CHEM 153A
Biochemistry: Introduction to Structure, Enzymes, and Metabolism
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 14D or 30B, with grade of C- or better. Recommended: Life Sciences 2, 3, and 23L, or 7A. Structure of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids; enzyme catalysis and principles of metabolism, including glycolysis, citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Morin Leisk is the nicest, most caring , and enthusiastic professor you will get for chemistry. If you value the character and personality of the professor, you will not be disappointed. She has that early enthusiasm that is seen in new professors. As for the lecture and materials, I feel that there was too much info and all of the different topics lacked cohesion. But maybe this is just the nature of the course and this will be the same regardless of the professor you take. I don't like her lecture style. She writes on the projector on printed out power point slides. I wish that she would just post the slides with the notes on them because I really prefer to pay attention during lecture and not be so focused on writing notes. And now...for her exams. You know how Napoleon got a bit too ambitious when he decided to invade Russia? Well yea.. She says that she designs her test so that student's can get a C- just by putting the crappiest answers possible. Let's just say that I wouldn't even qualify as crap based on her criteria. The exam was way too long for 50 minutes! Overall I recommend her. I believe that she will only improve as a professor and considering that your alternative is Tienson, I think it would be wise to take Morin Leisk for 153A.
Morin Leisk is the nicest, most caring , and enthusiastic professor you will get for chemistry. If you value the character and personality of the professor, you will not be disappointed. She has that early enthusiasm that is seen in new professors. As for the lecture and materials, I feel that there was too much info and all of the different topics lacked cohesion. But maybe this is just the nature of the course and this will be the same regardless of the professor you take. I don't like her lecture style. She writes on the projector on printed out power point slides. I wish that she would just post the slides with the notes on them because I really prefer to pay attention during lecture and not be so focused on writing notes. And now...for her exams. You know how Napoleon got a bit too ambitious when he decided to invade Russia? Well yea.. She says that she designs her test so that student's can get a C- just by putting the crappiest answers possible. Let's just say that I wouldn't even qualify as crap based on her criteria. The exam was way too long for 50 minutes! Overall I recommend her. I believe that she will only improve as a professor and considering that your alternative is Tienson, I think it would be wise to take Morin Leisk for 153A.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - I highly recommend you read the other reviews, as I found them to be generally accurate toward Tienson. Her lecturing is pretty mediocre, a solid 3.5/5 maybe. But her tests are the trashiest that I've ever seen. Her tests alone make my overall rating 2/5. In general, I don't think the any of the course is worth much emphasis except the tests. There's a ton of things that you can point out that's terrible, so let's just list them out. 1. Questions are worded vaguely or in a misleading way. You often struggle to figure out what in the world Tienson actually wants. Tienson doesn't seem to have the self-awareness to realize that if a bunch of students complain, then it's probably the question's fault, not every single one of the student's fault. 2. The short answer questions have a strange limitation that you cannot write more than x number of sentences. Mind you, x is usually something like 1 or 2. Try explaining a concept in 1 or 2 sentences. Then she takes off points during grading for not being detailed enough. Oh, and writing run-on sentences gets counted as multiple sentences. 3. Her grading policy allows partial credit in a question. The only problem is that her grading rubric demands relatively specific things to be mentioned, such that having a question mostly right will usually still net you almost no partial credit. 4. She only allows 10 regrade requests for the entire quarter. That is, 10 questions. Due to how vague the questions are and how oddly specific the grading rubric tends to be, it can often be a struggle to figure out if it's worth it to use up a regrade request on that question. Of course, if she does determine that the question was graded incorrectly, then you get one regrade request back, but come on. I've never seen a professor that mistrusts students to this degree to not abuse the regrade requests. The course is *not* graded on a curve, though the professor does scale it so that something like an 82% still counts as an A. Good luck getting even 80% on the tests though. Anyways, I find that the best way to prepare for the tests is to watch the Bruincast lecture vids before the test. That'll refresh your memory on what it was that Tienson brought up in class, since you can bet that she'll use something that's only mentioned in passing as a question on the test.
Winter 2019 - I highly recommend you read the other reviews, as I found them to be generally accurate toward Tienson. Her lecturing is pretty mediocre, a solid 3.5/5 maybe. But her tests are the trashiest that I've ever seen. Her tests alone make my overall rating 2/5. In general, I don't think the any of the course is worth much emphasis except the tests. There's a ton of things that you can point out that's terrible, so let's just list them out. 1. Questions are worded vaguely or in a misleading way. You often struggle to figure out what in the world Tienson actually wants. Tienson doesn't seem to have the self-awareness to realize that if a bunch of students complain, then it's probably the question's fault, not every single one of the student's fault. 2. The short answer questions have a strange limitation that you cannot write more than x number of sentences. Mind you, x is usually something like 1 or 2. Try explaining a concept in 1 or 2 sentences. Then she takes off points during grading for not being detailed enough. Oh, and writing run-on sentences gets counted as multiple sentences. 3. Her grading policy allows partial credit in a question. The only problem is that her grading rubric demands relatively specific things to be mentioned, such that having a question mostly right will usually still net you almost no partial credit. 4. She only allows 10 regrade requests for the entire quarter. That is, 10 questions. Due to how vague the questions are and how oddly specific the grading rubric tends to be, it can often be a struggle to figure out if it's worth it to use up a regrade request on that question. Of course, if she does determine that the question was graded incorrectly, then you get one regrade request back, but come on. I've never seen a professor that mistrusts students to this degree to not abuse the regrade requests. The course is *not* graded on a curve, though the professor does scale it so that something like an 82% still counts as an A. Good luck getting even 80% on the tests though. Anyways, I find that the best way to prepare for the tests is to watch the Bruincast lecture vids before the test. That'll refresh your memory on what it was that Tienson brought up in class, since you can bet that she'll use something that's only mentioned in passing as a question on the test.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - This man is 75 and a retired professor who only comes to teach when they need an extra section. I took this class last quarter and it was at 8am, four days a week (so already awful off the bat). Luckily it was bruincasted, his attendance was in the 20-30% every single lecture, which he was mad about (dont teach an 8 am then). His voice and lectures are not engaging whatsoever and the class is based almost entirely on two midterms (which are 50 min during class) and a final, all which was so hard. His TAs grade and look for verbatim words and phrases that he uses in lecture, and if you paraphrase, its wrong, and partial credit is rare. I shouldve taken Awad but both of her sections were full when I registered and I thought taking Weiss would be fine. Sike i was wrong. I would recommend waiting for a better professor if this is your only option. I am now paying the price and am going to have to retake the course.
Fall 2019 - This man is 75 and a retired professor who only comes to teach when they need an extra section. I took this class last quarter and it was at 8am, four days a week (so already awful off the bat). Luckily it was bruincasted, his attendance was in the 20-30% every single lecture, which he was mad about (dont teach an 8 am then). His voice and lectures are not engaging whatsoever and the class is based almost entirely on two midterms (which are 50 min during class) and a final, all which was so hard. His TAs grade and look for verbatim words and phrases that he uses in lecture, and if you paraphrase, its wrong, and partial credit is rare. I shouldve taken Awad but both of her sections were full when I registered and I thought taking Weiss would be fine. Sike i was wrong. I would recommend waiting for a better professor if this is your only option. I am now paying the price and am going to have to retake the course.
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