John Buchner

This professor has taught: BSCI223, BSCI283, BSCI348A, BSCI412

Sort By:

Information	Review
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/27/2024	Miserable old man. I thought he was nice and chill at first but I was wrong. Accused half the lecture of cheating on homework and exams when everything is open note and we are allowed to use the internet. And when trying to contact him about it he refused to discuss the matter with any of his students due to a "power imbalance". He put all of these students at a risk of receiving an XF in the course or worse only for the honor council to also not understand what the issue was and dismiss the cases after weeks of investigation. Lectures are also waste of time and have nothing to do with exam content. So much busy work and the multiple part at home exams take hours.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/18/2024	Super fun and chill class. The labs are actually really hands on and fun, and you don't really need to know much information from lecture to complete the labs. There is a lot of busy work but the majority of it is jut graded on completion. Exams can be a little tricky but they don't impact your grade too much. If you have a good/chill TA for lab, you should be totally fine! Lecture is flipped classroom style which can be helpful for some, just have a basic idea of what is being taught and you should be fine. Dr. Buchner is really sweet and responds quickly to emails.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/24/2024	This class was easy but had SO much busy work attached to it. It was flipped lectures, except Buchner didn't do anything useful in class and instead read scientific article abstracts out loud during lecture. I would recommend watching the lecture videos, but not actually going to class and just keeping the clickers open during class time (you need to do 2/3 of them every lecture to get participation points). The lab homework and the PAKs are graded for completion. The graded assignments were not difficult, but you have to THOROUGHLY read the rubric. The instructions and the rubric at the bottom sometimes differed and you have to make sure to hit all the requirements to get an A. The exams are multi-part take home ones open for a few days. They test conceptual understanding rather than memorization and take HOURS, so be careful during finals season. I learned a lot more during lab than I did during lecture, mostly because I had an amazing TA. However, you're in the same lab group for the entire semester and do all of your projects with them, so if you get a bad group you're gonna have to do all of the work yourself. If you have the time to dedicate to completing the sheer volume of assignments for this class, then it's an easy A.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2024	This course is very chill and honestly really fun. Dr. Buchner taught lecture while Dr. Tran oversaw lab (although I didn't really interact with Dr. Tran). I really loved this course. Lab is super fun: you get to make friends in lab and do really cool things with microbes. Also, it is cool that lecture and lab are synched together into one class, as lab TAs are helpful for general class content. In terms of lecture, class takes a flipped-classroom approach. You watch Dr. Buchner's online videos and during class go through review-question slides. (Although Dr. Buchner likes to go off-topic with microbiology current events snippets at points). Class is very chill. You can do it in person or on zoom. And you don't need to get the questions right, you just need to provide some sort of an answer for 2/3 of the questions per day. However, the class is not very 'right/wrong' oriented. Most projects are open-ended responses and Dr. Buchner often likes many different multiple choice answers during the class clickers. In terms of workload, it is actually really intense. Between PAKs and homeworks (both graded only on completion), lab reflections, research boxes, and our 'exams' (which I will get to in a minute), it is a lot of work. The 'exams' are very time consuming, although not really exams. You are assigned 5-6 sets of open-ended, multiple choice, and other projects on Canvas that are due in 1 week. So in short, you don't really need to "study" for exams. But when you fall behind on notes, it makes the exams much harder to complete. In terms of resources, definitely don't get the textbook. The videos that Dr. Buchner posts should be more than plenty to help you. Plus, this course is so time demanding that after attempting to watch Dr. Buchner's videos, attend class, and do assignments, there is no use studying out of a textbook, unless you do nothing else during the semester.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2024	He says the classroom is a flipped classroom....it's really not. Rather than doing homework in lecture and learning the content at home, you watch lecture videos at home, do homework at home, and go to class just to go over the homework (it won't tell you correct answers) via clicker questions. It's just busy work honestly. The lab is super cool though and easy as well as long as you get a good TA ofc. Do all the assignments as best you can, make a study group, and you'll do fine in the class. Pretty generous grading by the prof (he grades some assignments himself) and the tas too. The midterms and final are take home and open note but that does make them wayyyy harder so make sure before the midterm/final you have watched all the lecture videos and read over the lab protocols/slides. Overall, not a bad class just a lot of busy work which annoying but not the end of the world.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2024	Take this class with this professor if you are trying to get out of genetics. His labs are so fun and so awesome and amazing, at least in the section I was in. However, there is a insane amount of homework so plan time accordingly.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2024	My only advice to you is to put off this class until you can get a different professor for it. At the beginning of the semester I thought he was cool and chill but oh boy was I wrong. First off, he does not teach in class; he only does clicker questions for assignments we have already done and reads about the bird flu and measles which isn't even relevant to the content we were studying. He expects you to watch videos he made from several years ago to keep up, and there are MANY of these videos. You shouldn't choose him as a professor because towards the end of the semester he sent out reports with LONG lists of names (and I mean LONG, as in pages) accusing people of cheating on a 4 point homework assignment graded for completion, and we were allowed to use the internet and work with others. His excuse was that we "used a similar clover shape" for a protein or "used similar colors and shapes". For context, this was an assignment where he PROVIDED us with a template, and there was only one right answer and a list of things we needed to include, so how would everyones look different?? When peers challenged his accusation to the honor council, even they said that they don't understand what he thinks was cheating, AND noted that he never even provided the template to them or informed them that we all got the same one, which would have changed everything. Now, I've heard he is sending out more accusations to even more people on an exam, and refusing to reply to people's emails due to a "power dynamic issue", he quite literally copied and pasted this response to everyone. I really would like to know how working this out with him directly is more of a imbalance of power than reporting someone to the honor council and risking them getting an XF and expelled or suspended. So, essentially, don't take this class unless you want to spend months proving that you didn't copy just because you drew a red circle on a 4 point homework completion assignment! Sorry not sorry Dr. Buchner, you did this one to yourself. Stop being like that.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/13/2024	Super chill professor, you don't do much in class besides clickers/point solutions. I gave him 4 stars only because of the insane amount of homework he gives. He typically grades on completion rather than accuracy though and the assignments are relatively easy.
