| Information | Review |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI334 Anonymous 05/19/2024 |
I have no complaints about Dr. Thompson, she's kind and explains the content well, and she even let me take the class despite not meeting one of the prerequisites. The content itself isn't particularly difficult to learn, she makes the outlines of the lectures available, which includes important terms and pictures but not the explanations that she gives in class. Luckily she also has her pandemic recorded videos available for you to watch too incase you missed a class. This class has pretty frequent assignments that requires you to read a paper and answer a question about it as well as unit quizzes, but the TAs don't grade harsh and you get three attempts per quiz. Where I kind of stumbled at first is that the exams are pretty close ended and they look for very specific things, but its outweighed by the fact that she gives you 6 questions that you pick 5 from and she makes the questions available for you to look at before the actual exam (this is crazy, I've never had a prof that does this and it's super refreshing). If you're looking for a class that's got some interesting content and isn't too difficult, then I'd recommend this one for sure |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI334 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/10/2023 |
I thought the class was easy enough. Dr. Thompson was very good at clarifying questions. We also got to watch a lot of cute mammal videos. She teaches off of her website, which is a little bit of a strange format but it surprisingly works well. Theres a lot of hyperlinks to videos, websites, and photos that better explain what is on the website, which makes taking notes a breeze. Additionally, she also provides the exact questions that will be on the exam prior to the exam itself so that you can prepare. I found this very helpful because the topics can be a bit tricky to wrap your mind around at times. |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI334 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2022 |
Dr. Thompson is a great professor and carries an extensive knowledge on mammals. There may be a lot of information on the outline, but Dr. Thompson wants you to focus on the essential details rather than memorizing everything. I really enjoyed the in-class group activities: worksheets and jigsaw (we would be assigned to read an article for homework and discuss with a group during class). The quizzes are great as long as you carefully review the lecture material (which is recorded). The challenging part of this class are exams which contain six short answer questions, and you are required to answer only 5 of them. Here's the thing, the exam questions are fine but to do well you have to make sure that your answer is almost identical to her answer key. So, these are not really open-ended questions but very closed ended questions. Even if your answer is right, if you miss a detail or two you could lose a lot of points. She did end up curving the class due to our low exam averages. I did learn a lot from this class. The most surprising thing that I learned from this class was that rabbits are not rodents but in fact are lagomorphs lol. |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI279H Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/01/2021 |
Very weird class, never interacted with the teacher so it was kinda weird. Idk what else to say, it was a very easy class though, almost no work involved so take it if you're feeling the extra 1 credit? |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI279C Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2019 |
Easy class, not very much work. Great use of one credit. There's not much to learn but it can be very helpful to have opportunities to talk with professors who want research. She also helped introduce me into other useful off-campus research opportunities. |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI334 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/31/2012 |
This professor is one of the best I've ever had. She actually cares about teaching a class and is passionate about the material. Lectures can be tedious sometimes (what ones aren't?), but she mixes it up with videos and pictures. Exams are appropriately difficult but do-able if you have studied hard. Like most zoology (mammalology, herp, ornithology) courses, this class requires a lot of memorization. However, the exams are not tricky, don't have questions on topics that weren't covered in class, and draw HEAVILY on old exams. |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI334 Anonymous 05/22/2012 |
Her exams are obtuse and the wording is vague so when in doubt, just fill the page up with everything you seem to know about the topic or else you'd lose points. (And you'd lose points for saying the wrong thing too.) multiple choice seems easy enough, but the questions are tricky to say the least. there was one question that was word for word taken from one of the practice finals and she changed ONE option in the selection and all of the sudden, she nailed you on that one because you chose the same answer as the practice exam. the topic is not difficult, its just a lot of memorization which means flash cards and tables everybodyyyyy... brush up on your latin and maybe you'll be able to remember Order names for more than 12 hours. I'd say it'd probably be beneficial to take her lab to study the specimens because she'd ask minutia about that too and its hard to remember every stinkin detail about skulls in lecture alone. But in the end, she is a very nice person and gave us freebies for the final. :) |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI279H Expecting an A Anonymous 06/19/2011 |
This was probably one of the most pointless classes ever. It was not a lot of work at all and we never took up the whole hour and a half. But the things we were learning was mostly just things I had already stumbled upon online while looking for research opportunities. On the bright side, the faculty presentations are interesting (although 90% are biology related while I'm a chemistry major). The professors are all excited to show us what research they are doing. In fact, I contacted one of the professors after her presentation and she offered me a position in her lab! So it's a great way to establish contacts with researchers on campus but you don't learn too much. |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI279C Expecting an A amgarcia 05/01/2010 |
you didn't have to go to like half of the classes because they were faculty research presentations and this would be an easy way to fulfill an honors credit/ boost up the number of credits you're taking. it's really not that much work, but she hasn't graded our group projects and the peer review wasn't graded by her and we haven't turned in the final yet so i don't know how easily she grades...but i don't see why i wouldn't get an A in this class. i wish we could have learned more, but i think the faculty presenters give you plenty of opportunities to get involved in research, so going to those classes would be beneficial, while not required. |
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Katerina Thompson
BSCI279C Expecting a B sillyputty184 04/19/2010 |
Doesn't do anything. Learned nothing. Lots of useless busy work. Terrible at posting grades, you know how you're doing when your grade appears on transcript. Two group projects. I did well on the individual stuff and basically did the group stuff. She failed ME on one group project, but gave the other 3 kids a 100%. I tried to talk to her after class, stalk her at her office, and email her because I thought surely this was just a slip up. She evaded me, told me she didn't have time, and didn't respond to any emails. Easy class but got a B because of her mistake. You get NOTHING out of this class. Do not take, just a waste, not even worth the minimal work you do. Terrible woman and class, in my opinion. |