Jinwoo Lee | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Anonymous 11/14/2024	He needs to work on his teaching. He speeds through many important concepts. We have pop extra credit quizzes that he goes over before we turn them in. Multiple people asked him to draw the mechanism on the board for the specific problem we did because they did not understand the answer. He stated, "That would take a lot of time," then moved on to teaching the next topic. I would not take a class taught by him again because he is very rude when people don't understand something and want him to go over it. He'll make snarky comments such as "study more your exam is in 2 weeks" instead of helping those who don't understand. Exams are also brutal... The first exam was fine, but he said that since the average was too high on the first exam, he had to make the next exam harder. The second exam was way too difficult to the point where everyone stayed for the entire hour and 15 minute class time to take the exam.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/10/2024	I will admit that I don't think teaching is Dr. Lee's strong suit, but I think he does his best to explain the content. His slides aren't always the most helpful, and he doesn't record lectures BUT if you show up to class you will be fine. Most of our exam questions came from practice problems that he did in class and went over. He sometimes goes through a lot of material quickly, but those don't show up on exams. The content that he repeats over and over are the things that show up on exams. Overall, this is a tough class, but Dr. Lee is really helpful if you ask him questions, and he genuinely wants to see his students succeed.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/15/2024	Overall pretty good experience. Pros: - Lots of review and in class practice. Takes times to do practice questions that would be on the exam and always holds review sessions before the exam. He generally teaches slower than the other professors. For example, he goes over each amino acid one by one. - Exams are very straightforward and if you studied the basics you should do well on the exams. - Lenient Grading. There were often extra credit points on the exam. There was one pymol assignment which was worth 5% of the grade and it was graded very leniently. There was also a pretty heavy curve at the end. - Fast grading. Generally you can expect feedback on exams in around 1 week from the time you take it. - Generally nice and understanding. He recently pushes for an increase in class participation, and enthusiastically teaches at 9:30 every morning, ever semester. Cons: - Slides aren't great. A lot of the practice questions are not legible the way he formats them, so going to class is important. - Less material covered compared to other biochem 1 classes. He does not cover sugars, dna, or lipids. It's all proteins. I think I had a lesser understanding of biochemistry compared to my peers in other classes. However, it does make the class an easy A.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2023	Never left a review before but let's give it a go. Alright, I won't lie, it's a tough class. Here's my pros and cons: Pros: -teaches biochemistry that is actually used in the research field/ lab-setting. He is very practical and won't spend a lot of time teaching you concepts that you don't need/ are outdated -forces you to learn graduate-style level teaching. Not all professors will hold your hand, and they certainly won't in upper-level classes. Sometimes you have to learn to use alternative resources to learn the content and fill in the blanks, and this class teaches you the importance of that. -little to no graded outside work. The quizzes are free points (yeah a few points will be lost here and there but in the grand scheme they don't matter) and he gives you two months notice for the major assignment that's worth 5% of your grade. -he has become more empathetic about students having other exams and other class content to study for. As a result he has significantly slowed down the pace of teaching content -large curve Cons: -office hours are far away (which is inconvenient for a lot of students), and for our semester it was at very inconvenient times during the day (around 11-ish twice a week which is when I had other classes) -very textbook-dependent (if you actually want to understand the class content and its importance). You will often have to attend the lecture, and then immediately after read the textbook chapter that was covered in class. You could also do it before if you happen to have the time. The good news is that every individual lecture covered at most 5-10 pages of content and you can easily skim the textbook to get to the parts you recognize in the lecture. To be honest, not a lot of students do it, and I think that's why this class can be so confusing. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. -the exams will be a bit tricky to follow sometimes as the professor gets a bit creative with his questions. However, if you ask for clarification, the TA (who's super nice!) or the professor will try to clear it up for you so that you have a better idea of what the question is asking. Don't be afraid to ask questions. The averages will be around 50-60% because there is little to no partial credit, making exams stressful. To be honest, this was not as bad a course as some of the comments I read before the semester made it out to be. Here's my advice: -read the textbook chapter before or after class -ask questions and actively participate in class. Blurt out the answers to his open-ended questions during the lecture and if you get it wrong you'll remember the right answer because you'll be engaged. -do the Pymol assignment (5% of your grade) as soon as you can to get an idea of how Pymol works and how to get around its features -REMEMBER/ REVIEW ENZYME KINETICS FROM GEN CHEM II -study with your peers and try to teach each other Honestly, he's a pretty smart and nice guy if you engage and participate. You guys got this!!!!
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	As a professor he seems to be more fixated on his own research which prevents him from focusing on the class. Unfortunately for students this means you have to heavily rely on showing up to class and reading from the textbook (he will never post his slides). Even with practice problems from the text book and showing up to class the exams will kill your grade. The most alien, thought provoking questions show up on exams which you are expected to answer with a short amount of time. As almost everyone says about this class, the curve will blow your mind above a 30% is considered passing. As someone who is expected to continue with biochemistry courses I worry that perhaps I don't have a strong enough concept of biochemistry to do well in the classes following. He's a sweet professor but don't expect him to respond to your emails or schedule exam reviews.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Eliser003 12/19/2023	Could not disagree with the previous reviews of this professor more- his exams are NOT based on textbook, lecture or homework problems. There is no homework for this class except for weekly quizzes worth 0.75 points PER QUIZ since the class is out of 100 points TOTAL. This man lives for biochemistry and his exams are beyond this courses understand
