BIOL 4130

This class was excellent! It occupied a niche I haven't really seen in any other courses so far - more ecology than your average biology course, and more biology than your average environmental sciences course. We covered a wide range of topics relating to population dynamics and generally learned a new model once a week. Classes would alternate between lecture and paper discussions, which Dr. Manson graded leniently. I found her to be a very effective lecturer, and she was always more than willing to explain things in new ways + work out the confusing details of the models we covered if a student was confused. Exams were challenging but fair and any points lost on those could generally be balanced out by the (easy) homework and participation grades. I found this class much more engaging than the other class Dr. Manson teaches (BIOL 3450). #tCFF23

Manson is a conservationist and ecologist from Canada in the Biology Department. She's upbeat and energetic, and she primarily wants whatever is best for her students. She's pretty open to helping you out, curving exams if they were clearly too hard, giving opportunities for makeup work, and giving extra credit. The grade was certainly not a concern in this class. The course itself is 50% lectures and 50% discussion sections, where we read journal articles and talked about what they meant in relation to what we were learning. Content of the lectures is very similar to BIOL 3020 and other ecology/evolution/conservation courses, although this course views it all 100% through the lens of modeling. Grade comes from two midterms and a cumulative final. Exams were not hard. #tCF2020

Two classes a week, one of which was a discussion about research papers, so there was only one lecture per week. Professor Manson was lovely--I'm taking another class of hers just because she's teaching it.

I really enjoyed this class! When I took it in the Fall of 2018, Professor Manson was teaching the course for the first time. She was great at explaining things and offered office hours every week. Every Monday, there was a homework assignment due at 11:59pm. The homework was released on Thursday evenings, so you had the weekend to work on it. Additionally, you and your friends can communicate with each other and work together on the homework if you choose to do so. I would definitely recommend going to her office hours before you submit your homework because she can walk you through some of the confusing aspects in the questions. The first exam was very tough, but I did well on the second midterm and the final. There is a group project called a lightening talk at the end of the semester; you basically do a presentation focused on a conservation issue. I felt that it really was not that difficult. There is light reading every week because you typically read a paper at the beginning of the week and then there is group discussion about the paper. I would recommend this class! It took work, but I was satisfied with my grade at the end. Be aware, this class is more math-based, so it is EXTREMELY different than her BIOL 3450 class. Regardless, it was still very good.