Marjorie Reaka

This professor has taught: BSCI106, BSCI160, BSCI338B, BSCI361, BSCI398H, BSCI473

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Marjorie Reaka BSCI338B Expecting an A Anonymous 11/27/2023	She's chill. I like her style. Her lectures are boring though. The material is interesting. Exams require memorization. Questions are mostly multiple choice and T/F. Homeworks are easy. I spent maybe five days worth of work for this class.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 07/05/2023	this class when taught by her is extremely boring but you will still end up with a good grade. just be prepared to sit through her extremely boring lectures. Dr. Reaka seems to know a lot so if you are into ecology you might even like this class. Her study guides are super long and thorough and her tests are very fair. I never went to class and i got a B+ (and i wasnt really trying all that hard tbh i couldve gotten an A if i studied for her tests and showed up to class). Also shes a super nice lady.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/24/2023	My review probably will hold no value since I rarely ever went to class, but what I can say is that her lecturing style is incredibly boring (the whole reason I stopped going), but honestly that should not deter you from choosing her class. She’s a professor who actually cares a lot about the topic, so if you genuinely care then you’ll probably like the information taught, I personally couldn’t care for it. I will say she does care about the success of her students and her class average, she makes the most helpful study guides on earth and if you just make flash cards out of those then you’re good! But like I said, I really can’t talk much on her as a person since I never went to class, but from what I got from Canvas, she’s a pretty cool gal.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2023	Dr. Reaka was clearly very passionate about the subject matter which conveyed through her lectures. Most things needed for exams were on her slides but its definitely helpful to go to lecture. She posts study guides that have literally everything that could possibly be asked on the exam, so if you go to lecture at least sometimes and study for the exams its totally doable. (her slides also have a ton of pictures which is super helpful)
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2023	Nice person terrible teacher. Stumbles over her words and stutters nonstop. She rambles about things that have no sustenance and relate nothing to what you need to know. Also very boring professor so concentrating is impossible. If you want to do well you have to read each slide as she has hundreds of slides to pull from for each exam making them harder. But as long as you read her slides you should be fine for the exam if you remember what you read from her hundred long slide units that are boring as ever.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI338B Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/13/2022	Dr. Reaka is a very knowledgeable person when it comes to this course. She could talk for hours about the topics, and more which is the issue with her teaching. She’s one of those great person, but not so great teachers. She talks on and on about other bio material not relevant to the course and go on tangents a lot. Lots of ecology based talk and evolution to know about the time periods. We would spend so much time on one single slide for 10 minutes but then breeze through a bunch of others. Towards the end of the semester she would skip parts of lectures and say “we will cover these in a later lecture”, but when we got to the later lecture she skipped it all claiming we already covered it. This was due to us being 2-3 lectures behind because of how slow paced she talks and we had to rush through 3 whole lectures in 75 minutes skipping lots of info. That being said, her exams aren’t hard, but there is WAY TOO MUCH content covered in this course to study for exams. She chooses certain topics that would be easy for the midterms, but you wouldn’t focus on them because you have so much other content to worry about. Not only that, but on midterms she claimed she would NEVER trick us. She added lots of trick questions on the second midterm by having lengthy answers which were correct except for 1 word in the end. Study hard and you can do fine, but this is not at all marine biology it is more like her marine ecology class instead. We didn’t get to any real marine bio until the last third of the class sadly.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/12/2022	IGNORE the reviews take Reaka. Class is so easy and she's nice and willing to help. Barely studied and got an A. Used lectures to de-stress and look at cool animal pictures. Have to say her graphic design skills need some work. Yellow on a blue gradient background is not the move but this class was a fun time.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/27/2022	This is class EXTREMELY BORING. Like all the other reviews have said, she literally reads from the slides word for word. There is absolutely no attempt in order to keep students engaged in the activity. So I wouldn't recommend students, especially people new to biology to take this class. However, if there aren't any other teachers available, here are some major tips to help you succeed. 1. There is a LOT of information in this course, so make sure you stay organized and understand the general ideas of the topics. 2. She points out a lot of examples in class that are also on the PowerPoint slides. These are vital pieces of information, as she very often cherrypicks one of those examples and puts them on a test. 3. Exams require a lot of understanding and critical thinking. Many questions are full of words that you have to be able to decipher like a secret code. Don't overthink the questions. This class requires time and effort in order to earn an A, but it isn't hard to pass since the weight of tests is smaller in comparison to other classes. Best of luck to future students. -
