Najib El-Sayed

This professor has taught: BIOI604, BISI620, BISI899, BSCI238E, BSCI329H, BSCI348R, BSCI411, BSCI411H, CBMG688P, CBMG688Y, HLSC208, HLSC227, HLSC280

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Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/06/2024	Bit of a late review, but Najib is not a good professor whatsoever. Have fun reading through useless slides for an exam that has none of the material covered on it. Big waste of time, avoid if still required.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/25/2024	It's possible that the people who gave good reviews were the ones that got research opportunities in his lab or something. He talked about his research so much, it was literally just an advertisement for his lab. The assignments were alright, although he is a stingy grader. The exams were definitely not representative of his lectures. By how much he talked about his research and his field, the exams should've just been a quiz on his lab. The class is a useless 3 credits that likely won't apply to most people's careers and doesn't count as an elective. Save your time and skip ILS if this is still required.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/23/2024	Planet Terp doesn't allow half stars, honestly I would rate the course about a 2.5. Dr. El-Sayed is a nice man, who is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject of bioinformatics. However, the class itself was not a great experience, especially as a first year student. The class was improved upon from last year, and I have no idea how last year's cohort managed to get through the class. The first two weeks brought me into a false sense of security, as it was a review and a slow introduction into the topics. However, the lecture material soon sped up, and key points were not even mentioned in lecture, leading to class-wide misunderstandings. Office hours were fairly helpful, however there is no reason to reexplain the concepts from lecture each week, when they could've been explained that way in lecture. Additionally, not everyone can go to each and every office hours and sit there for the full two hours to actually understand what is going on in class. Lab was the most simple part of this course for me personally, however I have had previous experience in R programming. For most of the class the labs were not related to what we were learning about. The content itself became quite dull too, or at least repetitive. It was a whole class dedicated to learning the different, but very similar ways in which DNA and RNA are sequenced. It is a more niche field, and probably pretty few ILS students are actually interested in pursuing bioinformatics. The required additional readings given were often long and very difficult to get through. Once he assigned his own research paper and a quiz to go along with it, the paper took me hours to get through and understand everything. The exams were probably the worst part of this course. He wrote them the night before we had to take them, so nobody had any clue what it was going to be like. There were 4 exams including the final and one was dropped. They were all 50 minutes and multiple choice (exams 2 and 3 had a worksheet in addition to the multiple choice). The questions were sometimes related to small details, barely mentioned in lecture, or things that I believe were not mentioned at all. I'm not sure if he curved the class at all, however I know he adjusted exam scores afterwards (however this dropped my score on one of them so I do not know the reasoning behind this). The TAs held study sessions for the exams, but as they did not know what was going to be on the exams, they were not that much help. As someone who did not have friends in ILS to study with, I did fine on my own but it was definitely a time commitment. I hope they keep working on this class to make it a more beginner friendly class. I do not think any other honors college has to take such an information heavy course as an intro class (3 credits + we have to take HLSC 100 for one credit).
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 BioBoy05 12/26/2023	Alright, to start off this is a required ILS course, there's mo way out of it, so whether you like it or not you're going to have to take it with El-Sayed. Given this take some of the comments with a grain of salt, yes the lectures can be boring at times, and yes the exams are written last minute and have typos, and he teaches a lot about a lot so the exams sometimes have questions that you only half learned. But remember this is ILS, everyone is coming in with a 4.0 or close to it, and was on top of their class, so a class that honestly is challenging as a requirement sucks especially when it might lower the GPA of pre-med students. The class isn't all doom and gloom though, if you go to lecture, do the readings, and if you need to go to office hours you will do more than fine (the secret is there's more than likely a curve at the end). And crazy enough there are some interesting and useful things you learn about, just obviously not everything. As a final note, don't see this and not join ILS, it's a good program, with good opportunities, that can actually help you if you want to do anything applied science as a career.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2023	Dr. El-Sayed is a wonderful professor who cares about his students, is passionate about what he does, and will go out of his way to offer his help and ensure the success of his students. Lecture content is engaging, and this was my favorite first semester class. You are set up for success in that the final carries the same weight as the midterms. This means that you can drop the final, which several students were able to do, or you can drop one of the midterms. Although this class is not a cakewalk and the material can take time and effort to understand, it is certainly manageable if you pay attention in lecture, attend office hours as often as you are able, and study. I would highly recommend attending office hours, as this is when you can get a better handle on the material and get to know your professor and classmates. I felt that the exams were more than fair, and I overall had a fantastic experience in this class. The lab component of this class is also engaging, especially when you get to the labs that deal directly with application of class content. The lab is coding based. Dr. El-Sayed would also occasionally discuss his research because it directly related to material we were learning. I found this helpful, as seeing a real-world application of class content helped me to better understand what was being taught.
