. |
|
Ricardo Araneda
BSCI446 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/16/2016 |
BSCI446 was a good expansion on the concepts introduced in BSCI353. 446 essentially covers all of the ideas discussed in 353 - but it spends equal time on all of them (353 seemed to have very biased focus on certain concepts depending on what the professor did research in). While the textbook is not necessary to do well in 446, Dr. Araneda seemed to use the Purves textbook heavily in his powerpoints and lectures, so reading the textbook made the course pretty straightforward. Dr. Araneda was also very receptive to questions. He does expect students to come prepared to his office hours (this is an upper level neuroscience course so he wouldn't discuss basic neuro concepts, like action potentials and nernst), but he was more than willing (in my experience) to sit down and spend time discussing the concepts he lectured on. Overall, I'd recommend taking this course under Dr. Araneda if you thought 353 was interesting but wanted to explore all of the concepts a bit more thoroughly. If you read the textbook and come to class/office hours with relevant questions, the course will be a cinch. |
|
Ricardo Araneda
BSCI440 Anonymous 10/12/2012 |
This is by far the worst professor I have had in my 7semesters at UMD. Im a cell bio and molecular genetics major and I love this stuff. I loved the content of the class but he is a terrible professor. I cannot stress more to never take this guy. He cant teach. He expects you to know everything and doesnt explain well, if at all. I stopped going to lecture after the first exam because I got so mad at how every other sentence he would say, "Do you guys know that? (2 second pause) Well you should. Look it up." That got me so angry I just stopped going. I read the book and things made sense. That's how I passed the class. |
|
Ricardo Araneda
BSCI440 Expecting a 74 Anonymous 09/26/2012 |
I made it a point to go to every single lecture at the start of the semester. 9 am class. After a week, I realized how useless they were. But I still went. 3 weeks in, I gave up. Lectures are pointless. He doesn't clearly explain things, he goes over things that don't show up on the exams, and he glides over important parts of the book. So Just read the book. If you want to do well in this class, you have to be vigilant about learning everything yourself. There was a curve at the end though. The discussions were useful in that you could ask questions to TAs who've taken this class before and have a better idea of what's important to cover. Exams were difficult because the material is so dense, the only way to do well is to read the chapters over and over and try your best to synthesize the stuff with his slides. Also, there's stuff that's covered that's not on his slides or in the books, so yeah, enjoy if you're lucky enough to have him. Teaching is not his calling. |