BIOL 3050

I hate to break the mood here, but Barry is quite overrated. Don't get me wrong- he is an incredibly nice guy and is super willing to help during office hours. He is a passionate professor, loves to teach this subject, and is very inspiring in terms of connecting neurobiology to new, emerging frontiers in science and research.

However, Barry tends to skim over difficult concepts very quickly. Certain signaling pathways and neural nets he did not explain very well, and a majority of my work in the class came from re-listening to all of his lectures again and slowing them down to half speed in order to fully complete my notes. I wish he toned down the pace as many of us could not catch up- many of us had to interrupt him numerous times during his lecture in order to get him to explain something again.

The fact that so many of my peers simply end up skipping class and asking for someone's notes later or re-listening to the lectures at a slower pace shows that he needs to truly overhaul the way he teaches a class. Furthermore, he is not the most organized person- his exams usually have 3-4 questions where he screwed up the answer and we have to go back and e-mail him so remembers to change the grade. Sometimes he doesn't even respond to E-mails.

Barry's a cool guy but certainly not the best professor ever like everyone is saying.

Condron is without a doubt the best professor in the Biology department. Truly makes this course very doable and fascinating. I fell like its a must take course for any Pre-Med or bio major. That being said, this course is not easy, I bombed the first exam due to procrastination but greatly improved for the other exams. My recommendation would be literally go over the lectures and recordings the same day the lecture was given. Also he provides hw questions at the end of the powerpoint and on Collab. Create a mini-quiz with the questions and just practice with those. 2 exams and a final (not cumulative), optional hw (not graded). Also, go to office hours, a very nice approachable guy and he will help you.

As a bio major, Barry was my favorite science professor at UVA. Neuroscience is hard, but Barry is so enthusiastic and passionate with what he's teaching that he makes even boring topics exciting to learn. Tests are straight forward, optional homework only, Barry is the man.

Condron is the best professor I've had at UVA! He is inspiring, interesting, and the subject matter itself is never boring. That being said, I worked VERY hard to get an A. Here are some tips: 1) Read before class- you will have a better basis for what he is teaching. 2) Record lessons and listen to them, and try to do this in advance, so that you understand what is going on, rather than cramming before the exams. 3) Go to office hours to make sure you know the answers to the practice problems, and make sure you know why the other answer choices are wrong. 4) Do not stress too much about your average, because this semester a 90 was an A, a 92 was an A+, and an 87 was an A- . Good luck!

Science professors often are super bland in their lecture style but not Professor Condron. He's super enthusiastic and passionate about the material. You might come away from his first lecture feeling nervous about the difficulty of the course; he cautions you about the pre-requisites he recommends having to succeed in the class, and the three tests being the sole determinants of your grade was concerning. But honestly I did not find the course particularly challenging. I really loved the way he had the class set up, it was super collaborative with the whole class and as long as you put in the effort (SHOW UP TO CLASS!!!) you should do well. To study for exams I would listen to the audio of his lectures he posts on Collab and follow along with both the lecture slides and the student notes he provides (also on Collab) and fill in any gaps of information I had. It's a little time consuming but if you do 1-2 lectures a day in the week before the exam, its totally doable. I am expecting an A-/A in this class so I totally recommend this class you'll learn so much fascinating information!

Prof. Condron is AWESOME! such a great lecturer, yes he talks fast but it's really not that hard to keep up. He allows students to post audio recordings from each lecture on collab which is so helpful!

I'm sure this will be different depending on how you study: I only used the textbook for the first Exam and ended up doing the worst on that one. For the last 2 Exams (there are 3 Exams no final), I just re-listened to all the lectures and went through my notes a couple of times, but that was enough to help me prepare! He posts sample questions at the end of every lecture and his test questions mimic those sample questions pretty well. On every Exam he asks 5 questions/lecture so it's pretty easy to figure out what he is going to ask about. This is a great class if you are interested in neuro! I would not recommend this for someone who is not used to taking Bio or other science classes!

Prof. Condron knows a ton about the subject. His lectures slides can be disorganized but it's definitely possible to learn the material and do well if you spend a couple of hours studying each PowerPoint. It's definitely not an easy A but you don't have to read the textbook to do well. I never opened it and am expecting an A-/B+.

This is a tough class, but if you're genuinely interested in learning more about neurobiology, it is very worthwhile. Professor Condron is a very enthusiatic teacher and is a very nice person to talk to in office hours. (I really really recommend going!) The only reason I didn't give hima 5/5 is because he talks too quickly during his lectures and is slightly disorganized. He has his own unique way of thinking and condensing information, and it can be tricky for someone who does not think in this way to see what he's getting at at times. However, he really cares about you learning and understanding (not just memorizing) the material and is a very interesting person.

Keep in mind that this course is taught in a very similar way that a medical school course in neurobiology would be taught. It is hard, and it is not dumbed down. As a pre-med student who has already taken all of the prerequisites and the MCAT and worked pretty hard in this course (although, admittedly, not as hard as I could have), I am nowhere close to getting an A in this class. Even so, I have 0 regrets in taking it.

Professor Condron is awesome!! You can tell he's super passionate about what he teaches and wants other people to be passionate about it too. He talks SUPER fast so record the lectures, he also has students upload recordings on collab so you can use those as well. I didn't read the book at all and still got an A- in the class but know every piece of information on the slides. Overall this was a very worthwhile course and you learn a lot!

This course was a lot of fun! It packed a lot of information in, but I loved lectures and you could tell Professor Condron loved what he was teaching about. If you put the effort in, you will get a lot out of this class. Overall, one of the most rewarding classes I've taken thus far at UVA.