Najib El-Sayed BIOI604 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	The course could use more defining, but the material is fair. It can move fast if it is all new to you, so be aware.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2023	Dr. El Sayed is a nice professor and you can tell he is very passionate about his research. If you go to office hours he will explain things well, and I really do think he wants to see everyone succeed. However, I don't think the curriculum for 280 is well planned out. It's a lot of information thrown in your face, and it's hard to take notes at the speed El Sayed goes over the slides. I don't think he is very good at explaining advanced concepts in the time allotted for class, which is why office hours is a good idea. If you can't go, then it's difficult to study well for this course as a lot of his research and this curriculum are in niche fields and there's not much outside references. The exams themselves can be worded quite badly, and he wasn't even there for a few of them to clarify. Some of the TA's didn't even know what the question was asking during TA office hours. I think rather than understanding the topics we were learning students just memorized the slides and regurgitated the information during exam time. At some point during studying I gave up trying to make sense of every convoluted bullet in the slides and memorized the sentence. He would also give very lengthy reads for hw, but we could work in groups. The articles were very difficult and advanced to understand. Dr.El-sayed did end up curving the class grade, so everyone went up a couple percents. I honestly wished I picked UH so I could get some gen-eds out of the way and have a wayyyy nicer dorm. Also the ILS courses including 280 don't count for anything. Lab also sucked. I liked my TA, but the labs themselves made no sense - total waste of time, thank God I was sitting next to some nerds. Overall, EL-Sayed is a good guy, good researcher, but I wouldn't say good teacher, and 280 is a difficult course with a poorly constructed curriculum
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2023	The other reviews seem too harsh in my opinion. I found this class and its material to be very interesting and I enjoyed my experience overall. I guess if you don't like genetics or biotechnology at all, then you may not like the course material as much. The only difficult part of this class is that the exams are often unpredictable as the learning material is spread out between textbook material, various readings, and lecture material. It is difficult to know exactly how much to study and sometimes the wording of the test questions can be tricky. The grading is still not bad though because the lowest of your four exams gets dropped and there are a lot of buffer points with the homework assignments, reflections, and easy labs. Our final grades were also curved in the end. Dr. El-Sayed is clearly a very knowledgeable and passionate professor and he is very helpful during office hours.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2023	Based on last year’s reviews, I would definitely guess Dr. El-Sayed’s class has improved this year. The material was interesting and gave me an appreciation for what bioinformatics can do, and contrary to the other reviews I found his discussion of his research to be a helpful example of the applications of what we learned. In class, Dr. El-Sayed explained things well and seemed genuinely interested in our success. He is passionate about the topics he teaches. If you compare with classmates, which is encouraged, you can pretty consistently get full points on labs and homework (both of which are pretty quick to do). The material did feel a little all over the place, but if you can understand and memorize each of the concepts then exams will be fine. I would also recommend at least skimming the weekly readings because Dr. El-Sayed likes to put details from those in a couple of the exam questions. The lab component of the class was focused on learning the programming language R, and lab exams were open-note, but it is probably helpful to study a bit for lab exams anyway and do some preparation so you don’t run out of time like I did.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/18/2023	Dr. El-Sayed is a very knowledgeable and kind person, and it's clear that he is trying his best to make improvements from last year since this course is still in its beginning stages. However, the content of this course feels extremely niche, making learning it difficult and not very engaging, especially for what is supposed to be students' first introduction to ILS. His expectations of homework and exams were also quite unclear. It often feels as if he is trying to trick you with his homework, and when he goes over common errors in class, he explains it as if you are supposed to have read his mind about what he wanted. Studying for midterms was time-consuming because it was difficult to gauge his points of emphasis in detail-filled lectures with no review guides. I understand that he is a busy person, but it appeared as though he was not entirely sure of what would be on midterms while teaching either, considering all exams were published the night before. We were told the final would not be cumulative at the beginning of the semester, but on the second to last class before finals week, he announced that over half of the final was going to be cumulative. I am not trying to fault him and plans do understandably change, but you can tell this course is still very shaky in structure because it is so early into its implementation. If you are willing to put in maximal effort for an elective course and bioinformatics is something that already interests you, then I am sure this course will be fine. Dr. El-Sayed is always very excited to discuss his work and willing to answer questions. However, if you have other commitments that are of higher interest to you, I would give this course choice more thought.