| Information | Review |
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Karen Lips
BSCI462 Anonymous 05/18/2021 |
I’ve had her for two classes during the pandemic and she was very encouraging and created a good, stress-free environment. She assigned weekly papers, videos or recording to write about but they were all very interesting and taught me a lot on the work done in the field. In both of my classes with her she also made a point of bringing guest speakers to talk to the students about what they do and how they tackle projects, which also taught us about their daily work routines and the good and the bad of the field. I strongly recommend this teacher, she listens to the students and makes sure to better her class throughout the semester using the feedback making her very accommodating during the difficult times. I’m very thankful to have had her as her understanding and support during the semester was something that I needed during some very difficult times at home. |
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Karen Lips
BSCI462 Anonymous 05/28/2020 |
I definitely think Lips has improved since the past reviews. I really liked the structure of BSCI462. Each week you read 3-6ish recent scientific papers and have to write a 1 page summary paper which is graded for completion. That took me about 3 hours each week. Then there are “activities” each week that I didn’t think were that useful, but they didn’t take too long and were supposed to be completed during class (usually had to finish them for homework). So about 4 hours each week of homework. Then there is the research paper assignment which is a huge chunk of the grade, but you have lots of freedom to do whatever you want which was fun. It took me about 30 hours of work on the paper. I did find it very frustrating that it was due so close to finals. The single exam was not too bad. Just study the concepts of the weekly papers and make sure to have lots of examples memorized. Karen Lips was very kind and forgiving. She loves biology. She wasn’t always super engaging, but most days were decent especially since it was a small class. I’d recommend BSCI462 with Lips. |
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Karen Lips
BSCI462 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/25/2019 |
Requires an insane amount of work for no reason. There's a weekly assignment to read 6-10+ articles and write a 1-2 page paper finding common themes between them. The lecture then goes over these papers, but the focus is on the methodologies. The midterm asked questions from the methodologies only - no bigger picture questions. Think "what species of tuna did they catch" instead of "why was it important they caught tuna". In a room of 16 senior biology undergrad and graduate students, the average was a 73%. There was no hint of a curve. The in-class assignments are all the same - design an experiment within the narrowly defined example provided. Is your idea outside of the box? Not technology-focused? Did you not spend 90% of the write-up discussing how you would collect data? Too bad - instead you get a follow-up email asking you to review the assignment. I still haven't learned anything about population ecology. The final project is 30% of our grade. Its due date was set two weeks after the rubric/description was released, and is absolutely insane. Prepare for a major lab report where you have to find and analyze data relating to species' population. A big chunk of students had their project proposals rejected, even after sitting down with her to verify they were on the right track. Her expectation that we have nothing else but this class is consistent and frankly there's a group of us prepared to fail the project. We cannot put in the time for a 15+ page lab report within the last two weeks of the semester. She's nice in person, but should not be teaching. Avoid. |
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Karen Lips
BSCI363 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/23/2013 |
She definitely should be in research and not teaching. She is a pretty boring lecturer and does not get the class into the subject matter at all. In fact, I left with a bad taste in my mouth for conservation biology. The "dossier" projects were ridiculous. We all chose species to do our projects on from a list which she created. Many of these species had little to no information available on them. So many of the students who, by chance, picked a species with no information available, faced terrible grades. Her exams were pretty bad too. They were big 7-page packets of short answer questions. In the beginning of the year, she stated that her exams would focus on big ideas. But, in fact, her exams ended up being all the nit-picky details from her slides. Most of the class did horrible on her three exams and she had to curve heavily. The final wasn't too bad. Thats the good news. I think she used it to bring up grades. Pretty easy. But, I definitely would avoid this class overall if you can. |
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Karen Lips
BSCI363 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/17/2013 |
So I ended up getting an A in this class, but I have to say that she was far from an ideal professor of conservation biology. She's not terrible, but I think she's more suited to research than teaching (not an insult, just sort of ironic). She's the only professor who I'd give under a 4 even though I got an A, which is saying something! The subject material - as a whole - seemed pretty straightforward heading into the first (and only) midterm. I studied like crazy and ended up with a 52%. Funny thing is that 52% was right around the class average. She didn't take any blame for the incredibly long exam and said we could have studied more. Alright then. The final was a joke, lots of writing, but very easy overall. The major assignments (both were dossiers) weren't too bad. She graded them easily (as in the average was around 75%), likely because the midterm was so brutal. I ended up killing both dossiers which is why I got an A. There are also random homework assignments and in-class activities. Do them, because she retrospectively decided that since only half the class completed them, a couple would be for extra credit. I actually skipped ~30% the lectures (which she keeps tabs on yet doesn't count for points, which may explain why she had it in for me since I did well despite skipping all the time). Directions on assignments were vague, redundant, and unclear. You may feel like you're answering the same question over and over again - because you are. Just do it. She always started class early. One more gripe. Any time I emailed her with a fair question about something, she'd give me an unnecessarily sassy response. I don't know if she just enjoyed sassing me, but they came off as sort of rude and uncalled for. To be fair, she was understanding enough to curve the class to make >80% an A. But trust me, that's not as easy as it sounds - in a class of 40 or so students, I was one of less than 10 to score above 80% overall, and probably one of 3-4 at most to have at least an 85%. |