Prof. Lipman did conservation work before becoming a professor, so her lectures are fascinating to listen to and are always illuminating, especially from someone as passionate about the subject as her. Her slides are relatively clear and include videos, though she sometimes assigned them as homework if lecture ran behind. There were pop quizzes in lecture, but they were based on completion and acted more like an attendance sheet. Plus, we were given an extra credit diary assignment (~1.8%). It wasn’t too bad, and I’d recommend doing it.

For the discussion section it's pretty free, though you do have to work a little bit for those points. Participation points are only given if you actively engage and speak during discussion. There are weekly quizzes based on the lecture material and a weekly documentary + research paper. At the start of the quarter, you are assigned to groups. With your group, you are given the entire quarter to read a book and give a presentation plus book report. Additionally, you have to volunteer at a local NGO and give a presentation on that volunteering event. Now the book report and volunteering event wasn't too bad, but it is too much for a class worth only 4 units. So make of that what you will.

Now getting to the exams, you have a midterm and final which are group-based, open-ended, and short-answer. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, since they are open-ended, each question has multiple different correct answers. The issue is that the grader appears to be looking for one specific response, and if you put anything else you lose points. And no, the question stem doesn't even lead you towards the "true" correct answer. There's no rubric, no guide, no nothing for how the grader takes points off. It's just a crapshoot to hope you add in the right keywords, and you lose points for missing the littlest of details.

And this issue is only exacerbated with how uncompromising Prof. Lipman is with the grading. While the TAs are helpful and will advocate for you, Lipman has the final say and is so combative against the concept of a regrade request. In her syllabus, she literally dubs it "grade bullying." Most grades are final, even if the exams lend themselves to getting subjective responses and subjective marks. The fact that the problems I've mentioned have been raised in previous Bruinwalk reviews since 2018 (since I was in middle school!) should speak for itself.

The tests, which are the class' biggest and only major problem, would be so much better with more direction and clearer grading standards. But Lipman just chooses not to change and doubles down. Her announcements about regrades often come across as defensive, and the extra credit assignment is frequently cited in response to grading concerns, despite not addressing the underlying lack of clear grading standards.

Prof. Lipman clearly cares about the course topic, and each lecture is always interesting and informative. But the exams and grading are so asinine and opaque that it's honestly not worth the stress and you should avoid the class as a whole. Cool lecturer, bad professor.

Meh. As a person, Lipman is nice but rigid in her rules/expectations for the course. I had more of an issue with some TAs taking off the tiniest petty 0.25 point for the hmw. There is a group project, randomly assigned. 10 points extra credit is offered if u do some gardening work/field related activity. Main ideas from the article readings are tested on, FYI. Memorize all the concepts, the numbers she points out on the slides (like specific temperatures or ppm), a couple examples, and you should ace the test. She does do pop quizzes during some of her lectures, keep in mind.

I loved the content of this class. Dr. Lipman is extremely experienced and knowledgeable on conservation planning, and I found the lectures to be engaging. The main critique I have for this class is that it is impossible to get an A+. Even if you get 100% on every discussion quiz, and A's on every presentation, you can not get an A+ unless you get at least a 90 on both the midterm and final. That makes sense at face value, until you realize that there is basically no communication between the Professor and the grader, and the rubrics are very confusing. I do not want to critique the grader as they were doing their job, but my midterm score was originally a low B, due to a rubric that was seemingly outdated and/or not congruent with the way questions we were actually structured. The TA's advocated for us, and my grade went up to an A. For the final exam, the TA's told us that they had worked more with the grader, and Dr. Lipman clarified it with them. However, I got a B again. The tests are taken in groups, and personally I believed my group was more than capable to get at least a 90. In my opinion, the tests are not built fairly to reflect the actual knowledge of students.

Only take this class if you want to stress about homework scores, memorize every single detail for the exams, and practically fall asleep during lecture. It was almost impossible to receive full points on anything, as homework and exams were both graded very harshly and completely unfair. Lectures are not recorded and attendance is mandatory, but they are also the most boring thing ever and so difficult to get though, which is horrible because you cannot even rewatch them. She also gives pop quizzes that you cannot make up if you miss lecture, even with a valid excuse. Overall, do not take this class unless you absolutely have to, and pay attention to every single detail of everything if you want to succeed.

While the material is interesting, and Dr. Lipman is very passionate, I would not recommend that you take this class unless you have to. My TA opened the first day of discussion by saying "Don't worry if I take a few points off of you homework, since most people lose points on the midterm!" I do not understand how this was supposed to be comforting, all I heard was that I am going to lose points on the homework AND the midterm. I do not feel that Dr. Lipman cares about her students' success. She will not record anything, including class and the review sessions. Considering I have work during the review sessions, I found this to be very annoying. Dr. Grether, who taught the first half of the class, recorded his. Dr. Lipman is so scared of getting in trouble with the university for teaching what she is paid to teach, that she refuses to record anything so that there can be no proof of her teaching us.

