BIOL 3050

I absolutely loved this class. Barry is so approachable and genuinely wants to see you succeed. You can tell how passionate he is and he can be pretty funny. You definitely have to go to lectures to do well because he doesn’t really follow a textbook super closely and the slides are difficult to understand without an explanation. There are questions to go along with each lecture that basically mimic old exams so they are super helpful even though they aren’t graded. The only grades are 3 midterms but you can drop your lowest grade and opt to take the final exam to replace it if you want to. There isn’t a set curve but he adjusts the grading scale based on how people do (the B+/A- boundary seems to usually fall around 86 or 87 but it changes every year). Overall, this course is definitely worthwhile and the concepts aren’t too hard to understand if you put the time into learning them.

This course covers a lot of very difficult content, and there are no assignments other than exams. That being said, Professor Condron is an amazing professor who is incredibly passionate about his career and everything neurobiology. He is very knowledgable and funny, and he will answer any question. I enjoyed this course because I did not have the added stress of weekly assignments, and the content is very interesting if the brain is your interest. You are allowed 1 exam drop and 1 side of a sheet of paper per lecture on exams. Additionally, he posts practice questions that are very similar to his exam-question style and recordings of every lecture. Professor Condron talks very fast, so I would not plan on taking hand-written notes (coming from someone who prefers that). If you put time and real effort into reviewing the material, listening to the recordings, and drawing the circuits out, you should have no issue succeeding!

People either love or hate Condron's teaching. I personally loved this class and recommend it to every pre-med. Although it can be challenging material, I think it's the closest thing we have to a medical school class as an undergraduate! Condron himself is a wonderful professor. Felt very easy to pop into his office to chat. He also does not gatekeep anything, and anything he said during OH that could help you succeed in the class was also said to the entire class at some point. The only con about this class is with the switch to Canvas/scantron, Condron was a little bit disorganized. In theory we were supposed to get homework sets that we did optionally but as an assignment on Canvas, but he was unable to figure it out so he just posted a PDF version, but this meant you had to go to OH to get the answers to the questions. His exams compared to Cell Biology are not as application heavy, and could be done in around an hour (35Qs), but his wording can be confusing and he will often look at old questions and admit that the wording is confusing/ he will have some mistakes on the exams (like two correct answers and whatnot). I am unsure how these were addressed, but my assumption is he gave us our "raw scores" on canvas during the semester, and adjusted them behind the scenes and then gave us our final score at the end of the semester, which was higher for everyone than our expected final score from our raw exam grades. Since grade brackets were not given, I'm unsure how much the final grade of the class was curved, or if it was just a re-adjusted score from exam corrections. So overall, the biggest con is you might be in the dark about your exact final grade until the end of the semester, but I believe it will be higher, not lower than what you expect from your raw scores.

The textbook was confusing to look through but helped for understanding certain pathways better, but went way too in depth in comparison to his exam questions. I found Abby's OH plus Condron's OH are a better way to understand the material, and if Abby teaches again I really recommend going to her OH! She is very sweet and basically goes through the lecture again, highlighting all the important information. She is also super helpful with questions and the best TA I've seen.

This has been my favorite pre-med class I have taken!

This was one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at UVA and definitely my favorite this semester, content-wise. The material is incredibly interesting and Professor Condron is super approachable, funny, and engaging. The material can definitely be tricky though especially because he goes fairly fast and there’s a lot to cover. I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend going to his office hours and asking about ANYTHING you’re unsure about, even if it’s just asking him to repeat what he said in class. It will make so much more sense when it’s a smaller group and you can ask specific questions. He also goes over exam questions from last year during office hours, which he often doesn’t share during class.

I saw a previous review saying this is the first time the class is in-person. While this is false as the class has been in-person before, this might be the first time in recent years that the TESTS are in-person and on a scantron, as all biology classes have transitioned to this format to combat cheating. However, we are still allowed one flashcard of notes per lecture (1 side of a full, standard sheet of paper). Also, we do get practice questions for each chapter, the answers to which you can get through office hours, to gauge our learning. The tests can be confusingly worded, which is something you just have to adapt to. He also reuses many practice questions for his exams. It was frustrating that the third midterm was 2 days before the final so we weren’t able to see what we got wrong on the midterm, but thankfully we were able to drop 1 exam because almost everybody bombed the third one.

I didn’t read the textbook and I don’t think it’s worthwhile to pay full price for it. I just used it to go over concepts I was confused about in class. Also there is a curve, but he made it very clear that he would not tell us what it is beforehand. There was a slide in one of his PowerPoints saying 85=A, but he never talked about it in class as it was an old slide and never promised that this would be the case. He did not release grade brackets for this year.

Overall: love the class, love Barry. Just wish the test questions were clearer sometimes and it was stressful that our grade was just the exams. The flashcards were definitely a lifesaver, I would put EVERYTHING on them and it was very helpful. No extra work outside of class except for exam weeks, which is when I would cram watching like 10 lectures into 3 days lol (I usually watch at 2x speed for other classes, but he talks so fast that I couldn’t this time around).

