Professor
Matteo Pellegrini
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - For this class, attending lecture was not mandatory while attending lab was mandatory. The material covered in lecture was not important and I stopped watching the recordings after a week into the quarter. The only time I had to go to lecture was when we did our presentations (super easy). I didn’t like how we had to go to lab because it felt like everything we talked about (using GenSAS) could’ve been a step-by-step guide sent over email. Lab sessions were taught by TAs, so I barely saw the professor during the quarter. Go to the TA office hours to get an idea of what they want in your presentation and final paper because they do all the grading for the class.
Spring 2022 - For this class, attending lecture was not mandatory while attending lab was mandatory. The material covered in lecture was not important and I stopped watching the recordings after a week into the quarter. The only time I had to go to lecture was when we did our presentations (super easy). I didn’t like how we had to go to lab because it felt like everything we talked about (using GenSAS) could’ve been a step-by-step guide sent over email. Lab sessions were taught by TAs, so I barely saw the professor during the quarter. Go to the TA office hours to get an idea of what they want in your presentation and final paper because they do all the grading for the class.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2017 - 187AL is a purely computer-based bioinformatics lab. You don't need any previous knowledge or particular skill set to succeed, aside from being generally competent with a computer. All work is completed during the lab section (3 hours/day, twice a week). Lectures (75 minutes/day, twice a week) are solely for providing background information on the programs you'll be using throughout the quarter and for student presentations (3 weeks-worth total). Your grade is three 5-minute "progress report style" presentations (15% each) which you pretty much get full points just for presenting on what you've worked on so far, and the final lab report (55%) which is approximately 15 pages long, give or take a few pages. You spend the first few weeks familiarizing your self with the tools/programs needed to annotate a genome (gene prediction, gene alignment, gene editing, RNA-seq, etc.) By Week 6, you should generally understand the entire annotation workflow you need to complete and the rest of the quarter is spent annotating a second/third gene and continuously refining your data. Draft sections of the lab report are due at the end of the week (intro, methods, abstract, etc.) throughout the quarter which is useful because it makes you stay on top of your report. The lab can be laborious and the software can be temperamental but this is not a difficult class whatsoever as long as you manage your time well.
Spring 2017 - 187AL is a purely computer-based bioinformatics lab. You don't need any previous knowledge or particular skill set to succeed, aside from being generally competent with a computer. All work is completed during the lab section (3 hours/day, twice a week). Lectures (75 minutes/day, twice a week) are solely for providing background information on the programs you'll be using throughout the quarter and for student presentations (3 weeks-worth total). Your grade is three 5-minute "progress report style" presentations (15% each) which you pretty much get full points just for presenting on what you've worked on so far, and the final lab report (55%) which is approximately 15 pages long, give or take a few pages. You spend the first few weeks familiarizing your self with the tools/programs needed to annotate a genome (gene prediction, gene alignment, gene editing, RNA-seq, etc.) By Week 6, you should generally understand the entire annotation workflow you need to complete and the rest of the quarter is spent annotating a second/third gene and continuously refining your data. Draft sections of the lab report are due at the end of the week (intro, methods, abstract, etc.) throughout the quarter which is useful because it makes you stay on top of your report. The lab can be laborious and the software can be temperamental but this is not a difficult class whatsoever as long as you manage your time well.