CHEM 4440

I got an A+ in this course, but I would not recommend it. She was not an engaging lecturer so this course requires you to find other ways to learn. She said she takes student feedback but like others have said here... it really is more of a show. She claims people asked for a quiz drop but really she intended to do that the whole time. It just felt so disingenuous. I would recommend a different professor if you want to enjoy the class!

Advice for success:
1) Don't be disheartened if you do bad on the first Midterm. I got a 67 and I still ended up with an A+ because I changed what I was doing. I truly improved on every exam after that, so don't give up! If this happens to you, I would recommend you go have a meeting with Samonina. She will hint at how she makes her exams and her thinking which is incredibly helpful.
2) Exams: It will often feel like there is a lot of content when you are reviewing for exams. I would recommend memorizing anything she tells you to "know by heart" and re-doing practice problems. If you understand every concept behind every practice problem, you will do well on the exams. Practice old midterms!!!! She gives them to you and you REALLY need to do understand them.
3) Quizzes, Homework, discussions, and PLAs (extra credit) - Will anchor your grade to get you a higher grade so prioritize them
4) Final Exam: I got nearly a perfect score from doing a few specific things. During the final review session, she will tell you what to expect so work to understand everything she hints at. Then, make sure you re-do old practice midterms and your course's Midterms. If there are still specific areas you don't understand, then do any discussion questions that focus on that specific topic.

I think this course must have changed recently because so far both of our exams have been pretty difficult despite preparing properly as recommended by the instructor. Reading the textbook, doing cold tests, and discussion problems hasn't worked out for me at least. I did fairly well in Dr.S's orgo classes but the exams were more representative of the practice exams plus our exam averages were overall higher. The average was a 68 for the first midterm and 71 for the second so I am not sure how the grade average was so high in years past for this class. I do think you can learn a lot from this course but as far as the instructor giving you the opportunity to succeed is to be determined. It is a hard gamble when the Biology department has an easy A biochemistry that is multiple choice while this class has free response exams and your hard work doesn't seem to be paying off.

In person lectures were essential for my learning in this class. In lecture Dr. S explained concepts that the textbook went over, focusing on the information she thought was important which helped me feel more prepared for exams. I found TA office hours a little more helpful than hers helpful because they were run by other students who had taken the class and were experienced in the course material. Dr. S really prided herself on being open to feedback from students, which I really appreciated. She made changes like increasing the number of attempts we had on each homework assignment, dropped an additional quiz grade, and incorporated more practice questions into lecture. If she sends out a google form asking for feedback, be honest and let her know what you want to see. The one downside of this class is that she can be kind of firm on regrade requests. If your answer on the exam isn't exactly as she had it on the rubric, you probably won't get any partial credit. But I was averaging B/B+s on the exams, and I'll end up with an A-/A in the class because of some of the easier assignments like the PLAs (extra credit), quizzes, and homework. #tCFfall22

Loved it! I came in really scared for this class after a less than perfect experience in orgo (I had Frantz). I really struggled in orgo with Frantz so I was worried how this class would go, especially with no corrections offered as seen in Frantz's class. Turns out Samonina's biochem is not like Frantz's orgo. This makes me regret not taking orgo with Samonina in the first place, I missed out bigtime. Tests were challenging but there was an abundance or resources. Many times her tests pulled questions straight from the discussion section so most things were expected. On orgo I felt like I had no idea what was going to be on the test and things seemed very unorganized. Things here made much more sense. The first exam was tricky, but from there on the tests resembled the discussion questions more and more. #tCFspring2022

Despite the negative reviews about this course, it is considered to be the easiest biochemistry course at UVA. The course is 65% exams (10% Midterm 1, 15% Midterm 2&3, 25% final exam). The remaining 35% is HW, attendance, discussion, and weekly quizzes. Attendance for lecture and discussion sessions is mandatory. The main attraction for this course is that there is 6% extra credit homework. With the extra credit HW, if you scored the average score on all of the exams and got full credit on everything else including the extra credit, you will end up with a B+ in the course. The exam averages progressively got lower (78, 75, and 70 respectively). There is NO CURVE in this class. The extra credit HW assignments is "the curve". The material at the start of the semester is fairly straightforward. However, the material after the first exam becomes very complicated. Some of the concepts are so challenging to grasp that some of the teaching assistants give contradictory information about it. The best source of reference is the textbook. Use that along with the lecture slides as a guide to ask clarifying questions. Almost all of the images and diagrams from the lecture slides are pulled straight from the textbook. There were times that we students were lost in the fog because we would receive different answers when we asked the same questions. As a warning, a lot of the exam questions are worded very poorly, even the TAs admit that. The best way to understand the poorly worded questions is by doing the textbook problems at the end of the chapters. Go to TA office hours to make sure you can get the even-numbered questions. Make sure that you understand all of your mistakes and master all of the past exam questions for the final exam. TA office hours can be very helpful and they are also a wonderful way to meet other students and form study groups. Additionally, practice exams are released before each midterm. Make sure you understand those questions along with the relevant book problems. The TAs hold exam review sessions to clarify these questions. Go to these sessions with questions prepared. These exam review sessions are also a great way to meet other students. Like a lot of higher-level science classes, this class will be very stressful and require a lot of studying. Make sure that you do the HW the day that it is assigned and do the textbook problems. You cannot afford to procrastinate in this class. Study groups are a wonderful way to learn the material and stay motivated.

