2.6
Quality3.9
Difficulty36%
Would Retake137
Reviews36%
Would Retake
137
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
18
4
29
3
26
2
18
1
46
What Students Say
“The final was that absurd and her notes were useless”
BIO331 - 1.0 rating“Worst professor, class, and grade I've ever gotten”
BIOL331 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
61%
Textbook Required
21%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.86 avg changeRatings by Course
CMMB531
4.8
(4)BIOL305
4.5
(2)CMMB403
3.7
(3)BIOL331
3.1
(69)CMMB519
2.8
(5)Difficulty by Course
331
4.9
BIO331
4.3
BIOL331
3.8
CMMB403
3.7
CMMB519
3.2
Reviews (137)
Tests are hard...... notes from txtbook
*yuck*....
Unreasonable amount of detail memorization required.
Her questions on the final were the hardest of all three professors. Super organized, and you HAD TO KNOW THE TEXTBOOK OFF BY HEART, or you were screwed. Too specific with her questions and draw from many subjects she covered. 2mins/question is NOT ENUF
Goes fast, but improved during the semester. Powerpoint slides supplied are very different than what she presents, making your notes a huge mess! Exam questions aren't really hard, but definately have to know the info.
Her notes come straight out of the text book. All she does is read them out in lecture. Attending lecture for her section of the course is optional, just make sure to memorize ALL the little details in the text book - especially the details in figure captions.
Nice lady that expects an overzealous amount of information to memorize. I recommend that you know your textbook like the back of your hand. Know the captions to figures and if you touch on prolactin, memorize everything to do with it.
Avoid like the plague...has singlehandedly ruined my GPA. She's nice enough, but doesn't convey her expectations well at all. There are 9000 things to know, and unlike Vize you're not sure what she's looking for.
Didn't enjoy her lectures at all. Expects you to have no social life and study every waking hour to pass. Not recommended.
Her notes are just figures from the textbook, and she just talk over it. Extremely confusing, and not too helpful. I'd much rather just read the textbook.
Her notes were very simple and you are constantly writing down what she is saying but I enjoyed the material so I didn't think she was that bad. If you read the textbook, especially the figures that are in her notes, then you'll be fine.
Loved her section of 331. Extremely interesting and her notes were always clear. Be sure to read the textbook readings she recomends and ask questions as soon as you don't understand something. This class is not as bad as people make it out to be!
Nice professor, and her lectures were interesting, but the tests in this course stink. You really have to know EVERYTHING - including memorizing captions for pictures in the textbook. In general, I think the course is really badly organized, so I guess you can't entirely blame her...but the exams were ridiculous.
Great lecturer, she is very clear and concise. Lots of memorization for this course and exams require pure regurgitation with minimal applications. VERY hard and detailed questions, you must know everything.
key to success with her part: start memorizing early but with understanding. don't just rely on her notes. attend every class of hers and write down EVERYTHING...not a bad Prof but is not very friendly.
so today class, our lecture will be on ECM. no wait, lets talk about breast cancer instead. here are 40 proteins involved in breast cancer. proteins 1, 5, and 10 are important, good thing i'll test you on protein 37 that i mentioned for 3 seconds in passing. oh, and before lecture ends, here's another protein to memorize, just for kicks. GOOD TIMES
Terrible. Her notes are all over the place and she insists on making you fill in random blanks which means you can't listen to anything she's saying. She's extremely unhelpful and unfriendly, with the worst office hours known to man. The exams are ridiculous. I recommend a PhD in CMMB to get an A+ in this course.
Her lecture notes are crap; there are so many blanks to fill in, that you don't learn or think while writing madly. They don't follow any logical order, or really correspond to the text, which I ended up using to teach myself pretty much everything. She tests on every small insignificant detail, even things she hasn't told you she will test on.
I quite liked her. Her section of material is very extensive, but it is approached in a logical manner. Shemanko was good about testing concepts with some memorization. For future students, you should avoid memorizing sizes/shapes/tiny details... anything number related--It will not be tested. Compile a notes page from her notes after class= Pass
331 is a completely disorganized course. There is no logical flow from topic to topic. In the end I actually knew the concepts perfectly, but the only way to do great in the course is to memorize every single protein, no matter how insignificant it seems. Her lecture notes are lousy; read the book and memorize.
For a student so passionate for biology and school, it is rare to find a teacher who can make you hate a class. This teacher's arrogance and ignorance, combined with her useless lecture slides makes this class unbearable.