Additionally, the grading for this class was SO strict that it really upset me. And I am not a nerd who needs to get an A or else I crash out. All I ask is fair grading. The homework asks you to answer a series of questions in 1-2 sentences. However, if you do not describe everything in depth, you will get points off. I would use a term like "biodiversity" in my 2 sentences, and I would get a point taken off for not describing what this concept is. I think this is ridiculous, since my homework is being graded by a TA getting their PhD in ecology... and I ONLY HAVE TWO SENTENCES! And if your homework is longer than a page, you get points taken off too. It's like you cannot win.

I think this class for Lipman is more about wanting to flaunt her research than to help students learn and succeed. She wants to trick you and test tiny details instead of working with you to help you succeed.

This class was incredibly poorly organized. All grades took absolutely ages to be returned, so it was impossible to know where you really stood in the class. Lectures were adjacent to actual torture, as Gorlitsky and ESPECIALLY Lipman were plain boring and awful lecturers. The content had its interesting moments, especially in the animal behavior portion of the class, but this was compromised by the awful attempts to teach made by both professors. The professors realize no one would come to lecture unless they sporadically assigned quizzes, so this was done to maintain participation, although if you looked around the room it was clear everyone was preoccupied with anything else more stimulating and important to them. Please do not take this class unless you want to be permanently turned off to animal biology and ecology. Had an absolutely revolting experience.

Seriously the worst class I have ever taken. The TAs will take off points for absolutely random things. AND I MEAN RANDOM. They clearly are just trying to meet a quota and that honestly just makes the authenticity of the class go way down. Everyone agreed that the exams were super vague and worded weirdly. There were probably about 10 questions on each exam that could have multiple correct answers depending on your reasoning. I met with a TA one time to discuss exam answers and even she couldn’t give me a logical reason as to why my answers were incorrect. Dr. Lipman and Gorlitsky… do better

TLDR; Don't take this class because of mandatory attendance (not recorded), poorly written multiple choice exams, and weekly assignments that are near impossible to get 10/10 on.

This class is an unnecessary time sink that will require a disproportionate amount of effort to succeed in compared to other classes. For instance, I took this class at the same time as CHEM 153A and found that I was spending WAY more time on EEB 100. If you are able to take literally any other class, I would choose it. The professors do not post their lectures which is crazy because they expect you to remember every little detail for the midterm and final. They had multiple test questions that referenced a singular sentence from a YouTube video shown in class.

There is absolutely 0 indication as to what is important to study for the exams. You essentially have to memorize the course which is especially difficult to do when it is not recorded. The PowerPoints lack the necessary detail to succeed and the practice exams are far easier than the actual tests which are worth 60 PERCENT of your final grade.

In addition to this, the TAs were super nitpicky about the weekly assignments. They were literally taking off 10% of our weekly assignment grades for not including a hyperlink in a pdf document in addition to their wildly inconsistent grading scheme.

So, if you have the choice DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. However, if you have to take this class then you better be prepared to go to every lecture and take really good notes.

I took this course with professor Gregory grether and Lipman.

Overall view of the class:
I think that the concepts were engaging and interesting and there wasn’t a lot of work to do for the class. For discussion you only had a weekly reading that came with a summary and 1 presentation. But it was annoying because you can almost never get a 100 on the homework and they take off points for the most dumb thing like not putting your name, the title of the reading, the TA’s are very nit picky. I had Joey as a TA and he would never give 100 and would take off points for anything he was also harsh on grading presentations. Basically it’s very hard to get an A for this class, the class average this quarter was 85% and BEWARE they do not round up grades. Even if you are very close they say they do not round, so whatever you get is your grade period !

Gregory Grether :
His lectures were so boring ! I had to fight my sleep ! He would talk to fast and I feel like I couldn’t take notes as quick but he had recordings which helped. His quizzes were online and must be completed in an hour, which was graded for accuracy. The quizzes were not that simple, I feel like you had to understand the concepts and I feel like the way he explained things just made it way more complicated. The best TA that helped explain things was Maddy. But besides that the midterm was not that bad, I feel like he mostly teaches about concepts rather than definitions. But the way I studied was mostly by definitions. And I got a B on the midterm. Overall, boring lecturer but his midterm was not that bad.

On the other hand…

Lipman: she was a very engaging professor, she asked questions and accepted participation. So I didn’t want to fall asleep in her class. But what I hated was that she would take more participation time rather than thoroughly going over concepts. Not only that but she would not record lectures so you have to go to class and she would have pop quizzes that would be turned in to the TA some Time during class so you have to make sure to go. Good thing the quizzes were not graded on accuracy but more on participation. But because she wouldn’t record it would be hard to keep up with the material since I feel like she mostly used pictures as her slides. Not only that but I feel like her exam was way harder than the animal behavior portion. Something I did not expect in the final was the fact that she had questions related to the videos she would show in class so try and pay attention to the main point in the videos she shows in class. Overall, she was not the best professor when it came to explaining content.

Not an easy class, but doable if you stay on top of the material and know going into it that it is going to be a little bit more difficult than some EEB classes you take. Make sure to do the EC field trip because it can make a big difference at the end of the class! Going to office hours before the exams really helps and both Gorlitsky and Lipman are very nice and willing to answer any questions you may have.

Selling the Animal Behavior Textbook, $45 **********