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/17/2023	I really disliked this course. The content is so hyper-specific and has nothing to do with what most ILS students are pursuing. It was so hard to feel engaged with the content at any point in this course. There are required readings that are long and boring which are sure to show up on exams. Exams are almost impossible to study for because he makes them the night before and gives you absolutely no insight into what's going to be on them. A lot of the questions are stupidly specific and seem like he just wants to trick you. He wants everyone to be as engaged with bioinformatics as he is, which I get, but most of us aren't actually taking this class because we want to. This class was very obviously just a way to show off his research and is otherwise irrelevant to any of the ILS curriculum. Only part of this experience that I liked was that he lets you drop one exam.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	bioinformatics is definitely not an easy, low-effort class... but it isn't unconquerable. i remember when i was first learning the content, i found it difficult to wrap my head around because it's different and often more process-based thinking (different sequencing and genomic analysis methods), however when i started reviewing for the final it didn't feel so bad. it is interesting content, and the application can be interesting especially if you are health or research oriented. we had 3 midterms and a final, each weighing the same, with the lowest of the four being dropped (you could opt to not take the final if you were secure in the class prior to the final exam). i would highly recommend going to office hours for further clarification on concepts. it's good to prepare questions ahead of time, but it is also nice to sit and listen to other questions being asked for more clarification. i remember that a couple of topics we discussed during class and again during office hours were directly referenced on the exams. most of the exams were fair: you have to be careful to read carefully and not get lost in the wording of the questions. additionally, he does pull from the weekly and enrichment readings, often very specifically, so it is very beneficial and important to read them. when we had a guest lecturer, that content was also on one of our midterms. the lab wasn't too bad; our ta was very good and really helped us understand the process of what we were doing in class even though many had not previously used R code before. he always aptly answered the questions we had, no matter how confused we were! the class and lab only started intersecting after a few labs, but it was good to learn the basics of R code since it has so many applications. most assignments had very reasonable deadlines, however lab exams 1 and 2 were both rushed time-wise when we were taking it. the textbook was pretty much only helpful for the first month or so; what dr. el-sayed teaches in class takes precedence over what the textbook says which is important to remember. when i was signing up for ils, i remember being a bit nervous about this class because i had never really heard of the topic or used r code, and it wasn't always easy to learn the concepts, but with the right effort and reviewing of content material it is very approachable. i also highly recommend talking with other friends in your cohort about assignments and when studying for exams -- they are invaluable!
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	Dr. El-Sayed is a good teacher and very passionate about the content of this course. This course is a bit annoying in the way that everyone in ILS has to take it but it doesn't fill any gen-ed requirements and takes a good amount of work. However, it is manageable and the content is pretty interesting and relevant. The only thing I will say is the content is not well distributed on the tests- there may be one question on a seemingly important topic and 10 on something kind of random. He doesn't make his tests until the night before, so there is no way of knowing what is going to appear. But overall, not a bad course and good information to know, just frustrating at times.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2023	I did not enjoy my experience in this class whatsoever. For those entering ILS, this is a 3 credit elective that likely has nothing to do with what you want to do in the future. The lecture material is not engaging whatsoever and I found it really hard to get excited about and study the material. Additionally, he likes to ramble on and on about his own research, skipping key points of the material and making for an even less engaging lecture. Most of the time it is just a select few students that try to impress him and it seems like he picks favorites. There is enrichment material but if you don't care about the course material, it will just make you dread the course even more. He likes to put this enrichment material on the exams. For his exams, they are rather unrepresentative of what he covers during lecture. It takes him two weeks to grade an all multiple choice canvas quiz. It is rather hard to study using alternative resources as this is a specific class with a unique curriculum. The slides are somewhat helpful, but for the most part he makes it really unclear as to what will be on the exam and how we should prepare. He is a stingy grader and takes lots of points off for small mistakes when it comes to homework. I would advise against joining ILS if this course is still a requirement. While bioinformatics may be an interesting topic at surface value, if your first exposure to it is Najib El-Sayed, it will likely become very uninteresting very fast. He speaks very highly of himself and overloads his students with a bunch of information from his research. It almost feels like he is just using the class to advertise his research and the field as a whole. Overall, this course left a sour taste in my mouth for my first semester, and I would try to avoid Professor El-Sayed/HLSC280 as much as possible.