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/15/2023	Wow. This was a rough class to take. Let me say this, Dr. Lee is a very sweet person but I truthfully do not think he should be teaching this class. Typically, chem professors provide some type of practice exam or answer keys to midterms for us to understand what went wrong. For this class, it didn't happen. He provided us with questions from the textbook, which did help a bit but did not prepare us for the exams as much as we needed to be prepared, as only a handful of questions from the textbook were on the exam. For the first midterm, the average was pretty high, in the 70s. Dr. Lee wasn't a fan of how people left before the exam time finished and made the second exam longer, leading to many people being unable to finish on time. One question (which was from the textbook), we were never taught or provided a conversion for. Even if you did do this question from the textbook, if you didn't remember the conversion you were screwed. The average for this exam was in the low 50s. For both exams, an answer key was not provided. After being asked to provide an answer key, he told us he would have to look for it. I guess he never got around to looking. He created discussion boards for us to ask questions but would only respond to 1/3rd of them a few days before the exam. He would answer a few during review sessions but for the most part, those review sessions were primarily based off of bits and pieces of the discussion board which didn't really help overall. The final exam was a doozy, to say the least. It took the whole two hours to complete and it was rough. I would honestly not recommend this professor. If you can take it with anyone else, please do. Dr. Lee is a nice person, but not a good professor.
Jinwoo Lee Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/06/2022	Not the worst professor I've had, and not the best. Biochem is a hard class, and requires you to study and be on top of the material. Professor Lee does test fairly (he tests the material he teaches), but you definitely have to show up to class, take notes, and study to succeed.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Anonymous 06/01/2022	exams are unbelievable and his slides/notes are pretty much worthless. Basically, just read the textbook, but even then there will be totally alien things on the exam. But, he himself is nice and does not make class a hostile environment (like Dr. Friedman for example). And, the curve is superrrrrr generous and it is very difficult to not pass (getting above a 30% is a pass I believe). Getting a good grade on the other hand is another story and will require some serious work.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Anonymous 05/13/2022	Allow me to summarize his style of teaching. Teaching style: -Very textbook heavy. -Each lecture consists of 50-60 slides and every slide is compacted with information. -Alway read from the slide and half of the time does not know what he’s talking about. -Does not record the lecture (so good luck with that) -Rarely post any written or annotated notes he made on the slide to elms. If he does, you’ll notice it won’t be a fews days after. -NO SCHEDULED OR EXAM REVIEW DAY. But he does answer any question that students may have on the day of the l lecture before the exam and he’ll go over them. -When you ask questions, he would often say “would do you think?” (I mean seriously if I know the answer I wouldn’t be asking the question). Half of the time he never really answer the question. -Rarely go over any practice problems yet the midterms consist mostly short answers and calculations. (I managed to get an A on the second midterm, but that is only when he posted a key to the practice problems we’ve done. AND literally whole class asked him to post the key. So, what does that mean? It means that he didn’t even considering posting the key if not the whole class asked. But the average was still below 50% for the 2nd midterm. So, I was very lucky). -BTW, the midterms and final combined are 85% of your grade. So failing one midterm will put you at most a C. Homework/assignments: -Only worth 1 point total -Mainly consists of completing the problems from the textbook, usually falls in the range of 15-25 questions. -BUT, he specifically said on the first day of class that he will only grade ONLY ONE QUESTION and give you the whole credit if you got it right and showed work. -That means if he grade the ONLY one question you got it wrong on the assignment you will get a 0. Doesn’t matter if you got every other questions correct. Quizzes -Fairly easy. -Around 4-6 points -You’ll be okay as long as you read over the slides. Midterms (I don’t even know where to start) -Consist of 2 midterms -Consist of 25 points total -Around 15 questions (some of the question consists of multiple parts) -Few multiple choices questions that is derived from the quizzes. -The rest are short answers and calculations. -Very ugly, but you’ll do just fine if you look over the practice problems he did during lectures, but as previously stated he rarely post any annotated notes to elms. So, you’re essentially screwed if he doesn’t post it. -Class average are below 50% for both midterms. So, essentially means more than half of the class failed. -But he does give out a huge curve for both exams based on the average, A lot of people are happy with that, but in my opinion you should know that giving out a huge curve is not a good thing. It means that the reason why the whole class in failing mainly lies on the professor. -I even heard that the TA struggled to grade his midterms. Final (You’ll feel like giving up 10 minutes into the exam). -Consist of 35 points -Around 21 questions (including questions multiple parts, so around 30 questions in total) -NO MULTIPLE CHOICE. ALL SHORT ANSWERS AND CALCULATIONS. -Very very ugly. It’s like taking the exam from another course that you’ve never taken. -Previous midterms and practice problems are no help. -Almost over half of the exam consist of unfamiliar questions and materials. -There will be questions that was never covered in the previous midterms. Or should I say that barely any questions from the previously exams will be on the final. Guided Study Section (GSS) -HIGLY RECOMMENDED. This is the only time I feel like I understood something from lecture. Seriously, even the GSS instructor are better at teaching. This is hands down the worst class I have since first day of college. Even Organic Chemistry I & II is lot easier compare to this class.
Jinwoo Lee BCHM461 Expecting a B mintman 05/18/2020	Do not take any classes with this man! He said our test average was too high and made our last 2 exams so hard the averages were in the 40s. Also an awful teacher and just reads off slides.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Anonymous
11/14/2024

