BIOL 3010

Professors Guler and Taylor are both very knowledgeable about the subject matter. However, Professor Guler is a little harder to understand in lectures, and a lot of what he said flew over my head. Because there is no homework in this course, it is purely up to you to learn and reinforce the material. Naturally, I found myself procrastinating and studying all of the lectures a day or two before each exam (of which there were 4). The exams were very difficult, especially Guler's. Both professors like to add "all of the above" as an answer choice to nearly every question, which really messes with your head. That being said, if you're interested in biology, genetics, etc. and/or you plan on majoring in biology, take this course.

Ali is a very nice guy who knows what he's talking about, but his tests were impossible. As are most of the classes in this department, your grade is made up of equally weighted exams which primarily evaluate your test taking skills. I would spend days leading up to our open notes/book/internet exam studying meticulously and organizing 50+ pages of notes, yet that didn't matter at all as the exam questions were so confusing. I feel like it's pretty bad when the exam scores range from 30-100 on an exam you can use the internet on. The "curve" is dependent on the highest scoring student at the end of the semester, so if there was one genius who got a perfect score the rest of us got nothing. If you're great with test taking, I'm sure having genetics with Ali would be fine, but if you're like me and require straightforward expectations, I'd seek elsewhere.

This class was a mess. Both professors jump all over the place in lectures and their thought processes are extremely difficult to understand. Exams with both Professor Güler and Galloway were practically impossible. I still can’t figure out where they pulled their questions from and how they thought these questions were testing us on the material that we learned in lectures. I had a good understanding of all of the material that was covered during lectures but once exams came around it didn’t seem like my studying mattered at all. Luckily, the curve was almost 6.5%, so my final grade improved by two letter grades. It’s unfortunate that this class is offered by these professors because the course and information we could learn about has a lot of potential.

This course was nothing short of a disappointment. Professor Guler and Professor Galloway seemed unprepared for lecture. Neither one was effective at conveying the information in a way that made sense. There was a big disjoint between the material that was taught and the questions asked on the exams - I could know and understand everything from the slides, yet still not do well. This was shown by Professor Guler's first exam which had to be curved significantly due to the faulty wording of questions. He often would get frustrated at student's questions in class, which discouraged me from asking for help and did not foster a community of learning. He often just seemed like he did not want to be here, and was "too smart" to be teaching us. Thank god Pass/Fail was an option.

This course is pretty difficult, but as to be expected for an upper-level biology course. The tests are definitely worded in a very difficult way. Guler (first half of the semester) is a little trickier than Galloway (second half of the semester). The only grades are tests which makes it difficult, and they only curve at the end of the course so you really don't know what you're going to get which is nerve-wracking.

There were three professors for this course - Wormington, Guler, and Galloway. This was a terrible course. For anybody who has to take this course, I would honestly wait until UVA finds one professor for this course. There was a curve at the end, but their exams were extremely hard. I had to figure out different ways to study for each of these professors exams. Guler’s lectures were very hard to follow, in my opinion. He would talk way too fast, so I always had to refer back to the textbook. Although I recorded his lectures, it was hard for me to hear what he was saying. He mumbles a lot. Also, Guler did not have anything on his slides except pictures, which was not very helpful. Wormington’s lectures were okay, but he has way too much information on his slides. Galloway lectures was the worst out of both teachers. She would often stutter a lot, and her explanations are trash. She gave baby explanations. (She is way better in her Q&A sections though). Another thing I noticed was she would rarely explain something in lecture, but a question would be asked about it in the TAs practice problems and quizzes. One example is when she mentioned RILs and NILs, but hardly went into detail. After lecture, I would always read the textbook to give me more information about a topic she mentioned in class. The only way to do good in this class was MEMORIZING EVERYTHING!!!! Most of their exams tested on memorization rather than application, and focused on minor details. Another thing that would have helped was if the professors wrote practice exams for us, so we can have some clue of how they will word their questions and what to focus on.

This course had three professors: Gûler, Galloway and Wormington. This was a terrible course, simply because we had three professors and none of them were amazing. Galloway was the most confusing and it was really difficult trying to understand what to study. Her lectures were all over the place and could be hard to follow. She was a very nice professor and tried to keep the class fun, but overall it was very hard to study for her tests and Gûler's tests too who was another professor as well. Gûler was not a good lecturer because he was way too quiet and mumbled a lot so it was hard taking good notes (he barely had anything on his slides) and then it was hard having to read it back! Wormington who also taught hard very straightforward lectures that were very easy to follow, but way too much material. Obviously memorizing the lectures is the only way to do well, but you really have to make sure you start early and keep up with the class. Overall it was a difficult course although they curved a lot. It's only worth it if you know the professor will be good and you have to take the class.

This course was very much like a roller coaster for me. My overall recommendation is like the person who previously posted a review. If you haven’t taken genetics yet, I would wait until they find one good professor before taking it (if you can).

Guler was an okay professor. Wormington was a great professor (unpopular opinion). Galloway was also okay but she wasn’t as good as I hoped.

Taking this course almost felt like I had 3 different classes in one. I had to adjust and figure out how to prepare for the exams for each professor and honestly, it was exhausting. I took Wormington for cell biology so I do believe that helped me when preparing for his one exam but preparing for both of Galloway’s TWO exams was a struggle for me. I genuinely don’t know where I went wrong. I absolutely regret not waiting until UVA found one teacher to teach the course.

This semester of genetics could truly be accurately described as a trashcan fire. As with previous semesters, there were four total grades in the class, each of which constituted 25% of your grade. The issue was, we had three different professors over the course of the semester (Guler, Wormington, and Galloway) which really messed with the rhythm of the class as well as (at least mine and my peers) grades. It was clear that Guler was the only true geneticist, and despite his dubious lecturing he was by far the most engaged with the material. The other two had varying levels of interest, ranging from disdain (Wormington) to a meager attempt to turn the class into Evo Eco (Galloway). Honestly, until UVA sorts out the teaching situation, I would wait to take the class until they get someone with genuine interest and experience teaching genetics. I had high hopes for genetics, and I was quite disappointed by the intro that I received.