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/04/2023	The course content is bland and lectures were not engaging. I came in expecting bioinformatics and genomics to be a cool course but the dry way he lectures makes me want to pull my eyes out. Lectures do not really correlate with the exams - he never says how much detail we need to know for the specific processes so you will either overprepare or underprepare no matter what. With the homeworks, it is often unclear how much detail we need to include. I went to all the lectures, did all the reading and homework, and still am expecting a B. The TAs were helpful but they can only do so much to make up for the professor. I do not feel like I learned anything useful in this class except to stay away from bioinformatics in the future. This course is so niche so I don't understand why it is required as an intro course for ILS. If you are good with molecular biology and CS this might be a course for you. Najib is a very smart guy so he should understand that not everyone is as interested in the topic as he is. His research lab is bioinformatics and he's the director of ILS so it really feels like he's using that power to indoctrinate a bunch of smart kids to his research. ILS should be renamed Bioinformatics Honors if this is going to be a required course.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC280 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/25/2023	he’s definitely a smart person but not a good professor, a very stingy person when it comes to assignments and seems like the type of teacher to “not believe in 100s”.. his lectures are not engaging nor very interesting and the exams he gives don’t really represent what he actually teaches in class.. do not take this class guys 😭
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/24/2023	He is a really nice guy and tries to make the lectures fun. I liked being in the class, but not so much when it came to exams. The exams were a lot harder than I expected, and at times it felt a little unfair. Labs were easy. Then again, the exams could be because this was his first time teaching the class since it's a new class. The material is cool, but the exams were hard, which wasn't so great for me because I'm not good with exams.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/02/2023	I think the other reviews do not show the full picture of Dr. El-Sayed's style of teaching. The only reason this course was difficult was because there was a lack of consistency with the content on each of the exams and the textbooks were not related to class lectures. Since this was the first time this class was taught, Dr. El-Sayed was required to write tests based on what he believed students would know, kind of blindly. The tests were either really easy or way too hard with averages being in the low 60s. However, that being said, Dr. El-Sayed is an amazing lecturer and a really nice guy. There was also a lot of dropped assignments and the final exam could also be dropped.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/02/2023	Pretty fun class, don't trust the other review, as long as you study and go to office hours, you'll be fine
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/19/2023	That was an absolute warcrime of a class. im not trying to scare anyone but srsly this class was so unexpected and tedious! He's a very smart prof, but maybe too smart to teach undergrad freshmen. The tests had averages within the 60s (2 of them). The TAs are very nice tho and they tried to help as much as they could, while learning the content with us. We were the pilot year, so it may be easier next time!! Good luck next year ILSers!
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/18/2023	Professor El-Sayed has easily been the best professor I've had at UMD thus far. He is extremely passionate about what he teaches and makes lectures very interesting by being interactive with students. It is true that his lack of experience with undergraduates made the class harder, with his somewhat harsh grading and high expectations, but he did try to accommodate us. For instance, after seeing that we did not understand much from his first lectures about Sanger sequencing, he intentionally slowed down the pace of the course and began shifting his lectures into becoming more freshman-friendly. While the exams had less-than-ideal results, he definitely listened to student complaints to try and change his class for the better. Given that this was the first time the course was available, I would say he did the best that he could. Overall, I enjoyed his class and feel like I gained a good amount of knowledge from it.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/08/2023	Really nice guy, but not a great professor. He is very harsh with grading FRQs, comes up with random detail-oriented questions on exams, and doesn't curve despite the class average being a D for two of them. This was the only class that I struggled through for my first semester in ILS, and it's a little upsetting knowing that this is an elective class that will be dropping my GPA, and it's staying on my transcript. If you are considering honors college and 208 is still a requirement, I would consider a different honors college and just taking your bio classes as needed. We all need the same science core classes as every other student, but without an additional elective that only stresses you out.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/30/2022	His lectures are pretty disorganized and hard to understand for students with solely an AP bio background. Exams were another issue; two of the four exams had an average of a D (including the final!!). No matter how much you studied for the exams, at the end of the day they were too poorly worded and too specific for you to do well. Exam 2 crushed everyone's souls (and grades) and when we gave him feedback on the tricky question types and poor wording of exam 2, he continued to pose the same types of questions on the final. As expected, the average for the final was a D and he ended up curving last minute. I wish ILSers the best of luck and hope the ILS program takes student input when structuring this course for next year's freshmen.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/25/2022	Dr. El Sayed is extremely passionate about bioinformatics and his research. This was honestly one of the first classes where I found biology interesting and not just memorizing random stuff. We learned about biological concepts that are applied to research daily which made the class much more fun. The tests were somewhat difficult because although he can teach very well, his test-making is a bit over the place. The 2nd and 4th midterms were awful because they tested on us some stuff we had never learned and the 2nd test was very textbook heavy. Average for those tests was 67%. The 1st and 3rd tests had a good balance of textbook and lecture material and that's what you can expect normally from the tests. Avg was 85% (yea it's really high but it's ILS so everyone wants to do well and does well). The lab is very easy and is free points and if you don't understand something the TA's are very helpful with lab and lecture content. There is a also a good ~5% curve at the end. Overall, if you honestly just commit the lecture notes to heart and memorize some of the relevant textbook, an A shouldn't be too troublesome.