BIOL 3400

Great course in terms of the lab and the organisms dissected. Lecture was not as interesting.

Have to read the "optional books"

Easy class! The majority of the grade is dependent upon your lab participation and quizzes. The weekly quizzes are only based on what you need to know for lab that day, so once you learn the material for that week, you can usually forget them. Sometimes, you'll need to know important parallels between the different animals studied, but nothing major. Four midterms on material from the book, but you really don't have to read the textbook because he talks about everything you'll need to know for the test during the class. Kopeny isn't really good at replying to emails or making himself available but TAs were plenty!

This class is split into two parts: lecture and lab. The lab is really great. Every dissection is interesting and I felt that I learned a lot from it. The lecture, however, is absolutely TERRIBLE. Listening to Kopeny read off his slides is torture and because of this, I would NOT recommend this class.

Course is divided into two portions. The lab which is divided into participation (20%) and quizzes (55%). Quizzes vary in difficulty depending on your TA. Studying for the quizzes requires reading through your manual and taking notes on Kopeny's pre-lab talks which form the second half of Thursday lectures. The labs are fun as you get to dissect various vertebrate animals from fish to cats as you progress through the timeline of vertebrate evolution. Lecture is not as fun as the lab portion. Even though it's only worth 25% of your grade, I found Kopeny's lecturing style to be enthusiastic yet difficult to follow. Would not take another lecture with Kopeny, but this course's saving grace is its 75% lab grade, which still means you have to study for the lecture exams (4 of them). For the lecture exams, you need to go to class and take notes, reading the book fills in the gaps but lecture gives you an idea of where he's going with the slides. I would recommend taking this class because of the dissections and just how much I learned about anatomy and biological roles of systems. Take the time to study the lab manual thoroughly, lab guides, lecture, textbook, evodevo theory behind each system as it progresses from fish to mammals, etc. and you'll take a lot more from this course than just a not so difficult A.

I really liked this course! The labs are really fun and interesting. The lecture portion of the course isn't the best but it only counts for 25% of your grade. Not a very hard class. I recommend it. Also, Margot is a wonderful TA!

The weekly quizzes aren't that hard and the dissections are really fun. You basically work at your own pace with your partner and study the whole time for the quiz. Quizzes are worth 55 percent of your grade with and addition 20 percent for participation. This means only 25 percent of your grade comes from 4 non-culmulative lecture tests. Good for an upper level lab course. I would recommend it.

i personally dont find this topic (how morphology has evolved in vertebrates to adapt functionally) terribly interesting, and kopeny tends to give very detail oriented lectures. the details are tested along with broader concepts. the weekly dissection lab was pretty cool except for the copious amounts of formaldehyde. the grading for this class this semester was weird, with a quiz each week in lab and 3 midterms, all of which counted for almost exactly the same percent of the final grade (about 6-7% each). kopeny is definitely a very nice guy thoguh, so im sure he would be awesome at office hours.

Kopeny changed the way he graded this class. Dissections counted for majority of class. Lab quiz every week. Easy if you read the manual and memorize the structures. Labs were fun. I definitely recommend it. Midterms were easy if you studied. Kopeny + TAs definitely want you to do well.

Great class. All of the labs are dissection based, so you can't go wrong. Also, Dr. Kopeny brings in his pet hawk for the bird dissection. Nuf' said.

The class was great if you like evolutionary developmental biology and dissections.

This is a very interesting class basically starts out with less derived organisms and moves up from there. It follows the evolution of "form function complexes" such as the lungs. The lab is harder than lecture however if you put in the time you will do well in it. Lelena is an awesome TA maybe not as easy as some but great person to be in lab with.

Tests were easy, but they were memory intensive. Know the slides inside and out and you'll be fine. If you put in the time you'll get the grade easy.

Very enjoyable way to get a 300 level lab credit. Material adds up, but there is no way around rote memorization in a comparative anatomy class. Kopeny is not the most engaging professor in the department, but his syllabus does a good job of covering select systems in depth, rather than just glancing over as many topics as possible. While 4 midterms and 2 practicals may seem like a lot, it helps that no one test is going to kill your grade.

Its not a hard class but can seem overwhelming right before practicals and exams. Just take really good notes and study those instead of the book and you will be fine

Kopeny is an enthusiastic teacher and I found the material interesting. Labs are cool and usually don't take the whole time. The only workload is going to class as that is where he gets all his test material. Be ready for some memorization, especially on lab practicals.

Kopeny's lectures are always hard to follow, no matter what class of his you take. An intersting course though. The labs and TA's were great.

Keep up with the powerpoints as the textbook is pretty much supplemental and he only tests lecture material. As for the practicals, make sure you actually see everything and know where things are relative to other structures.

Great professor, really wants students to enjoy the subject matter and do well in his class. Tests and practicals are challenging but overall a worthwhile course.

Dr. K is an awesome professor in that he is very approachable and excited about the class; however, his lectures are often a bit jumbled...like he gets so excited about the material he can't think straight. The tests are hard and require A LOT of memorization, esp. the lab exams; however, to relieve some of the pressure he sometimes lets you take them home if you cannot finish in the alotted class time.

The class has lecture and lab exams, which is difficult, but the lab practicals aren't too bad at all if you pay attention and always work in lab. The lecture exams are fairly difficult at times but are primarily lecture-based and the book is just supplemental.

This class was very engaging as Professor Kopeny kept it interesting for the most part and the small class size also kept it more personal. Pay attention and you'll get a good grade.