He needs to work on his teaching. He speeds through many important concepts. We have pop extra credit quizzes that he goes over before we turn them in. Multiple people asked him to draw the mechanism on the board for the specific problem we did because they did not understand the answer. He stated, "That would take a lot of time," then moved on to teaching the next topic. I would not take a class taught by him again because he is very rude when people don't understand something and want him to go over it. He'll make snarky comments such as "study more your exam is in 2 weeks" instead of helping those who don't understand. Exams are also brutal... The first exam was fine, but he said that since the average was too high on the first exam, he had to make the next exam harder. The second exam was way too difficult to the point where everyone stayed for the entire hour and 15 minute class time to take the exam.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/10/2024

I will admit that I don't think teaching is Dr. Lee's strong suit, but I think he does his best to explain the content. His slides aren't always the most helpful, and he doesn't record lectures BUT if you show up to class you will be fine. Most of our exam questions came from practice problems that he did in class and went over. He sometimes goes through a lot of material quickly, but those don't show up on exams. The content that he repeats over and over are the things that show up on exams. Overall, this is a tough class, but Dr. Lee is really helpful if you ask him questions, and he genuinely wants to see his students succeed.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/15/2024

Overall pretty good experience. Pros: - Lots of review and in class practice. Takes times to do practice questions that would be on the exam and always holds review sessions before the exam. He generally teaches slower than the other professors. For example, he goes over each amino acid one by one. - Exams are very straightforward and if you studied the basics you should do well on the exams. - Lenient Grading. There were often extra credit points on the exam. There was one pymol assignment which was worth 5% of the grade and it was graded very leniently. There was also a pretty heavy curve at the end. - Fast grading. Generally you can expect feedback on exams in around 1 week from the time you take it. - Generally nice and understanding. He recently pushes for an increase in class participation, and enthusiastically teaches at 9:30 every morning, ever semester. Cons: - Slides aren't great. A lot of the practice questions are not legible the way he formats them, so going to class is important. - Less material covered compared to other biochem 1 classes. He does not cover sugars, dna, or lipids. It's all proteins. I think I had a lesser understanding of biochemistry compared to my peers in other classes. However, it does make the class an easy A.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/24/2023

