BIOL 3030

She tries to cover too much material in one semester. She's a horrible lecturer and going to class is really a waste of time as it's almost impossible to follow what she's saying. Probably better reading from the book. Her test questions also usually seemed to correspond to less important aspects of the material instead of the important concepts that you will actually take away from the course. Don't take unless absolutely necessary.

The worst class I have taken at UVA. The course itself is difficult because of the immense volume of material (significantly more than in Cell Bio) and on top of that Schafer is a terrible lecturer. She reads off slides and rambles.

The exams went into way more detail than was reasonable for how much we were covering. Questions were often vaguely-written and Schafer just waved her hands without fixing them. It's clear she doesn't want to be teaching this. The protein project is the biggest waste of time.

This class sucks, but you probably have no choice about taking it so I guess you're SOL.

This class sucks, for multiple reasons.

1) MC tests for content that should not be MC. The tests were all multiple choice, and were written horribly. The questions were often multi-layered and required knowledge of an absurd level of detail (to the point of being useless to know). When 45% of your grade comes from 3 30 question tests, you start to get angry when the important material isn't even tested

2) Lecture was super boring, and people only went to get their LC credit. Schafer is a boring lecturer, and her material is boring too. She breezed through a bunch of stuff, when really she should have focused on exemplary stuff.

3) Protein project is a pain if you get a bad group. I ended up doing most of it myself because my group members were not helpful

4) Did I mention the tests suck? Yeah, that.

Ultimately, there is little that can spice up a biochem course. But Dorothy made it as bland as possible, and her disorganization was annoying, too.

The class is curved a lot though. I had a grade in the lower mid 80s and got an A-

The pros:
You learn a LOT in this class, if you didn't understand protein interactions and enzyme control in whatever intro bio class you took, you will know more than you ever thought possible by the end.

The cons: (and oh there are so many...)
1) The professor simply cannot teach. She obviously knows her stuff but her audible thoughts are in incoherent at times. That being said, this means learning is largely on your own terms though the power points were quite useful when studying for the midterm.
2) The tests...all classes have their different test styles but this...when you've studied for days and days covering 7 dense chapters worth of biochem and then on the test you find that out of the 30 mc questions (mind you that's only around 4 questions per 40-50 pages of biochem) around 6-8 questions do not really relate or only vaguely relate to the material that you just studied...it is quite sad. Overall the worst part of the course, Schafer is not a good test writer
3) The Protein project is a group project that lasts throughout the semester. It is not that hard but is overall a waste of time and serves no academic purpose.

Recommendations/Tips:
I would NOT recommend this course but for the try-hard premeds who need to take this, my tips for success would actually be to not read the book, Schafer basis her tests predominantly on her PW's and while the book or other sources can serve as background knowledge, reading straight through the book is just way too much information (the PW's are information dense enough as it is). I read for the first two tests and only studied the PW's on the last two and I did better just from the PW's.

Also while this class was not well taught and the tests were badly written I would still advocate taking this class over the Chemistry version of Biochem with Grisham. Schafer has much to improve, but she is a decent person and is not out to make students fail in contrast to the alternative.

This is the worst class I have taken in my life (high school included). Along with 90% of the other students in this class, the information I should have learned will be relevant to everything I do in the future, but I can't say that this class has prepared me for that at all. Almost all of this can be attributed to Prof. Schafer. She does NOT know how to teach. Her lectures were disorganized, and she was utterly unprepared. In class, it often felt like she was seeing the slides for the first time (which likely contributed to her stuttering, excessive "uh," and her terrible mispronunciation of really common biological terms). Her slides were also terribly made in terms of organization and content, but the worst part was that there were many times when her notes directly contradicted what was in the textbook. She had absolutely no confidence in what she was "teaching," and it seemed like she didn't completely grasp many of the concepts. I can recall a number of times when students actually corrected her during review sessions because she actually gave the wrong information in class. She also started using an online system called Learning Catalytics at the beginning of the semester, which everyone in the class had to purchase. I don't think we used it more than 3 or 4 times over the course of the semester, so that was a complete waste of money. Still, that $20 lost doesn't even begin to compare to the money wasted paying for the credits for this class.

Midway through the semester, she also changed the grading policy in the syllabus, assigning more weight to the exams and less weight to in-class activities. This was definitely after our first exam, which I don't think is a fair change at all - a syllabus is a contract with the students, and changing it is unprofessional.

