CHEM 4410

This class is easy... provided that you can memorize the textbook and/or lecture slides verbatim. The tests are fair, but difficult if you haven't memorized obscure details. Dr. Grisham mainly spends lectures covering the same information printed directly on his slides (which are taken directly from the textbook). More often than not, people come to class only to take the quizzes. Most people spend lecture on the internet using the tablets provided for the class. Grading in the class takes forever, and Dr. Grisham doesn't respond to e-mail and is never in his office. In short, I can't really recommend taking this class unless you fall into one of these categories: A) you're a biochem major, in which case, it's unavoidable, or B) you're pre-med. Medical schools like to see biochemistry, and it will prepare you for biochemistry when you take it in med school. Also, biochemistry is useful when taking the MCATs. If you're not in one of these two categories, I wouldn't recommend this class, unless you're looking for a semester's worth of regrets.

Great class.

This class requires a lot of studying and not just the day before the exams. There are quizzes almost every day in class, which makes you learn everything as you go

This is a very valuable class for those heading into a career in the biological or health sciences. The material can even be enjoyable. However, despite Grisham's best attempts to spark the class with enthusiasm it is a ton of work, there is no way around it.

As a biochem major, you have to take this class. Professor Grisham is definately a nice guy. Unfortuantely, he wrote the textbook, so you get the textbook read to you during class. It's hard to learn when no new insight is provided. This class is completely memorization (how many angstroms across are hydrogen bonds between base pairs in DNA?), as opposed to the conceptual approache used in 442. So you should take it if you want 442, but it is not very fun at all.

The class was a fair amount of reading on the side but definitely not the time involvement that Grisham claims at the beginning of the semester. As long as you go to the lectures and read the information, the tests are not that hard. Although it may have been different because the TAs made up the exams this year as opposed to Grisham himself.

Professor is great, he really enjoys teaching and wants you to learn. You do have to be ready to put a lot of effort and brain power into this course though.

This class was not fun. Grisham served up random memorization questions, and never really tested fundamentals of what you're learning. The bulk of the class is memorizing random formulas and numbers which have nothing to do with the overall study or practice of Biochemistry. There is no structure to his exams, and I honestly got more out of reading the book than I did out of his lectures. Avoid class, unless you HAVE to take it.

"If you're studying any less than 10 hours/week, you should expect a C or lower." -Grisham
I'd say, that's an understatement.

Oh, where to begin. The relevance of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the production of light beer, and knowing how to free hand 18 residues worth of a helical wheel is questionable. Dr. Grisham always says that he wants this to be "the best class at UVA." Ha. If this were actually true, I wouldn't have spent time on my final singing the ABCs, trying to track down the amino acids that have two chiral centers. Instead, I might have been thinking about how specific residues bind to specific types of substrates. But this would have made sense. The redemptive factor is that you are forced to plow through the stuff once, which will make medical school that much easier, assuming this class doesn't completely turn you off.