Never left a review before but let's give it a go. Alright, I won't lie, it's a tough class. Here's my pros and cons: Pros: -teaches biochemistry that is actually used in the research field/ lab-setting. He is very practical and won't spend a lot of time teaching you concepts that you don't need/ are outdated -forces you to learn graduate-style level teaching. Not all professors will hold your hand, and they certainly won't in upper-level classes. Sometimes you have to learn to use alternative resources to learn the content and fill in the blanks, and this class teaches you the importance of that. -little to no graded outside work. The quizzes are free points (yeah a few points will be lost here and there but in the grand scheme they don't matter) and he gives you two months notice for the major assignment that's worth 5% of your grade. -he has become more empathetic about students having other exams and other class content to study for. As a result he has significantly slowed down the pace of teaching content -large curve Cons: -office hours are far away (which is inconvenient for a lot of students), and for our semester it was at very inconvenient times during the day (around 11-ish twice a week which is when I had other classes) -very textbook-dependent (if you actually want to understand the class content and its importance). You will often have to attend the lecture, and then immediately after read the textbook chapter that was covered in class. You could also do it before if you happen to have the time. The good news is that every individual lecture covered at most 5-10 pages of content and you can easily skim the textbook to get to the parts you recognize in the lecture. To be honest, not a lot of students do it, and I think that's why this class can be so confusing. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. -the exams will be a bit tricky to follow sometimes as the professor gets a bit creative with his questions. However, if you ask for clarification, the TA (who's super nice!) or the professor will try to clear it up for you so that you have a better idea of what the question is asking. Don't be afraid to ask questions. The averages will be around 50-60% because there is little to no partial credit, making exams stressful. To be honest, this was not as bad a course as some of the comments I read before the semester made it out to be. Here's my advice: -read the textbook chapter before or after class -ask questions and actively participate in class. Blurt out the answers to his open-ended questions during the lecture and if you get it wrong you'll remember the right answer because you'll be engaged. -do the Pymol assignment (5% of your grade) as soon as you can to get an idea of how Pymol works and how to get around its features -REMEMBER/ REVIEW ENZYME KINETICS FROM GEN CHEM II -study with your peers and try to teach each other Honestly, he's a pretty smart and nice guy if you engage and participate. You guys got this!!!!

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
12/20/2023

As a professor he seems to be more fixated on his own research which prevents him from focusing on the class. Unfortunately for students this means you have to heavily rely on showing up to class and reading from the textbook (he will never post his slides). Even with practice problems from the text book and showing up to class the exams will kill your grade. The most alien, thought provoking questions show up on exams which you are expected to answer with a short amount of time. As almost everyone says about this class, the curve will blow your mind above a 30% is considered passing. As someone who is expected to continue with biochemistry courses I worry that perhaps I don't have a strong enough concept of biochemistry to do well in the classes following. He's a sweet professor but don't expect him to respond to your emails or schedule exam reviews.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Eliser003
12/19/2023

Could not disagree with the previous reviews of this professor more- his exams are NOT based on textbook, lecture or homework problems. There is no homework for this class except for weekly quizzes worth 0.75 points PER QUIZ since the class is out of 100 points TOTAL. This man lives for biochemistry and his exams are beyond this courses understand

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/15/2023

Wow. This was a rough class to take. Let me say this, Dr. Lee is a very sweet person but I truthfully do not think he should be teaching this class. Typically, chem professors provide some type of practice exam or answer keys to midterms for us to understand what went wrong. For this class, it didn't happen. He provided us with questions from the textbook, which did help a bit but did not prepare us for the exams as much as we needed to be prepared, as only a handful of questions from the textbook were on the exam. For the first midterm, the average was pretty high, in the 70s. Dr. Lee wasn't a fan of how people left before the exam time finished and made the second exam longer, leading to many people being unable to finish on time. One question (which was from the textbook), we were never taught or provided a conversion for. Even if you did do this question from the textbook, if you didn't remember the conversion you were screwed. The average for this exam was in the low 50s. For both exams, an answer key was not provided. After being asked to provide an answer key, he told us he would have to look for it. I guess he never got around to looking. He created discussion boards for us to ask questions but would only respond to 1/3rd of them a few days before the exam. He would answer a few during review sessions but for the most part, those review sessions were primarily based off of bits and pieces of the discussion board which didn't really help overall. The final exam was a doozy, to say the least. It took the whole two hours to complete and it was rough. I would honestly not recommend this professor. If you can take it with anyone else, please do. Dr. Lee is a nice person, but not a good professor.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Anonymous
06/01/2022