I ask her many questions with the hope she answered back something usefull (That never happen)...She gives you very blurry hints as asnwers. Her questions can be misleading to wrong answers because the wording lacks details.She follows the text for a long time.I found that the slides were fine.
Shemanko has definately improved since what I've heard. The course has changed a lot and she teaches it well. But she is unhelpful and arrogant. A tip for this class is to take every single mark seriously. She will never bump up your grade no matter how tiny or crucial the mark is.
Truth be told, by the end of the semester I was barely going to 331, the classes I did attend Shemanko was good. She does review questions at the end of her lectures which help. She teaches at a good pace and seems approachable. By the time you have her you should already have the study habits needed to do well. I've yet to take her final however..
She is an awesome lecturer and it appears that she genuinely cares about what her students think. She wants to make the classroom experience an enjoyable experience for everybody and that shows in her teaching style. She is excellent at explaining concepts and does it with such clarity that minimized the time I needed to study after lecture
She's been trying to make the lectures clear and simple and it's working. Go to class, take down notes and pay attention to her stories (for exam). Her notes clearly indicate her expectations and you can use the text to clarify concepts that you don't understand. Know the pathways! Memorize the figures and how they work, and you'll be Golden!
Clear lectures! Tests are fair! Study and you will do fine!
Nice prof! Based on what I've heard about her in the past, it seems like she has improved A LOT. The notes were good guidelines (use the text for further clarification + detail). She also puts review questions at the end of every lecture, so that was good. A bit vague answering some questions, though, but still tried to answer them.
Dr. Shemanko is a very kind person. She is generous with her time, is extremely helpful, and is also very understanding. She is among the best professors I have ever had.
Her notes are useless!If you only study her notes and not using the textbook, u will not understand anything. I mean, seriously?
Her lecture notes are very clear and she has a mix of diagrams and written notes. She has review questions after every lecture and she is very kind. Don't fear this class!
Her notes are not useless, just wrote the final and all of they questions were straight from the notes. This is a very memorization heavy course, and there is a lot of material to remember, but if you review a lot you will do well. She is very friendly and approachable. I liked her teaching style
Pretty nice person. She writes out most of the notes so that is really good. Just memorize the figures and what she writes and you will be fine. It is basically a memorization course but there is not that much to memorize (she limits it to a few protein pathways/proteins)! One of the easier 2nd year bio courses (at least her part).
To do well in this course start MEMORIZING. The final exam was fully based on her notes and diagrams/figures (memorize key components). Her lectures are stressful (since a lot of content is covered) and can sometimes be dry. However, her "test you knowledge" section in her notes are helpful. Overall, she is a good 300 level professor.
My lord. She is really hot. I think the her lectures were boring, and you have take note of everything she says. Constantly review and don't cram because it's a lot of material.
Shemanko is a good professor, exam was fair, but covers lots of material.
To do well in the class just memorize the entire textbook - literally. And her notes. Random little details that she doesn't mention. Ask her about it and she says oh on random page in textbook it says it here. What is even the point of this class? The ONLY thing you learn is to memorize. No one would take if it wasn't mandatory.
She's fairly clear and enthusiastic about what she teaches. Nice woman. Easy test. Purely lecture based info so you should go to class though I didn't really and I did well on her exam.
Taught 1/3 of the course. Super nice lady, obviously very knowledgable in her field. Exam is explicitly on lecture material, so show up to class and pay attention and you'll do well. Don't buy the text, it's not necessary.
Horrible. I don't know what to say. I studied so hard for the final, and I honestly could have just not studied and gotten the same mark. Study hard for the midterm and make sure you do well on the midterm. The final will crush you. Expects you to memorize all the details and the objectives are absolutely misleading. Worse experience in my life.
The final was on 4/20 , you could have celebrated this special holiday before the test and wrote the test afterwards , you would still get the same mark. The final was that absurd and her notes were useless. Memorize the entire textbook. GL have fun
Worst professor, class, and grade I've ever gotten. Her lectures are disorganized, the notes she gives are very hard to follow and not at all useful for the final. The final tested on almost nothing actually discussed in-class. Don't bother taking the course.
She seemed nice and I thought the class was going well. Then got the final, and realized I've been deceived this entire term. She acted as though she really cared about the students and how we did. I studied so hard, and went through all objectives and honestly I could have just not studied and guessed the final and got the same mark. Worse prof!