John Buchner BSCI283 Expecting an A florm 12/26/2022	Dr. Buchner made all of the labs for 283, while Drs. Stein and Winkler taught the lectures/made the exams. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a lab more than this one. Culturing bacteria, looking at them under the microscope, and doing all these different tests on them was so much fun. The procedures were all available online and very clear to follow, so as long as you read it, listened to the TA, and used some common sense, you wouldn't have any troubles. There were a couple of labs where we had these "Microbial Olympics" where our bacteria would compete in different ways, like which one could grow the farthest in the presence of E. coli. We also got to make drawings with different colored bacteria which was super cool. There were short 2-3 question quizzes (BLQs) due before every lab which every now and then had a notoriously difficult question, but you get multiple attempts and they're only worth 3 points so it's fine. Occasionally there were after-lab assignments (ALQs) which were longer and required a lot of explanations, but I think we only had 4 of those the entire semester. There is a lab final that takes place over two days and requires you to demonstrate your abilities with different techniques (streak plates, dilutions, Gram staining, microscopy, etc.) and explain why you're doing them. We were allowed to take notes on the protocol ahead of time, though, which really helped make it less stressful. Overall, the lab for 283 (which I imagine is almost identical to the lab for 223) was incredibly well put together and organized, and let us do some really cool things with microbes.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2022	Dr. Buchner is a great professor who provides many resources to help you succeed in class. This class is not very difficult content-wise, but the work can be tedious and time-consuming. If you attend lectures and go over the slides, you should be able to get an A or B. Dr. Buchner is a funny professor who is extremely helpful. He goes over assignments and questions in class, and after exams, provides an opportunity for individuals to request their tests to be regarded. If you can provide evidence to back your answer he will give it to you. Buchner likes to relate a lot of the course content to current events, making this class interesting. This class is pretty straightforward, but the workload can be overwhelming sometimes. The class PAKs can take a while to complete depending on the questions. The lab is very simple, but attendance is necessary. In the lab, you follow directions and have a couple of group assignments and presentations, which are pretty simple. Overall the workload in this class can be a lot especially since you have 2 lab sections each week.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	easiest bsci class there is, im not even gonna hold you I may end up with an A or very high B in this class and if you ask me what I've learned?????? LOL bruhhh, take this class with a friend and you're good. On your own with no friends? um maybe not so much of an easy A or B for ya but make some in class lol. Buchner is s chill and so sweet as well. Very accessible and willing to help.
John Buchner Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2022	Boring and lectures are absolutely useless. Learned nothing. Got an A tho!
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/12/2022	I dont need to wait til the end of the semester to give this course a review. If there is any class or set of professors that COULD CARE LESS that you're taking other classes that also require your effort and attention. Its these guys!!!
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/03/2021	Loved taking Buchner's class. He is by far the coolest professor I've had yet. He seems like a very kind and understanding person and makes lots of accommodations due to COVID. His lectures can be helpful because he just goes over questions most students didn't understand. Many bad reviews I've seen said he gives too much busy work which I agree with but MOST of it is participation points. As long as you put in some effort, you will get full points for completion. For exams there are a few parts to it but you also get 1-2 weeks to complete it but some questions can be tricky. Lab was good in person. Very minimal effort. You just have to read directions and follow them. I had an awesome TA and he was very lenient with grading so lab helped bring my grade up. There are a few assignments where you have to present but they are very informal and less than 5 minutes as a group. I had to take this class for my major and was super worried about it but it was pretty straightforward. A good amount of effort but easy A for the most part.
John Buchner BSCI223 Anonymous 12/19/2020	Maybe because the course is online due to COVID, but his way of teaching does not make sense at all and he assigns too many assignments per week. His major assignments (PAKs) are genuinely useless and needs EXTRA (I mean whole new) research just for those assignments. His lecture videos are very brief and not at all detailed, so basically useless for all the assignments. His research box assignments, which we have to read a research article per week and analyze, are way out of our league and not at all related to the course. So, basically I have wasted my semester reading and doing shits that are not even related to the college-level GENERAL microbiology. I don't know who else teaches this course and about their ratings, but DO NOT (I MEAN IT) DO NOT TAKE BUCHNER IF YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT MICROBIOLOGY.
John Buchner BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/06/2019	Buchner makes lectures very interesting and connects material to real-life examples, which made everything easier to understand. It definitely helps to have at least a little background in biology, because a lot of it I've seen before. His first exam was really hard and I failed, but after that, I got As on the second exam and the final. Study the PAK material. His exams are so long and you have to budget your time really well if you want to finish. The lab is a decent amount of work, but it's an easy boost to your grade if you submit everything on time. It's not super hard to get an A in the class, you just have to focus on the bigger concepts when studying. I do recommend Buchner, just be ready to put in the time for a 4 credit class!