Erin Tran

This professor has taught: BSCI223, BSCI412, GEMS296, GEMS297, GEMS396

Sort By:

Information	Review
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2024	It looks like I'm the odd one out but I actually loved this class. The labs were fun and none of them went to the 1 hour 50 minute mark. My group was great. I didn't usually watch the videos before class because I'm lazy but it never affected my grade. Clickers are graded for participation. Exams are VERY fair and the exam questions are literally the same as the clicker questions, just worded different. But, if you understand the answer to every clicker question, you will get an A on the exams. Also there are sooo many cushion points in lab if you need a grade booster.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/05/2024	In the last four years I've taken two chems, two anatomies, two physics, and various other straining courses, and this by far is the worst. The content probably wouldn't be nearly as difficult to learn and understand if Dr. Tran used even half of the time we spend in lecture actually teaching us. She raves about how great the flipped classroom is, but if you were to ask literally anyone in our class you would not hear the same answer. We have to watch videos that are 3 years old and not a single minute of lecture is spent reiterating any material. Every class period is spent doing clicker questions for a participation grade, which the school no longer covers the subscription for, and we are expected to have the same level of understanding as her despite her not really teaching us. Most of class guesses on all of the questions and they are not a good indicator of exam questions. For every exam, Dr. Tran creates multiple versions where everyone had vastly different questions. To top it off, she informed TAs that they were not allowed to give us partial credit for most questions, even parts that were worth 10 points on a 150 point test. Every test had errors and had questions that were very poorly planned and worded. Truly the only reason I can expect to do well in this course is because of my TA Kari and what felt like hundreds of lab assignments. Most weeks we had 2 or 3 time consuming assignments due, in addition to 2 large projects that barely related to the class. We had to come up a gene and cloning strategy to genetically modify bacteria to benefit a cow???? This class has been one of the most time consuming courses ever, especially with two lab sessions a week. It is clear to me that Dr. Tran does not prioritize her students and doesn't really seem to care about how we are doing. She sent out a mid-semester survey for feedback and went over it in class. She proceeded to tell us that she won't be changing anything despite us asking for some change. I truly hated this class.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/03/2024	Took this the first semester that exams were moved to in-person and it was much more work than expected and tests were random and unorganized. No partial credit was given and averages were in the 70s and bsci does not curve. Did not feel like I learned anything because of the flipped classroom design of the course. Dr. Tran seems nice enough but doesn't actually teach us. She uses clicker questions in class which no one follows along with and she moves through them quickly without really explaining much. It feels like she is very disconnected from her students - granted it is a huge lecture hall - but I don't think she knows how much her students don't understand the topics.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/03/2024	Dr. Tran is a big fan of the flipped classroom design - beware. Genuinely everyone I interacted with in this class was always confused and lost during lecture periods. She used clicker questions every class and while they may have supplied decent examples (if you knew what was going on), at least half of the people in the course were just guessing randomly because no one was up to date on the notes. Then again, the clicker questions rarely were up to par with the exam questions which were often random and much harder and no test was reliable since everyone had different questions which was unfair to others. Tests also had multiple errors and no absolutely no partial credit was given which is inexcusable. Then after exams, she would cancel office hours the next week so we could not go talk to her. Overall, it felt like Dr. Tran did not truly care about teaching the class, using prerecorded videos from over 3 years ago instead of teaching us in person, and the time spent in lecture felt random and lost. She boasts about how great the flipped classroom idea is, but this absolutely did not work for the class and it felt like a waste of my time going to class. Also participation is graded through pointsolutions and we basically directly paid for our participation grade (over $1 per 1 point) which is ridiculous, especially since the clicker questions only worked half the time. Also the lab was better than lecture, mostly because of my TA Anna, but SO much busy work and I swear assignments randomly popped up throughout the week that were not there before. There were 4 presentations during lab with 2 large semester projects, and tons of individual and group assignments each. This has been one of the most tedious and annoying classes I have taken in college, and as a senior I've taken anatomy, orgo and physics II before. Can't wait to be done with this class.