This is a very difficult course. You have to memorize the entire notes word for word, but the textbook is useless. The final was very hard however everyone did bad so she bumped everyone's exam mark by 4%. She realized how difficult it was and tried to fix it. It't not the teaching, its just the content.
The lectures for this class were dull, and the test was one of the hardest I've written in my university career. Read the textbook and memorize every detail, because she will test on things that were not clearly written in notes or talked about in lecture. Multiple choice exam has confusing and nit-picky questions. Would not recommend.
Shemanko is a very good prof who's enthusiastic and does a very good job explaining concepts. Yes, the final was very difficult and covered a lot of content. You can't rely on just her notes, and need to use the text as a supplement. Assignment should've been marked easier. Her half is MUCH better than the first half though.
Would highly recommend taking this class to all bio/cmmb majors. It is a seminar style class, and really really helped my understanding of how to read and critique papers. Dr. Shemanko teaches the course in an organized, effective and helpful manner.
She's a super nice lady and very smart! This half of the semester was definitely better than the first half, she was much more clear, although her assignment and tutorials were harder. You don't need the textbook but I recommend recording her lectures as she talks fast so you won't catch everything in lecture. She was tough but fair on the final.
Dr. Shemanko was clear and easy to understand in lectures. She answered questions to provide more clarity. However, the exam was very difficult. I knew the material like the back of my hand, and did not get as high of a grade as would have reflected my effort. She ended up taking 6 questions off the exam because it was so unfair.
Shemanko is a nice prof that provides pretty detailed handwritten notes, but the materials were just too much to handle with the abundant of acronyms and terminologies. Exams were brutal and you are expected to know every single little details in her notes
Loves to ramble on about the things that are not important, but tests heavy on the content that she takes about 3 seconds to explain. Disorganized and loves to talk about her background as a bioscientist instead of teaching you relevant content. Frustrating to listen to her explanations as they don't make a ton of sense.
Probably one of the worst profs i have ever had. she hand wrote all her notes on paper and projected it onto a screen because she was too cheap to buy a new computer when hers broke. her exams tested things that were never talked about in class. she had to curve the final which is unheard of in bio
Highly recommend taking this course with her! It is unbelievably useful although it may seem intimidating at first. She teaches the course in a stepwise, well organized manner.
Shemanko is good at explaining, but she's amazing because the textbook is a lot clearer at times. Her assignment is hard, expected to make inferences based on no data whatsoever. She did not care about her students. She spent most of our lectures telling people to be quiet, even when no one was talking. She's never available outside of class.
Very kind professor with an amazing sense of humour. She is extremely knowledgable and humble. Teaches the class in a logical and easy to understand manner. Very organized. The material is difficult and there's a lot to memorize but as long as you copy her notes and listen, passing the course is not unattainable.
Organized lectures, tries to teach all her pathways in the most helpful way possible but there's going to be a lot of memorization regardless. Really funny and a good prof to have.
Nice prof, but her notes are difficult to follow and her tests are very hard. They test a lot on random details that don't really matter instead of the overall processes that are mostly focused on.
Her notes are super difficult to follow. This class is straight up memorization. Her test was so ridiculously hard and specific on random things it would be impossible to remember. :(
Her final was incredibly hard, taught so much material and pathways only to end up asking questions that are not relevant that was mentioned once in her notes, if you want to do well in her class, youll have to change the way that you study, understanding the material wont get you far, memorize every sentence and every line in her notes.
Read the notes and you will be fine. Every question is pulled from the notes and are very straight forward with little critical thinking required. Her assignment didn't give enough space for answers and was honestly more difficult than her final because of that.
Very kind professor. Very pretty too. Final was a bit hard but definitely doable if you give yourself enough time to study.
Her notes may be confusing and won't connect. She should include figure captions in the figures she takes from the textbook. Otherwise, her final exam was straightforward. Everything was from her notes, and required the slightest bit of understanding. If you work hard and study all the notes, even the little things... you should be fine. Good luck!
In my opinion, the final exam was super fair. She tested almost directly off of the notes she writes in class with a couple surprises. Very nice and great at teaching but I definitely fell asleep a few times in her class.
Great prof, content was interesting. Final was very fair as she stayed to only her notes in class so don't skip and take your own notes as well.