exams are unbelievable and his slides/notes are pretty much worthless. Basically, just read the textbook, but even then there will be totally alien things on the exam. But, he himself is nice and does not make class a hostile environment (like Dr. Friedman for example). And, the curve is superrrrrr generous and it is *very* difficult to not pass (getting above a 30% is a pass I believe). Getting a good grade on the other hand is another story and will require some serious work.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Anonymous
05/13/2022

Allow me to summarize his style of teaching. Teaching style: -Very textbook heavy. -Each lecture consists of 50-60 slides and every slide is compacted with information. -Alway read from the slide and half of the time does not know what he’s talking about. -Does not record the lecture (so good luck with that) -Rarely post any written or annotated notes he made on the slide to elms. If he does, you’ll notice it won’t be a fews days after. -NO SCHEDULED OR EXAM REVIEW DAY. But he does answer any question that students may have on the day of the l lecture before the exam and he’ll go over them. -When you ask questions, he would often say “would do you think?” (I mean seriously if I know the answer I wouldn’t be asking the question). Half of the time he never really answer the question. -Rarely go over any practice problems yet the midterms consist mostly short answers and calculations. (I managed to get an A on the second midterm, but that is only when he posted a key to the practice problems we’ve done. AND literally whole class asked him to post the key. So, what does that mean? It means that he didn’t even considering posting the key if not the whole class asked. But the average was still below 50% for the 2nd midterm. So, I was very lucky). -BTW, the midterms and final combined are 85% of your grade. So failing one midterm will put you at most a C. Homework/assignments: -Only worth 1 point total -Mainly consists of completing the problems from the textbook, usually falls in the range of 15-25 questions. -BUT, he specifically said on the first day of class that he will only grade ONLY ONE QUESTION and give you the whole credit if you got it right and showed work. -That means if he grade the ONLY one question you got it wrong on the assignment you will get a 0. Doesn’t matter if you got every other questions correct. Quizzes -Fairly easy. -Around 4-6 points -You’ll be okay as long as you read over the slides. Midterms (I don’t even know where to start) -Consist of 2 midterms -Consist of 25 points total -Around 15 questions (some of the question consists of multiple parts) -Few multiple choices questions that is derived from the quizzes. -The rest are short answers and calculations. -Very ugly, but you’ll do just fine if you look over the practice problems he did during lectures, but as previously stated he rarely post any annotated notes to elms. So, you’re essentially screwed if he doesn’t post it. -Class average are below 50% for both midterms. So, essentially means more than half of the class failed. -But he does give out a huge curve for both exams based on the average, A lot of people are happy with that, but in my opinion you should know that giving out a huge curve is not a good thing. It means that the reason why the whole class in failing mainly lies on the professor. -I even heard that the TA struggled to grade his midterms. Final (You’ll feel like giving up 10 minutes into the exam). -Consist of 35 points -Around 21 questions (including questions multiple parts, so around 30 questions in total) -NO MULTIPLE CHOICE. ALL SHORT ANSWERS AND CALCULATIONS. -Very very ugly. It’s like taking the exam from another course that you’ve never taken. -Previous midterms and practice problems are no help. -Almost over half of the exam consist of unfamiliar questions and materials. -There will be questions that was never covered in the previous midterms. Or should I say that barely any questions from the previously exams will be on the final. Guided Study Section (GSS) -HIGLY RECOMMENDED. This is the only time I feel like I understood something from lecture. Seriously, even the GSS instructor are better at teaching. This is hands down the worst class I have since first day of college. Even Organic Chemistry I & II is lot easier compare to this class.

Jinwoo Lee
BCHM461

Expecting a B
mintman
05/18/2020

Do not take any classes with this man! He said our test average was too high and made our last 2 exams so hard the averages were in the 40s. Also an awful teacher and just reads off slides.