BIOL 4280

Phenomenal class! You learn a lot about genetics and Drosophila. Additionally, you become better at critically reading and understanding papers. Jay is great and wants the best for his students. Also, the course is not as stressful as courses like cell bio, as the quizzes are open notes. Make sure to take good notes during class!

If you're looking for a class that is not much work this is a good one. Other than that I don't recommend this course. It is extremely boring and Prof Hirsh has a way of speaking and writing that is extremely hard to understand. Most people couldn't follow the lectures and many times on the tests the questions were vague and people didn't know what he was asking. Also when he grades the tests the ones he looks at first are graded more harshly than the ones at the end so if you decide to take the class then look over the tests and ask questions because you may get points back. I also had issues with Hirsh on a more personal level.. I had a rough start to my semester including serious mental health issues with a friend that caused me to miss a couple classes and he was not understanding about it at all. He was very apathetic towards the whole thing and apparently thought his class was more important than literal life or death issues.

I took this class because it has the best rating among all the upper-level biology classes required for the major. But I regret taking it so much! I knew it's mainly gonna be about drosophila, but I expected at least a few lectures about mammals and human. However, every single class is about the MOST INTERESTING AND THE CUTEST FRUIT FLIES! We started with the earliest studies on drosophila, the class went on with more and more recent studies. So you're gonna be learning about the history of how people tried to understand the flies. There're two take home, open book exams, and a group presentation. Each task makes up 33% of your grade. I spent literally two days on each take home and ended up with a B. Jay is a very nice and approachable, but I really could not enjoy the class materials.

I recommend taking this course, especially if you're interested in genetics-related research or interpreting data. A main focus of the class is learning how to critically evaluate published data and you read a new paper for almost every class, so you get really skilled in reading scientific papers and analyzing them. There's also a large focus on presentation skills and speaking in front of the class. We slowly worked up to a final presentation at the end in which a group of about 8 students presented a paper on their own. Before that final presentation, Professor Hirsh provided us with questions and we discussed them in class. I really enjoyed how discussion based this class is, but I'd encourage only people who want to participate to join the class because it can get awkward when no one is responding. Unlike the 3000 genetics course, this course isn't about memorizing a ton of information. Professor Hirsh picked out main techniques to focus on, such as RNA-seq, PCR, Western and Northern Blotting, and qPCR. Learning about these techniques was helpful to understanding the papers and super helpful for research. There were two take home, open note exams and we were given a few days to work on them independently. They weren't difficult as long as you had taken notes in class and understood rather than memorized what we talked about in class.

I highly recommend this upper-level. The really small class size lets you get to know classmates and Professor Hirsh. Hirsh is very low-key and is always willing to explain the concepts to you in a simple way, in or out of class. He clearly enjoys teaching and is passionate about the material. He is also a cool guy with interesting hobbies.

The first third of the semester was closer to a traditional lecture style, where Hirsh taught us about basic genetic analysis techniques. After that, we read a paper/day—either groups of 3-4 presented the paper or Hirsh would assign each person a question about the paper to answer for the class. They were often tricky but working through them was worthwhile.

Grades: 2 take-home free-response quizzes, and 2-3 paper presentations. They were really not stressful if you paid attention in class, made the effort to understand the nuances of the papers, and visited him for advice about your presentation. But definitely be engaged in class and answer his questions!

Definitely take the class if you are interested in research techniques, but even if you are not, I still recommend it.

Very laid back class- no multiple choice or final exams. Mostly reading journal articles and discussing them in class, must give numerous presentations but Jay is very laid back and not intimidating.