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/11/2024	Genuinely such a useless class, filled with busy work and obsolete assignments. Dr. Tran is extremely nice, however her flipped class set-up is most definitely not for everyone. The class requires you to learn all of the information on your own and then attend class for mandatory clicker questions, which do not work half of the time. In general, avoid taking this class if your time is valuable to you. If you need to take it, good luck.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/23/2024	I LOVE DR. TRAN, she is so nice and approachable and genuinely a great person. She always answered questions and made lecture fun. Tips, go to lecture, the clicker points will boost ur grade, turn in all the busy work it will also save ur grade. Exams are online and open note but they are hard, she follows a flipped classroom model but if you watch the videos you will understand what is going on for the exam.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/26/2024	Def a crap ton of work, a class I would not want to do again, but got the grade I wanted along with many other students
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	This class is entirely busy work and group work. Good luck if you aren't assigned a group with competent people. Your grade highly depends on your TA as well, as some are stricter with grading than others. As for the lab manual, you have to print out all of the pages prior to lab, and the protocols are very poorly written. The lectures are flipped-classroom style where the actual lectures are pre-recorded videos and the lecture time is more discussion-style. Overall this class is very time-consuming, however, I feel I have barely learned anything in the end.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/11/2023	Dr. Tran is a very helpful and kind professor. She holds office hours every week in which she is more than welcome to answer any questions you might have and she also responds to emails almost instantly. Participation points are based on clickers which you can do from Zoom. The class itself is not too difficult, but the grading is very strict. The workload is a bit heavy and for assessments, you get 6 days to do 5 assignments which could take many hours to complete, they are online + open note. Honestly, your grade depends on whether you can keep up with the assignments and how well you can understand the material and apply it to different concepts.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/10/2023	literally the worst class ever. content wise, if you've taken BSCI222, BSCI330, BSCI410, or BSCI420, this class will be a piece of cake. workload wise, however, this class is absolutely RIDICULOUS. endless assignments due literally every single freaking day, so much busy work. I have not taken a class with 5 homework assignments due every single week since high school, and i'm a senior. be warned: just because the exams are online + open book does NOT mean they are easy. they are broken down into 5 individual assignments, each of which takes HOURS to complete. what's even worse is the day after the exam is due, you still have other assignments due. the labs are fun; the protocols, however, are not user friendly. they need to hire a new prep TA because they were not well prepared for some labs due to shortage of materials, culturing issues, confusions and mix ups. very bizarre and chaotic course. sorry, girl, but some of us have lives outside of this course and cannot be bothered by these dumb assignments.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/07/2023	This class is very boring, the teacher gives long assessments and these assignments are ridiculous. Labs are long and never graded in person, only online assignments that don't even boost up your grade besides 0.5%. They don't care about your other classes and your mental health. I still got that A+ tho and thank you to myself.<3
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/02/2023	Prof Tran is soo nice. She is so caring and welcoming. She always is available for office hours too. Her lecture style is mainly focused on participation, but its through the form of clickers. You can also attend class on zoom and participate on clickers too. As long as you turn in the weekly assignments, lab quizzes, and attend lecture either in person or online you should expect an A.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/25/2023	Loved the prof. Super understanding (gave me an extension on a big assignment just cuz I asked) Very down to earth and encourages you to use outside sources and collab with friends. You can zoom into lectures but there is participation credit via turning point questions. But you can miss 3 lectures and still get 25/25 participation points. The lab was super fun and interesting I just got fucked with my TA, Husan T. He is an asshole and also grades way too harsh.
