BIOL 2100

I came into this class with a decent amount of bio knowledge. I took AP Bio in high school and I am so glad I did because I don't know how I would've done without it. However, this class is very difficult, but Kittlesen gives you many opportunities to succeed. Also, Kittlesen is the absolute BEST! He is an amazing lecturer and he is so so passionate about teaching intro bio. His lectures are very interesting and they go into a lot of detail, but Kittlesen will let you know if you need to know certain things for the exams. The majority of this course is weighted on the exams, and I highly recommend studying early for them. I started studying about 3-5 days before the exam, and I wish I spent more time studying. The first two exams are brutal and mostly textbook based, and the rest really seem to go off of the lectures, especially the last two. The questions reflect the objectives and main points of the lecture so I recommend rewatching the lectures and taking detailed notes. Also, it really helps to read the chapters beforehand so you know what's going on in lecture. Lab was pointless during covid times and I slacked off on the assignments, which didn't help my grade in the end, so take those assignments seriously! You're in good hands with Kittlesen and if you put in the effort, you'll do great! #tCF2020

Professor Kittlesen is a great guy, but wasn't a very effective lecturer in my opinion. Everything was online so I understand that it was different than the usual experience, but his lectures were very hard to follow. His slides are only pictures, so it can be difficult to understand what information needs to be taken from each slide. You would have to rewatch the same lecture multiple times to understand what needed to be retained, so if you didn't have a ton of time, it could be frustrating. Read the textbook!!! Most of what he says in lecture is in the assigned readings and is easier to understand. My other issue with the class is how heavily the exams are weighted (70% of the grade for 6 exams), so there isn't much you can do to change your grade if your exam average isn't too great. Most of the exam questions are drawn directly from information in the textbook and examples discussed in class, but sometimes the wordings can be pretty tricky. If you are taking a relatively light course load and have a decent amount of time to devote to this class, then you should be fine. It's difficult to juggle with multiple other hard science courses at once, and don't expect an easy A. I went into it thinking it would be much easier than it was, but still pulled an A- by spending t about 7-9 hours/ week on this class. But Professor Kittlesen really is a great guy and you can tell he cares about his students and the material he teaches a lot.

#tCF2020

Dave is a very nice and friendly professor. You are only responsible for information he mentions in lectures and labs, although reading the textbook is a good supplement. The online labs were easy for the most part but not the most interesting. If you have a strong biology background this class is not super hard, but requires some studying of the examples he mentions. This semester we had a test every other week which did get overwhelming, but he dropped your lowest score. Overall not as hard of a course as I expected it to be.

This was not my favorite class ( I definitely prefer learning about evolution and ecosystems), but Kittlesen is very knowledgeable and seems to care about his students. I thought the tests were extremely hard and spent hours on hours preparing to still normally get a B- on them. Tests make up 70% of the grade, so there isn't much room for error on a bad one. There was no final, just a 6th test (during COVID).

One of the best professors at UVA. If you put in the work (take good notes during lecture, are caught up with the HW, pay attention in lab) you should do pretty well! Him and his TAs are always available to answer any questions. He also really cares for his students (emails all the time for updates and making sure everybody is on track).

I loved Dave! He does a great job of making the lectures more engaging, which is hard to do in a class of 400+ people. He is also just a funny guy which makes the lectures more interesting and he is very knowledgeable of the actual material too. He really seems like he wants everyone to do well, so he answers questions and does a good job of explaining things. He also includes lots of diagrams on his powerpoints and posts those powerpoints and recordings of the lectures which is very helpful as well.

This class is difficult, but a good intro to pre-med classes. To be fair, I also came into the class not taking any sort of bio since freshman year of high school, so all of the information was really new. There is a good amount of work for this class, even if you don't do the readings which aren't really required for the class. The best way to take notes is outlining the learning objectives and taking lecture notes based on these objectives. For studying for exams, I recommend rewatching all of his recorded lectures/lecture audios and then talking out the leaning objectives with another student.

I have never understood bio this well until taking a class with kittlesen. He emphasizes understanding material over memorizing, which is usually annoying to hear teachers say, but with kittlesen, he actually does such an incredible job at explaining things that I finally understand what learning rather than memorizing means. Definitely read the textbook section before class (or at least skim it) because it gives you a better background so you can understand the lecture better. However, don't worry about reading the textbook in detail too much because lecture is what really matters for exams. Making a study guide where I answered his learning objectives with my lecture notes is what helped me do best on exams. Also office hours are extremely helpful, especially before exams (even if you don't have questions, definitely try to go to his office hours the week of an exam). #tCFfall2021

To preface this: I came into this class having taken AP Bio. I feel indifferent about this class. I personally actually found it to be quite difficult at times. Dave's powerpoints do not make much sense and his tests cover material from both the textbook and the lectures (so there's a lot of material to study). To succeed in his class, you definitely have to put in the work. My best advice for his exams are to do the practice questions he provides and do some from the Mastering Biology chapter test prep sections. As for Dave's actual lectures, they were quite engaging. He's enthusiastic about the subject matter and adds unplanned comments into lecture that were not intended to be funny, but are hilarious. The lab portion of the class is easy, but still make sure you know what goes on in lab because he'll put material learned in lab on the exams.
#tCFfall2021

Enjoyed this class, but it's still rough sometimes. If you don't follow along with the lecture, it'll be a lot harder to get through the exam, even if you studied the textbook. Make sure you know basic info before lecture- even though Kittlesen's pretty easy to follow, you'll understand the nuances more if you know key terms ahead of time. To study for the exam, he provided learning objectives that covered most of what you'll have to understand. Even though I personally didn't enjoy the class too much, Kittlesen was so much fun to listen to and learn from.