Speaking of exams, her tests were perhaps the most poorly written assessments I have ever taken. All 3 midterms were about 30 questions each, and at least 2 of them had questions that I like to call "triple jeopardy:" if you get one wrong, you get all three wrong. What a terrible testing strategy in general, especially on a 30 question test! Even worse was the fact that we were not allowed to ask any questions during the exam. There was only a space at the bottom of the test to write in any "concerns" you may have had during the exam. Firstly, I seriously doubt anyone went through 300 exams and read the concerns afterwards, and second, after the exams were turned in, any questions I may have had that would help me answer the problems on the exam would be irrelevant. She also never put question marks at the end of her questions (the little things contribute to the pissing off factor too).

THE PROTEIN PROJECT. Where do I even begin? This was the most massive waste of time. I didn't learn anything, except for how difficult it can be to get a group of people to work together on the damn thing.

Excellent instruction of a course of this level of importance to people in the pre-health fields should be a priority to not only the department, but also to the school, and it's a shame that over 300 future doctors, researchers, etc. took this class this semester and likely got as little out of it as I did. I would NOT recommend this class under any circumstances. Take it somewhere else, or take the 2nd semester of the chemistry department's version, but if you want to maintain your sanity and your GPA, avoid at all costs.

This class was pretty painful and not in the way you would typically expect a biochemistry course to be. What was challenging was not the material but dealing with a professor who was very unorganized and did not know the material well enough to be teaching it.

Schafer's lectures were very boring and not helpful. She is a very bad lecturer and public speaker and did not add anything to lectures that were not on the slides. Half of the class soon realized this and stopped coming to class.

Her tests questions were almost always poorly worded, and she did not test the most important concepts we learned. Many of the questions were difficult to understand because of wording and she did not permit students to ask questions during the exam. Because of how bad her lectures were, the exams were difficult to study for. Even practice problems she gave us did not adequately prepare us for a test which was much more difficult than it should have been, considering the fact that she barely taught us the concepts but then expected us to be able to apply them on tests.

She also clearly sometimes did not know what she was talking about. For one question we were asked in class on Learning Catalytics, students repeatedly asked her to explain the question, which she was unable to do. Students continued to ask this question in her discussion sections, and she gave conflicting responses each time she answered it. Many of the times asking her to explain a question did not result in an answer and instead resulted in the students being more confused.

The protein project is also a huge waste of time and if you have a bad group, then you are out of luck.

Professor Schafer is the worst professor I have had at UVa. In addition to being poorly organized and unclear, she can be condescending towards students who seek her help. She can be defensive and unclear during office hours and dismissive of students.

She refuses to answer questions during exams, and writes trick questions that test a student's ability to understand poorly worded and ambiguous question stems.

For example, one question asked for the identity of the last amino acid to fold during a simulation we watched in lecture.
During discussion, Dr. Schafer was condescending towards students who expressed frustration that it was impossible to recall such a small detail from a fairly complex simulation we had observed. Dr. Schafer scoffed and said the answer should have been obvious since she had hinted on the exam "the correct amino acid was blue on the simulation". I hope Dr. Schafer knows that amino acids are not necessarily blue in real life.

Her lectures are confusing, boring and even factually incorrect . What a waste of time.

Learning catalytics was also waste of time and money. She didn't explain questions properly and sometimes gave incorrect explanations. I have no idea why she asked us to do the Protein Project.

I was able to receive an A in this class by pure chance. I prepared by memorizing her slides and found the book to be useless. However, even though I prepared the same amount for each test, my scores varied wildly, from well below average to well above average. This is largely due to the very poorly worded test questions, as I found myself wildly guessing about 30% of the time.

I have never seen a professor inspire such murderous anger or frustration in students. Not a single person I met has respect for Dr. Schafer after this class.

Professor Schafer is the worst professor I've had at UVA and this was the worst class I've taken in my life. I strongly recommend taking this class through the Chemistry department if you really need it, or take it at a community college. I wasted hours and hours studying for exams that no one could decipher. Professor Schafer is rude, condescending, unhelpful, an awful lecturer, and not very smart. Prepare to renumber your exams at least twice throughout the semester. Doing well in the class is based on luck. Again, strongly don't recommend taking it.

Classes are hard at UVA but this class broke me. Even with the curve, I barely got a B-, my lowest grade ever even after hours and hours of studying. Lectures are a waste of time and the tests are utterly and unnecessarily difficult. The only way to do well in this class is if this is the only class you have to study for. The Protein Project was a grade booster but only worth it if you have a good group to work with. Textbook is way too dense.
The worst part about this class is your hard work is not evident in the grade (maybe I'm just bitter about my own grade). But I would not recommend this class to anyone who wants to learn or get a good grade.

This is absolutely the worst class at UVA. A hamster could have taught the class better than Schafer. She doesn't know how to teach, write exams, or be a good professor.

If you REALLY need biochem, take it somewhere else or through the Chem department. This class will completely and utterly be a waste of time.