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/25/2022	Do not recommend. Her lecture is pretty boring. The final exam weights too much. She drops 1 midterm. Her exams are short but hard and detailed.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/13/2022	Good fucking lord. I thought I had my fair share of bad teachers in high school and MAN was I wrong. I attended two lectures of this class ever because there is literally NO POINT in attending lecture. Her ENTIRE lecture is just her reading off a powerpoint slide WORD FOR WORD with incoherent rambling mixed in. Half the time she won't tell you ways to remember them but rather go on some completely unrelated and irrelevant tangent. If you ever wonder why communications is a gen ed requirement, the average Reaka lecture is your answer. You can get a rock fuckin solid 10 hours of sleep the night before one of her lectures and you will still nod off. Shit, she should stop being a professor and be an anethesiologist so she be paid for putting people to sleep on purpose. Shit dude, I am more invested in writing this dumbass fucking review than I was in this class for the entirety of the semester. You will gain nothing from her lectures. You don't even have to be there for the first lecture because they. are. all. the. same. So ok, she reads her powerpoints out loud. So what? Well, here's the kicker. In my last year of high school, I downloaded some of my textbooks because covid and whatnot. HER SLIDES FOR ONE TOPIC ARE BIGGER THAN A FUCKING TEXTBOOK. Now, to be fair, images take up more space than text, but look, on average, this shit is roughly 60 to 70 slides long. It takes multiple lectures to get through one topic. The individual slides look like shitposts for a biology meme group and are crammed with the skimmings of a wikipedia article. As for her tests, she will usually release a "study guide" a few days before the test. Your best bet is to study from the slides or the study guide by writing copious notes on whatever is mentioned. It's not just that she is a horrible lecturer, she can't be bothered to make the material remotely learnable. Heck, I don't think she even tries to cut out shit that's not relevant. So overall, you may notice other reviews that say you have to work hard to earn an A in this class. If you do things right and be very smart about what you study, it's almost like an async class. But I'll be honest, it's not worth your time. You will walk away from this class with less than you started, because you will have spent your sanity studying whether or not a certain species of bacteria grows a second anus before or after it grows a mouth because she mentioned it in half a sentence on her slide on a whim. Dogshit "professor" and I hope I never take a class with her again. Don't take this class, enjoy college.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Anonymous 05/13/2022	TERRIBLE PROFESSOR. do not take. exams are extremely unfair. 0/5 rating.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI160 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/20/2022	This professor is probably the worst professor teaching at UMD. Her slides are filled with text that doesn't even make sense. I cannot begin to explain how horrible trying to understand what is on her slides is. Do not take this professor if you have other options.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI361 Anonymous 12/15/2021	Marjorie Reaka is so unbelievably boring. Incredibly boring. She is a very traditional lecturer, meaning her lectures are extremely bland and dry. It is so difficult to maintain focus during her lectures, she makes no effort to keep anyone engaged. When it comes to content, the lectures still suck. Her slides were almost always 100+ pages and filled to the brim with excessive text, images, and random/unimportant information. She makes it very difficult to differentiate between what the important points of each topic are and what is just extraneous information. She will spend a lot of unnecessary time describing examples and experiments in detail that are really not that relevant to the class. She was was never on schedule because she is not an effective or efficient lecturer in any single way. In essence: her lectures Suck. I never retained any piece of information from hearing her talk. Her slides are so difficult to follow; they're not concise, they're ugly, wordy, hard on the eyes (this seems like an unimportant thing to note, but there are SO many bright colors in her slides and overlapping texts and images--they're really hard to read and follow along with). A lot of times her lecturing would involve so much rambling that she wouldn't match up with her slides, causing her to stay on one slide for a long time and then skip ahead several slides. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes she would fly through the slides super quickly. I cannot emphasize how bad these lectures were, I did not learn a thing from them. I would personally recommend pulling up her lecture slides on your own laptop/tablet during the class and just go through that at your own pace. Like I said, the slides aren't easy to decipher and synthesize, but her teaching doesn't contribute in any single way. I would just take note of any examples that she Really emphasizes in class, she will occasionally say what concepts are really important to remember. Her slides are also pulled straight from the textbook (some of the topics were altered), but the textbook is pretty useless too. The textbook is full of even more examples, but it might be useful to use as a way to explain some concepts better than Reaka's slides do. I didn't ever use the textbook though (for lecture, I did use it for discussion). I downloaded the textbook off of Libgen--don't buy it. The textbook was only useful in the sense that it had the answer key for all of the textbook questions that were assignments for discussion. Reaka is gonna say that her exams mostly cover broad concepts and that you mostly need to know general concepts. That's a lie. Her exams are specific, I really had to study for them. All of the information IS in the slides, which is one good thing, but I would really review and go through all of the content in the slides, because her exams are challenging. She will usually mention a few things to focus your studying on for each exam, which is useful. I had two midterms for this class and the final was (mostly) not cumulative. It had a few questions on topics that were tested on the midterms, but it was mostly testing on the last third of the course. The only grades in the class are the exams and the discussion assignments, which for my class (Fall 2021) were twenty points each and super, super easy. I got 100% on every single discussion assignment (but this is dependent on your TA) and I didn't need to attend discussion to be able to do the questions. Also, the assignments I had were barely tied to lecture and not helpful for learning the content in any way. Reaka is nice, she's just boring and a bad lecturer. She will kindly answer any questions (but not necessarily well) and will recognize the students that are more engaged in class/put in more effort. I wish I liked her more, but I just hated that class. It's not the end of the world if she's your professor, but she's not ideal (however, I don't know who else teaches BSCI361). I think she was an awful professor, but if you put in some work, it's not impossible to do well in that class. I like ecology, it's part of my major, but holy hell did she make it boring.