BIOL 3260

This class was very interesting and taught me a lot more than I was expecting about various gene editing techniques. In terms of course layout, every night before lecture, you have to submit feedback on the readings as part of a participation grade. Also, a few times in the semester, you have to complete a self evaluation when you participated well in the class and feel you earned participation points. There were 4 take home quizzes that we had about 24 hours to complete. They were definitely challenging, but if you take extensive notes and practice on SnapGene, it should be okay. There is an optional final, where if you do better than your worst quiz, it replaces the quiz (which is really nice). There are also about 3 presentations on research papers you'll do throughout the course, which is extremely helpful in learning how to interpret these papers. This class was definitely a lot of work, and I would not suggest it if you are not enthusiastic about genes and editing to at least some degree. Also, this is not the kind of class where you can just sit there and not pay attention. Jay is looking for extremely active participation, and will often ask you to do things like draw on the board or point at diagrams with a laser pointer. You can tell he really loves the subject matter and seeing us succeed. However, there are a few issues I had with Jay. He will often touch on a subject, and then state that we needed to figure it out at home, often with no example to guide us. Also, this just kind of annoyed me, but he deeply sighs after everything he says. Anyways, I think I will finish this class with a B+, and I put in a lot of work to get that B+.