This class was a struggle. Do not take this class unless you have to. Barry is a really nice person. He is not the best at teaching. I learned more from the ta’s office hours than his class. The ta was awesome! There are four exams and the lowest one gets dropped. However each exam is worth 33% of your grade. There is no homework to check to see how you are doing during the semester. You are allowed to bring one flashcard for each lecture but it only helps so much. He writes the exams so poorly. There are questions that the ta even thought were not right. His exams were so hard based on the fact that you have to think about what would Barry want. He says you can refute and email with questions that you think you were right however he doesn’t give you points back. He also said a 85 was an A at the beginning of the semester, but that wasn’t true. We also had our hardest midterm a day and a half before our final and we didn’t get to even see the exam answers before the final. He had to curve the grades because they were so bad but it wasn’t the scale of an 85 being an A it was a lot lower. TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE NEWER REVIEWS BECAUSE MOST OF THE GOOD ONES ARE FROM WHEN THE COURSE WAS TAUGHT ONLINE. This was the first semester it was taught in person again!!

Dr. Condron is an amazing instructor! He replies to emails quickly and takes the time to answer questions in depth. I definitely recommend going to office hours, even if you don't feel like you need to. It's helpful to listen to him explain the concepts again and just take notes on what he says. You don't really need to buy the textbook for this course. His lectures are pretty fast. I had to switch from handwriting my notes to typing because of this. Also make sure to download all the recordings, slides, and questions the day he posts them because he will take them down without telling you! He does allow flashcards on his exams, but the exams are definitely harder compared to some of the other biology classes because they require a lot of critical thinking and deduction, so make sure your flashcards are detailed. Overall, he is very entertaining and has an amazing attitude. You can tell that he really enjoys teaching the class.

Not an easy course, but absolutely rewarding if you attend lecture. Dr. Condron teaches very well and is happy to explain things. Exams are rough, but you're allowed a cheat sheet and grades are usually curved by an entire grade. Exams are the only component of grades, so you must study hard for them.

Dr. Condron is a god. This class is actually so interesting, especially unit 3 when you get to sensation and learn all the pathways. But this class is so great. Relatively easy too. 3 tests and a cumulative final. Dr. Condron has optional homework questions based off of the lectures and study flashcards at the end of each lecture that summarize each class and often times a lot of the same questions will be on the test so I definitely recommend paying attention to those. Other than that, the only thing that I can recommend is showing up to class and taking the time to speak to Dr. Condron who is actually a great person and an absolute rarity at UVA and especially in the STEM departments. 100% recommend for any bio, psyc, neuro, cogsci electives that you want to knock out in both a fun and interesting class. Just do it #tCFfall22

This class is definitely one of my favorite classes I've taken here at UVA. Barry is an awesome professor with a clear passion for the subject and for teaching. That doesn't mean this class was easy though. The material can be difficult to understand at times (I found the unit on circuits to be especially confusing), but there are practice questions to help you study. I would really recommend going to office hours to go over these questions because just understanding how Barry thinks and comes up with questions really helped me on the exams. The exams were fairy straight forward in my opinion. The 3 midterms were 35 multiple choice with 7 short answer questions and the final (which could replace your lowest midterm grade) was 35 multiple choice with 10 short answers. You can also use one page of notes/lecture for the exams. One thing I will say is that Barry can be disorganized at times. Sometimes his lectures bounce from one place to another, which made it kind of hard to understand during lecture. However, going back and looking through my notes alongside the flashcards he gives you helped bring everything together. Overall I would recommend this class to anyone who has an interest in neuroscience! #tCFfall22

As a prospective neurosci major, I highly recommend this course, but with some caveats.

PROS
- Pretty easy, when compared to the other 3000-level bio courses. Barry is pretty clear with what you need to know for exams. I was able to get mid to high 90s on the exams with not much effort.
- Helpful and optional post-lecture quizzes that often include verbatim exam questions
- OPEN NOTE (somewhat). You get to make one-page cheat sheets for each lecture
- Barry is a fabulous lecturer! Always incorporating recent research into his lectures, and giving great insights into the ongoing issues within the field. I also loved his asides about his life in Ireland.
- Provides audio recordings of each lecture
- OPTIONAL FINAL!!! It replaces your lowest midterm score.
- Barry is very understanding and accommodating (mostly). He is responsive to feedback from students. E.g. we asked for more time on the final exam and he just said "sure!"

CONS
- The course is a survey, so it is VERY surface-level. As someone who is very interested in neuro, the lack of depth feels a little patronizing. His lectures don't always "land" if that makes sense. I don't really feel like I've left this course with any new, substantive knowledge.
- His slides and flashcards are very disorganized; hard to study from if you haven't seen the lectures
- He can be a bit gatekeep-y with his audio recordings. He deletes them from Collab a few days after giving his lectures for some reason??
- The only grades are your 3 exams. This can be a pro or con depending on your preference.