Samonina is easily the worst lecturer I have ever had the misfortune of encountering at UVA. She cannot complete a full sentence or thought without getting lost or taking a 10 second pause (this is not an exaggeration). She regularly contradicts herself in class and is impossible to follow. She clearly understands the subject matter but should absolutely not be teaching students, particularly those preparing for the MCAT. It's easy to do well in the class, but she is so incredibly painful to experience that anyone who cares about their education or their sanity should take it with a better professor. #tCFfall2021

The two best words to describe this professor would be lazy and ambiguous, without a doubt. Before I proceed any further with my review, it should be noted that I'm not a disgruntled student who got a bad grade (like a C ) in this class (I received an A), but I still absolutely hated this class. A whole year before this class actually came into fruition, we started getting emails from the department about how this class is geared specifically for pre-health students and would help to prepare us for the MCAT/DAT/other pre-health exams, so I honestly came into this class thinking I'd be a wiz in the biochemistry portion of the MCAT as a result/be really knowledgeable on biochemistry by the end of this course, but that wasn't the case.

I'm leaving this class feeling great about intro chemistry topics (which this class spent an oddly large amount of time reviewing) and not really knowing much about the harder topics of "biochemistry". I thought the homework assignments, PLAs, and CHPs were ridiculously easy, but they didn't prepare you for exams at all since exams had no multiple choice and were all short answers. The bulk of our grades come from exams, and this is where the real problems are. To start off, to prepare for the exams, absolutely memorize how to do all of the discussion problems, as she gets the bulk of her exam questions from here (which is the saving grace of them tbh). But the first issue is that she packs SO many questions (I'm talking about multiple parts to each question, and each subquestion having its OWN multiple parts!) and expects students to finish everything and perfectly. So many students complained after every exam about how long they were, but she wouldn't really listen. When she is bothered to write her own exam questions, another huge issue is that they're riddled with grammatical errors and impossible to comprehend. You waste so much of the time just trying to figure out what the heck she's even asking for. Regardless, whether she writes them herself or just copies them from discussion (which are just the even questions from the textbook), she expects full on essays for the answers. If you don't write something in a way that she prefers, she'll have no problem giving you 0 credit for the question. The usual bonus with short-answer questions is that you'd get some sort of partial credit for the work you were able to put in/effort, but nope, nothing here. There were times where I had the exact right answer, but she just didn't like my wording and took points off - like how petty of a teacher can you be? Continuing with this theme of ambiguity, she would also take plenty of points off from students' exams for things that would never be specified. For example, she had these questions where you had to pick between one or the other (where it says choose one), but then she'd take points off because you didn't explain each one out... like who does that? Honestly, for these issues with the exams, as well as her lack of accountability, heavy-ambiguity, and just her outright laziness, I detested this class.

I could seriously go on and on about how problematic this class was, but I'm gonna end it with the fact that her sympathy and "being understanding" is so fake. In those emails, and those surveys where she wants to "check in," that sympathy is only surface-level and she doesn't actually care how students are doing (doubt she even reads those surveys she made us do anyways). I guess she's trying to change things after she got branded as being "easier than Frantz" after her first year here or something -- but Jelena, this class wasn't it. Overall, my recommendation would be to not take this class with Samonina and instead take it in the biology department with the new professor (Fall 2021 or later) or take it with Grisham or Landers. My friends have found their classes to be challenging, but worthwhile, as they were actually taught the important themes and aspects from biochemistry and have went onto kill it in their pre-health exams (btw, at least these classes don't have useless discussion sections either!).

#tCFspring2021
The material is very good for reviewing the MCAT. The exams are kind of tough but often times, she pulls from the discussion sections as opposed to homework or quizzes so they're not impossible. AND if it's in the discussion, even if it's not in the textbook and she didn't say it in class, there is STILL a chance that it will be on the exam! On that note, it's a lot of weekly work; Dr. S recommends 2 hours a day but I'd say it was more. You have long homeworks and quizzes along with reading 2 chapters per week. The extra credit needs to be done 3 times a week to just get 6% at the end (if you get a 100 % on all of them). But Dr. S is pretty understanding and very passionate and excited about every class. Overall, I'd recommend if you are reviewing/studying for the MCAT; it's not a huge amount of memorization comparatively.