Mary Chey | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Mary Chey FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/25/2025	As a bio major, this stream was a really cool opportunity for me to get into a wet lab, and it helped me to get into another bio lab. Dr. Chey is a really sweet professor and can be very understanding. As someone with a disability, I also wouldn't call her ablist. She was understanding towards me, considering it's important to stick to a timeline when working with organisms. Her office was always open for questions, and I could have great conversations with her. At the same time, it's obvious that she's a researcher, not a teacher. We spent the first week of class talking about basic genetics, then all of the sudden got a ton of complex genetic information thrown at us. She didn't prepare us well for our projects, and gave us terrible grades when we didn't meet the expectations she never outlined. I wouldn't choose this stream if you're not interested in bio.
Mary Chey FIRE198 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2025	This is honestly one of the most awful teachers/professors I've ever had. She knows all the content perfectly well, but she struggles to actually teach the content in a digestible manner, leaving the ENTIRE class confused on what we are doing at all times. The first few weeks of class feel utterly useless then tons of information is thrown at you at once and you're expected to already have a PHD in worms. It seems like she purposefully targets those who don't know the content, as she will cold call on you and god-forbid you have the wrong answer because she will literally wait until you guess the right one. The assignments are confusing and without the help of the TAs/PRMs (even all of them but one don't know what is going on or how to do anything in this horrendous lab) holding our hand our group would've been so lost. I joined this stream as a Computer Science major with promises of coding in R, but we literally have only done an introductory online course on it and NOTHING so far in the lab. If you wanted a good lab experience going into college or are attending the University of Maryland because of FIRE, don't go into the Gene Silencing Stream. TLDR: Don't ever take this horrendous professor.
Mary Chey FIRE198 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2025	This is honestly one of the most awful teachers/professors I've ever had. She knows all the content perfectly well, but she struggles to actually teach the content in a digestible manner, leaving the ENTIRE class confused on what the fuck we are doing at all times. The first few weeks of class feel utterly useless then tons of information is thrown at you at once and you're expected to already have a PHD in worms. It seems like she purposefully targets those who don't know the content, as she will cold call on you and god-forbid you have the wrong answer because she will literally wait until you guess the right one. The assignments are confusing and without the help of the TAs/PRMs (even all of them but one don't know what is going on or how to do anything in this horrendous lab) holding our hand our group would've been so lost. I joined this stream as a Computer Science major with promises of coding in R, but we literally have only done an introductory online course on it and NOTHING so far in the lab. If you wanted a good lab experience going into college or are attending the University of Maryland because of FIRE, don't go into the Gene Silencing Stream.
Mary Chey FIRE198 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2025	This is honestly one of the most awful teachers/professors I've ever had. She knows all the content perfectly well, but she struggles to actually teach the content in a digestible manner, leaving the ENTIRE class confused on what the fuck we are doing at all times. The first few weeks of class feel utterly useless then tons of information is thrown at you at once and you're expected to already have a PHD in worms. It seems like she purposefully targets those who don't know the content, as she will cold call on you and god-forbid you have the wrong answer because she will literally wait until you guess the right one. The assignments are confusing and without the help of the TAs/PRMs (even all of them but one don't know what is going on or how to do anything in this horrendous lab) holding our hand our group would've been so lost. I joined this stream as a Computer Science major with promises of coding in R, but we literally have only done an introductory online course on it and NOTHING so far in the lab. If you wanted a good lab experience going into college or are attending the University of Maryland because of FIRE, don't go into the Gene Silencing Stream.
Mary Chey FIRE198 Anonymous 04/28/2025	Awful professor. She uses outdated material to teach R. Her slides are walls of texts that are physically painful to parse. She does not adequately prepare the class for the level of genetics concepts that she teaches, resulting in confusion. Class assignments often have frustratingly vague or outright unclear instructions. On top of all that, she's ableist.

Mary Chey
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/25/2025

As a bio major, this stream was a really cool opportunity for me to get into a wet lab, and it helped me to get into another bio lab. Dr. Chey is a really sweet professor and can be very understanding. As someone with a disability, I also wouldn't call her ablist. She was understanding towards me, considering it's important to stick to a timeline when working with organisms. Her office was always open for questions, and I could have great conversations with her. At the same time, it's obvious that she's a researcher, not a teacher. We spent the first week of class talking about basic genetics, then all of the sudden got a ton of complex genetic information thrown at us. She didn't prepare us well for our projects, and gave us terrible grades when we didn't meet the expectations she never outlined. I wouldn't choose this stream if you're not interested in bio.

Mary Chey
FIRE198

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/13/2025

This is honestly one of the most awful teachers/professors I've ever had. She knows all the content perfectly well, but she struggles to actually teach the content in a digestible manner, leaving the ENTIRE class confused on what we are doing at all times. The first few weeks of class feel utterly useless then tons of information is thrown at you at once and you're expected to already have a PHD in worms. It seems like she purposefully targets those who don't know the content, as she will cold call on you and god-forbid you have the wrong answer because she will literally wait until you guess the right one. The assignments are confusing and without the help of the TAs/PRMs (even all of them but one don't know what is going on or how to do anything in this horrendous lab) holding our hand our group would've been so lost. I joined this stream as a Computer Science major with promises of coding in R, but we literally have only done an introductory online course on it and NOTHING so far in the lab. If you wanted a good lab experience going into college or are attending the University of Maryland because of FIRE, don't go into the Gene Silencing Stream. TLDR: Don't ever take this horrendous professor.

Mary Chey
FIRE198

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/13/2025

This is honestly one of the most awful teachers/professors I've ever had. She knows all the content perfectly well, but she struggles to actually teach the content in a digestible manner, leaving the ENTIRE class confused on what the fuck we are doing at all times. The first few weeks of class feel utterly useless then tons of information is thrown at you at once and you're expected to already have a PHD in worms. It seems like she purposefully targets those who don't know the content, as she will cold call on you and god-forbid you have the wrong answer because she will literally wait until you guess the right one. The assignments are confusing and without the help of the TAs/PRMs (even all of them but one don't know what is going on or how to do anything in this horrendous lab) holding our hand our group would've been so lost. I joined this stream as a Computer Science major with promises of coding in R, but we literally have only done an introductory online course on it and NOTHING so far in the lab. If you wanted a good lab experience going into college or are attending the University of Maryland because of FIRE, don't go into the Gene Silencing Stream.

Mary Chey
FIRE198

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/13/2025

This is honestly one of the most awful teachers/professors I've ever had. She knows all the content perfectly well, but she struggles to actually teach the content in a digestible manner, leaving the ENTIRE class confused on what the fuck we are doing at all times. The first few weeks of class feel utterly useless then tons of information is thrown at you at once and you're expected to already have a PHD in worms. It seems like she purposefully targets those who don't know the content, as she will cold call on you and god-forbid you have the wrong answer because she will literally wait until you guess the right one. The assignments are confusing and without the help of the TAs/PRMs (even all of them but one don't know what is going on or how to do anything in this horrendous lab) holding our hand our group would've been so lost. I joined this stream as a Computer Science major with promises of coding in R, but we literally have only done an introductory online course on it and NOTHING so far in the lab. If you wanted a good lab experience going into college or are attending the University of Maryland because of FIRE, don't go into the Gene Silencing Stream.

Mary Chey
FIRE198

Anonymous
04/28/2025

Awful professor. She uses outdated material to teach R. Her slides are walls of texts that are physically painful to parse. She does not adequately prepare the class for the level of genetics concepts that she teaches, resulting in confusion. Class assignments often have frustratingly vague or outright unclear instructions. On top of all that, she's ableist.