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Anonymous 05/20/2013	I thought it would be a good idea to take BSCI106 over the summer to get ahead with my classes, and is was def a good idea except for one thing, Marjorie Reaka. She is one of those teachers who cannot teach and expects you to know everything. She gave a great amount of biased information from her marine biology studies, which was very boring to say the least. She is a very boring person herself. Her lecture are very dry and she has no sense of humor. She does not help out her students and she does not care for her students. Honestly, maryland has her around so they can boost their research standings, as she is more of a researcher than she is a professor. She has a very deep monotone voice that can put the even most avid listener to sleep. Overall, to say it nicely, one of the worst decisions in my life was taking her class. Please do not waste your time. Oh btw, she doesn't curve... at all.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/17/2012	Her class was pretty boring. Especially since I had her in the morning. Her tests are solely based off of her powerpoints so make sure to pay attention to those. Reading the book definitely helps, but it isn't required to get a perfect score on her tests. Her tests are definitely some of the easiest compared to the other professors'.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/16/2010	She was very boring and didn't work well with students concerns. It seemed like she could have known what she was talking about but she didn't convey any of it to the class. Avoid taking her at all costs.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting an A loveReaka 08/25/2010	Hands down. She is the best and easiest professor I have ever talk to or associate myself with. I had an average of 96.5 in the end and did not even try at all. she tries to make her exams trickery but does a bad job on it. IS TOO EASY. STRAIGHT UP FROM POWERPOINTS. PLS, DONT EVER READ DA TEXTBOOK. Guys igonore every comment below me and take her. you will never regret it. Promise you.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI338B Anonymous 12/20/2009	Dr. Reaka knows the material extremely well, which means that this course covers ALL major marine animals from a billion years ago - which REALLY means that the lectures are very very dense and often contain personal diving stories. Only about 20% of the class showed up to lectures because she posted her complete slides online. Grade-wise a B isn't difficult as long as you study for the STRAIGHTFORWARD midterm and cumulative final. There was an optional paper if you wanted to raise your grade - NOT extra credit, the weight of the midterm and final were decreased so that the paper would be like a third assignment. I would highly recommend this class - probably one of the easier bio courses.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting an A aralchen 08/26/2009	The good: 1. Very open to questions, especially after class. 2. Notices those who ask questions and try hard; this actually helps her determine your final grade. If you have 88% and have been trying very hard, she'll throw you a bone and give you the A. 3. Exams are fair - if you've been attending lecture and paying attention, then you'll certainly get the A. 4. Hands down, knows her stuff The bad: 1. Overly detailed lectures make studying a living hell. Make sure to approach her after class to sift through the crap and get the meat of the lecture. 2. Beware: you'll know more about her days in Berkley and her Cornell-attending, lacrosse playing sons than you've ever wanted to. 3. She's boring. VERY boring. Overall: avoid if you can, but don't be too bummed out if you get her.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2009	people aren't lying when they say she is boring. my notebook is filled with doodles just because I could not pay attention. She talks about random stuff during lecture and tests you on stuff entirely different. If you have to take her, she's not so so bad. Don't waste your time reading the book. Most test questions come from the lecture notes and the other questions come from out of no where. But the book probably wouldn't help you anyway. Also, make sure you do well in lab because it'll really pull your grade up in the end.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Anonymous 05/22/2009	I had a bad experience with Reaka as my bsci106 professor. She only responded to 1 out of my ~10 emails and her excuse at the end of the semester was that she never received any of my emails. She also said at the beginning of the semester that she was going to curve the class, but in the end, she decided not to. Well, she did curve 2 points but that doesn't help at all. 2 points is like a 0.02% additional to your grade. I needed 5 more points to get a B (had a 78.8%), but she refused. She is monotoned and is so boring. Avoid her if you can.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting a B commonchaos 05/04/2009	The course content was appropriate and on topic and I did learn from My TA and lab section. However, I did not learn from the lecture portion of the course. the instructor went off topic a considerable amount and did not follow the syllabus that was given at the beginning of the semester. Only take her if you have to and there is no other choice.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 UMDstudent11 03/10/2009	Very very boring teacher who will put you to sleep. Not willing to cooperate with students to have review sessions or put lecture slides online. Tests are very confusing and made more difficult than they should be. Horrible professor do not take her.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Expecting an A- tallboyt 11/17/2008	Although her lectures may be dry, some are interesting and she really enjoys some of the lectures. I've seen other bsci106 tests and by far hers are the easiest. Tests are straight forward. No book reading is necessary; only lecture notes. I recommend going to class to hear the lectures - makes the class easier, but you can get the notes online.
Marjorie Reaka BSCI106 Tinnacious 05/19/2008	Knows what she's talking about, but extremely boring.