Who would you rather have as your first year bio professor for BIO 1AO3: Kajiura and Boreham or Kajiura and Wilson, and for BIO 1MO3, would it be better to have Quinn and Stone, or just Kolasa? i dont care too much in terms of how boring their lectures might be, but i do care about how hard they make their midterms/finals.

KOLASA! Very very very boring, very very very easy.

I went to one of his lectures, skipped every other one until the end of the semester but still got a 12.

Kajiura and Wilson - difficult; Wilson is essentially a 'University' level professor, while Kajiura is like a high school teacher. Wilson does not 'remind' you of things, she does not care whether you haven't took out your iClicker and inputted an answer, she doesn't treat you like a baby, but she's difficult.

Boreham, I never had, but I heard his questions were difficult, but in a stupid way; id est, his questions are annoying and tedious.

That being said, although Wilson is a difficult teacher I would advocate going with her - you'll learn a lot, and to be honest she's probably my first real professor this year. Everyone else I had in first year, though they were good teachers and nice and not too easy, didn't seem like the type of professor people have in third or fourth years, if you know what I mean.

Do not take Wilson. I repeat Do NOT take Wilson. She is a horrible professor, her slides are mediocre, her tests are so vague and difficult and she is extremely boring and puts students down sometimes, at least in my year she did. She said that she doesn't like first year students and prefers the upper years because of maturity or something.

LOL, she is pretty bad, her slides are mediocre, and her tests are difficult. That's part of why I said to take her - it's a good learning experience. When you can learn the material faster than she can teach it, by yourself, and you're sitting there with a friend noticing that certain things she says are wrong and that you know better, then you've done your job.

Exactly why I said that Wilson is like what you may encounter later on - not every professor will have perfect English, wait for students to understand the material, answer questions all class, etc. One has to get used to the professors that they won't be able to understand, who won't stop for questions, and thus they have to learn the material on their own.

And I have no qualms about her not liking first year students.

She's my professor, not my mother. I couldn't care less whether she hates me, which I think she did, because my friend and I sat in her class proving her wrong the whole time and questioning her when she said something that may be construed as incorrect.

Choose Quinn if you want completely irrelevant midterm and exam questions.

Id go with Boreham. I had him and Kajiura and it was fine. Sometimes his questions werent too great like he would ask about something specific that you didnt think you would need to know. But he tried to be fair and reduce the overall marks the midterm was out of because of his poor questions. He also tried to make the class more interesting by bringing in guest speakers. He also sounds a lot better than Wilson from what Ive heard.

Boreham and Kajiura definitely! I've heard awful things about Wilson and Boreham was one of the best profs I've had at Mac. Lecture is SUPER interesting (and you actually have to go because he will test things he said that aren't written anywhere), great guest lecturers...
He does test "stupid details" but honestly if you go to class you'll get them all right! His questions are easy and his lectures are so memorable you don't even have to study his stuff that much.

Originally Posted by BluandExile

Choose Quinn if you want completely irrelevant midterm and exam questions.

Agreed, his short answer questions were ridiculous. A lot of people didnt do well on those.

Kajuira and Boreham HANDS DOWN! Kajuira's lectures are easy to follow, she's really organized and with her exam questions are always fair. Personally i loved boreham's lectures and his exam was pretty good if you take really good notes in class.

Quinn's class made me hate ecology thts all i have to say.
If you can don't take Wilson's class, her slides are just all over the place and her exam SA questions make no sense.

I'm going to have to chime in with some more Wilson love, especially for first year courses. She's a great prof who knows her stuff, and if you're willing to do the work she's probably the best. She's also one of the best profs in terms of making sure what she teaches comes from the text book so that you can read it if you need to better understand something, a lot of other profs include stuff from outside sources meaning you need to go to them for help.

She also definitely doesn't hate students, just students who aren't prepared. Some of the smack downs she gave to students on WebCT (an online class system we used to have) who were asking stupid questions were amazing. But if you didn't waste class time with irrelevant or stupid questions, she was very nice to you. (If you have questions that are a bit off-topic she's usually very willing to answer them during an office hour, just not before, after or during class).

Kajiura is also amazing, but its correct that she babies students a fair bit. She's a great lecturer though, and always available outside of the class if you need help with pretty much anything university or non-university related.

I dont understand the whole "Kaijura babies students" thing, I think she genuinely wants students to do well in her course.

Definately STAY AWAY from Quinn. His lectures were boring and his test questions were really hard (almost failing average last term for his midterm). And take Boreham for sure, his lectures were interesting since he brought in a lot of guest speakers. But for boreham, his test questions will sometimes be random facts that he mentions in class, so take detailed notes about everything he says, even if he tells you to "enjoy his class as if it were a movie".

Oh crap. I got mixed up because I never had Quinn or Boreham. Boreham taught 1A03 first semester? And Quinn taught M03 second semester?

In that case Boreham is a good professor - he asks random things but he seemed like a fun guy.

It was Quinn that was stupidly hard.

So I stand by my point but to a lesser degree; Wilson is a good self learning experience, but Boreham is a fun guy.

Boreham all the way. Best prof ever. Most interesting prof I had for first-year and despite how specific some of his questions are, it's super easy as long as you have good notes.

I'd definitely go with Kajuira and Boreham, but try to to avoid Quinn.

His multiple questions, while not really academically challenging, are incredibly vague and/or lengthy.

Example from first mid-term...

Question 1 (Multiple Choice):

- A random, unnecessary plot that you waste valuable time discerning.
- 4 circular diagrams to summarize the random plot.
- A legend incorporated somewhere in the question to explain the random plot and diagrams.
- A giant paragraph vaguely explaining the plot/scenario.
- An equally giant reference to supplement the explanation.

You spend minutes trying to sort out this convoluted mess before realizing that it is simply asking you to match color with the labeled diagrams- an elementary level question has held you back this long - but don't worry, you only have 29 more equally painful multiple choice questions, and another 15 marks worth of obscure short answer.