My interest in biology is what allowed me to enjoy learning the course's content. Yet the teaching was difficult for me to effectively have a good learning experience. When I took the course, I felt the same way about the course like prior students that took it (who posted on The Course Forum). I also felt that the lectures felt dry, not engaging enough, and dragged out. However I do have some other experiences from this specific semester I like to share as well.

The course content showed many applications and concepts of genetic engineering, and helped demystified and clarified important ideas such as genetic editing via crispr, how bacteria are used to help copy genes, and how devices in genetic engineering worked. That will be extremely useful if you are going into genetic/stem cell related Biomedical Engineering fields.

Both myself and others provide answers to questions that the professor asked. And even if the answers were technically correct, even confirmed by the professor himself, he still marks them completely false and refuses to give the extra points that he gives us for answering questions. Learning is about sharing information, especially different perspectives and views of information, and the learning environment isn't so friendly when everyone must only comply to having only one view of things. During exams, the professor and TA refuses to clarify on questions at all, even if students want a better clarification of what the question is asking. For the final exam, I saw that a question was worded wrong and was logically incorrect. I tried to ask the TA for help, and he can only respond with th...read more

Be prepared to not receive any help during exams, even on incorrectly worded questions. Ask Professor about exact dates, and establish everything clearly. Be prepared for having exams at the very last time of the semester.