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/24/2022	Great professor and I feel as if I learned a ton of information from him about the course material. The class was overall very interesting, and he is a great lecturer. Only problem was that some of his exams(exam 2 and 4) were extremely difficult, and he would take off unnessecary points with no context. I feel blind going into every exam, evenif I felt as if I knew all the course material extremely well before every exam.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2022	Dr. El-Sayed is probably the smartest person I have ever been taught by, but that does not necessarily make him a good professor. He is a super nice guy who does very successful and important research; however, I feel like he hasn’t learned how to teach undergrads yet. His exams are very confusing and overly specific. As a lecturer he doesn’t explain concepts in the best way. While studying for the exams I noticed that 5 minute videos explained the concepts better than he could in class. Overall I am kind of scratching my head as to why this has become the intro ILS class. I think they should take a hard look at going back to 207.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2022	El Sayed is a nice and friendly guy and is super smart, but Exam 2 and the Final were unfair both with class avg of D. His grading was inconsistent and the class structure was no good.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2022	Nice person, but grading was very unfair - exams had poorly worded questions and FRQ's were graded harshly. Lectures are pretty much repeat slideshows, and they are the only resources you have to review for exams, including some additional textbook material/online articles. This class has interesting content, but so many students were bogged down by grades than genuinely enjoying what they were learning.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2022	drop ils this instant. i hate this class so much and the program isn't worth it. the professor makes exams unreasonably difficult and takes points off for assignments without any explanation, so we aren't able to actually learn from our mistakes. i went in to see where i got points taken off on my exams and i lost dozens of points on my free response questions, without any explanation or rubric. the lectures are very poorly structured and even if you go in for office hours you can't do well in the class. he doesn't provide rubrics for any assignments (enrichment reflections, homeworks) so we don't know what he's looking for so he takes away points unreasonably afterwards. the ta's were incredible but there's a certain extent to which they can do for our class and the core problem here is the professor and the way he grades/makes the exams. i feel wronged and upset because i did my absolute best in the class and had a solid understanding of the content we learned but i can't do anything because he doesn't curve the class at all.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/16/2022	As long as this is the intro course, do not do ILS. Dr. El-Sayed is nice but this was a horribly disorganized class and exams covered material that was not even discussed in class. Expectations were constantly vague and professor refused to listen to student concerns. Better off doing some other honors program and taking normal bio courses.
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/12/2022	Good person, really passionate about his research, and open to discussing it whenever. Sometimes, lectures felt a bit disorganized with the professor jumping from topic to topic. Exams, as well, had questions on content never covered in class. The majority of exams, for instance, initially, were on textbook content that was never discussed by him. Still learned a lot, just don't know how relevant it will be to my major and other bio-related majors. Great TAs though, really helped us understand tough material! Good luck future ILSers :)
Najib El-Sayed HLSC208 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/07/2022	Good lecturer, he really cares about his subjects. Tests were unfair but you could drop one. Lab was easy. No study guides or practice questions for exams, so you go into it blind. Still, he taught pretty well and was always open to questions. Easy to approach and has good lectures. Exams are tricky as some focus on lecture content and others focus on textbook content.
Najib El-Sayed Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/02/2010	Best biology professor I have had so far. He is so nice (bringing in chocolate for no reason), and is extremely intelligent. His lab on campus is one of the leading in bioinformatics/genomics & he used to work at TIGR, so he definitely knows his stuff. Dr El-Sayed is funny, charming, understanding, and really wants you to get it. Going to lectures is a must--the tests are only on slides and any few homework problems he gives you (not worth too many points, but problems on the test are identical). He says there isn't a curve, but there might be like a 1-2% curve. The lab for this class sucked, but that's because the T.A. expected us to know computer science and was hard to understand. The first test is always the hardest, so really pay attention and memorize everything. The second half of the class isn't so hard. There were 2 tests, participation (he makes sure that you go & participate), labs in PLS computer lab(including a lab midterm & final project), and a few random homework problems and two quizzes. I loved this class and recommend it for anyone interested in bionformatics/genomics/metagenomics, sequencing, etc. It offers a new and more applicable perspective to the Biology that we learn in all the other classes (also, everything but the lab final project was done in class in team work, so it's not a stressful as a normal bio lab).