Erin Tran BSCI412 Expecting an A florm 05/22/2023	Dr. Tran only ran the lab portion of 412, which counted for around half of the points in the class. She made a prelab quiz due before each session, and they were always unnecessarily tricky. I feel like I always lost points over some dumb or confusing wording. The lab protocols weren't written very well, and often just had straight up wrong directions, so it's important you really listen to your TA. I think Dr. Tran used the protocols from a previous professor, but never bothered to update them so hopefully she does in the future. The labs themselves were usually pretty fun, and ended early most of the time. It could get monotonous with repetitive pipetting and diluting, but nothing we did was particularly complicated. The semester was divided into three projects: 1) UV mutagenesis in E. coli for phage resistance, 2) lacZ plasmid transformation and mutagenesis, and 3) P. aeruginosa transposition's effect on biofilms, motility, and lacZ. At the end of each section, we had to write a pretty lengthy project report which was always a pain. The guidelines were very clear though, she pretty much tells you exactly what you need to include in every part of the report. The grading on them was lenient, pretty much everybody got an A.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting a P Anonymous 03/15/2023	I am not learning anything in this class. They just flood you with pointless assignment after pointless assignment. It's also screwed with my mental health and made me resent one of my favorite subjects. Instead of a 1-hour exam per week, you're expected to a 20-30 hour assessment that basically forces you to redo all of the classwork you did so far, only with entirely different set-ups, if that makes sense. Then you have a massive report due that constitutes 50% of your grade during the same week the huge assessment is due. Expect to spend 8 hours a week in this class, and that's just the lecture, lab and "discussion". Not counting the endless work you have to do. They also pick apart your grade for the tiniest things, and every instruction is a 3-page word salad with thousands of requirements. It's also very condescending. "Your idea must have real genetics and biochemistry to back it up... nothing from the realm of fantasy or science fiction land." I have seriously never seen instructions like these that insult you, confuse you and overload you at the same time. This class also demands brevity out of you despite dumping walls of text infront of you. I've seriously read an assignment 8 times back and forth for an hour and have lost 20/30 percent of the points for missing one small step. I've also made a single mistake and had that repeatedly docked from my total in the same report. I have to white-knuckle through this class and beg for my efforts to be seen. One day you've spent 8 hours straight doing homework and the minute you look up you drop a letter grade for something that would have been a 1 or 2 pt deduction in any other class. Even in classes I have taken that grade harshly in writing, like psych and english, don't grade your writing as harshly in this class. And to what end? It's a fucking micro class. I just feel like the class expected us to be more immature than we were and simultaneously way more experienced in microbio. I have roommates in the grad school at UMD and they tell me that this class is more ridiculous than what they have to do. Whatever they're trying to do, it's really not working. If you can wait to take this class until a prof that gives exams teaches it, do so. If you can take it at a diff college, do so. If you can put it off until your last semester so it doesn't affect your grad/med school app, do that. Do not take this as an elective no matter how much you care about the subject. Would you take Math115 as an elective? This class is seriously the same way. Do what you can to avoid this class.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/20/2022	Dr. Tran is an amazing and nice professor. She is really clear at explaining things in her videos and lecture. This class may seem like a lot of work but many of the assignments are small and/or done in groups (and completion grades). A lot of the grading is done by the TA. As long as you keep up with the material, you can do well in the class.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/24/2021	Dr.Tran is an amazing and kind professor. I will admit that the lab assignments were pretty annoying. Dr.Tran's exams are very fair, as long as you attend the lectures and review the material you will succeed on her exams. She also gives extra credit.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/20/2021	Dr. Tran is awesome. She is very knowledgeable and from I have experienced does not read off of slides? She explains concepts very well and you can tell she has enjoys teaching.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/31/2021	Not a very engaging professor. You can tell that she likes to read off the slides. However, her exams were fair but lacked clarity and often not provide clear directions when it comes to assigments and projects. In hindsight, the class seemed to be all over the place.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/22/2020	She was pretty average. The class mostly depends on lab points. The exams she gives are pretty difficult but I've heard they're better than Buchner's. She kept things clear and relatively easy to understand.
Erin Tran BSCI223 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/28/2019	Has no idea how to teach. All she does is read the slides (everyone in college can read on their own thank you!!!!). Mandatory clicker points so you much show up to hear her read. Nice person, but other than that, pretty bad teacher.