BIOL 5010

Challenging class, but prepares you well for medical school.

Biochem's always tough, especially with Garrett. He flies through chapters, and then gives practice tests before the exam that don't really help you on the actual test. Rather frustrating, but you'll learn quite a bit if you invest the time into reading. In my opinion though, take the extra semester and do the Chem version...

Biochemistry was a great class. If you have the time to study, you will be able to do well. In terms of the amount of work, I put in as much time as a did in orgo and managed to get an A. Start studying/Finish reading about a week in advance and then just go through the slides to get the gist of it all while memorizing important structures. There is a lot of memorization, but as Prof Garrett said "Biochem is like grenades, you just gotta get close." You don't have to memorize everything, as long as you memorize some (the important stuff) and get the idea of everything else. Always attend the review sessions, especially the ones right before the test. If you can't make these, then get the notes from someone else. He goes over old tests. Attending these review sessions before the test is absolutely necessary to do well, unless you are much smarter than the average UVA student. You will learn a lot and bring many concepts that you have been learning in other classes together.

This class is very difficult. there is a lot of material and he requires you to know every detail. the tests are very fair so if you've memorized everything in the book, you will do well. he is a great professor and his lectures were very interesting. makes other biology classes generally considered hard seem much easier after taking this class.

It's a very fast paced class and the tests tend to be very detailed.

If you want an A in this class, you must give Garrett your soul for the semester as collateral.

It's not the material that makes this class difficult...it's just the sheer amount of information that gets thrown at you. I made the mistake of taking this with physics, orgo lab, etc, and I feel like I could've done better given different circumstances. That being said, the average gets curved to a B, and there are four tests (including a non-cumulative "final") and a protein project that helps your grade. The averages were 73, 60, and 66 on the first 3 midterms. I did slightly above average on all of them and ended up with a B+, so use your own judgement from there. Lectures are basically Garrett just reading from his own slides, and the toughest part of the tests was guessing what he was going to ask. There's simply so much information that he cannot test you on all of it at once, so a lot of things get left out, and I ended up confused on what exactly to focus on. (entire sections of chapters would never show up)

There is a lot of things to memorize but you just have to go by the lectures and slideshows and know absolutley everything in them. Reading the book would be nice to understand the material better but I didn't read the book for the last 3 midterms and still got an A. Work hard and you'll get the grade you deserve.

This class is no joke. Garrett blazes through his powerpoints with little time to process the information. Tests are fair..I suppose? They do test on what you went over in class but there is just so much information that the tests only test maybe 20% of what you actually memorized and is incredibly detailed. Do not cram for this class. One guy got 100% on all the tests though, so it's not impossible, and with the right work ethic the class is not bad.

It is highly recommended that you keep a light course load while enrolled in this class. Best if taken 4th year when you have almost completed your major.