Dr. Shemanko was an okay prof. Her notes lacked organization and structure so it was hard to follow after class. Make sure to take your own notes, and go through the topics again at home. The final was tough, so make sure you really take the time to study for her class.
Dr. Shemanko was genuinely open to feedback, and once she got feedback she adjusted her lectures to try to suit everyones requests.
This course sneaks up on you. I needed to spend a lot of time reviewing before I understood how the topics connected. Dr. Shemanko is very caring, organized, and very open to feedback and criticism, but the lectures were pretty dry. If I were to do the course again, I would buy the textbook to support the lecture content.
This class was extremely fair... if you put in the time you will get a good mark. There is a lot of content so start studying early, but it's not too overwhelming. MUCH lower workload than BCEM393. Text is not needed.
There is no lab component for this class which was nice, but there is still a lot of content to know so you definitely have to make time for it. DO NOT CRAM.
She is a good prof and her lecture notes are pretty organized. However, her tutorial questions were unusual.
Unclear tutorial questions, inconsistent with tying concepts together, also talks quickly and doesn't write much on slides, so you have to listen very carefully to get all the information. Videos and supplements are really helpful though, and her exams are not hard
Overall, a good prof--her lectures were good, but her notes were a bit scattered and difficult to piece concepts together. It was also tough to tell whether something in the notes was an example or if it was important for the exam. Final exam was very straightforward as long as you study the details. Very funny as well!
Not the biggest fan of Dr. Shemanko. She seems very nice on the outside but doesn't actually care about her students or respond to emails when you need help. She is an exceptionally hard grader so I wouldn't recommend taking any 500 level CMMBs unless you wanna do double the work load.
Lots of content in each lecture. She used diagrams for her slides and did minimal writing. There's a lot of content in this course so make sure not to cram!
Assessments seem more difficult than it is because of the confusing wording. Students are tested on reading comprehension skills rather than knowledge of biology. Exams had typos or grammar errors which made it even more difficult to understand. Not recommended if you are not good at taking long tests with lots of tricky wording.
All of the course components made by Dr. Shemanko were far harder than that made by Dr. Polvi (first half), But the most egregious part was the hypocrisy around the wording. The 2nd assignment was marked harshly based on the inclusion of specific words that you were not told to include, but the final included the worst wording I've ever seen.
Absolute nonsense of a course. The final exam was the most unfair, unrepresentative exam I have ever taken -- not a good representation of what was covered in class, nor of what I am knowledgeable of. Her past exams in-person were multiple choice and straightforward, but the online aspect of this class turned it into a disaster. Horrible.
Have never seen anything like this course. Even after 1.5 yrs of online class, I was never met with such a lack of understanding and care. The class was disorganized and emphasized handing out impossible assignments and tutorials based on things that were not taught; the final exam was incredulous. Worst class and pair of profs I have ever seen.
The final exam was poorly designed and had bad question formatting. The assignments and tutorials were very hard and were barely covered in lecture. The tutorial readings were useless and the lectures were useless for the tutorials.
Worst academic experience of my whole life. Graded material was made to confuse things for students, which was achieved! I don't want to be a cancer researcher anymore, ever! Good luck to everyone else who is excited to take a class that sounds interesting and promising and is not; it is probably okay in person, but not online.
I thought her lecture style was great and engaging and well organized. BUT that final exam, second assignment, and the tutorials were brutal. The amount of multiselect questions was completely unfair. I understand not wanting to make the questions straight from notes due to being open book, but they should have atleast been more multiple choice.
Absolutely awful. I wish I could give her a 0. She is so beyond ill and her test was so messed up. It felt like I have been repeatedly hit so hard from behind by the amount of multi-select questions that were on the exam. I would rather get an electrified cattle prod shoved 6 feet up my arse than ever take another one of her tests.
I really enjoyed the lecture material, and felt confident going into the exam. HOWEVER I left the exam feeling like I failed it. Some things on the exam we had barely covered in class and most of the questions were really tough multi-select. Not only that, the tutorials and assignments are so hard and deceiving when you get your grade back.
She was BRUTAL. Avoid her at all costs. The final exam was so hard and covered material not covered in lecture. Lectures seemed very straightforward and easy to follow but the exams, tutorials, and assignments for her section were brutal.
I attended all lectures, read the textbook & did the practice exams so I figured I was prepared for the exam.. BOY was I wrong. The difficulty of her exams is NOT proportional to the quality of her lectures. Hardest final I've ever written. Interesting content but the difficulty of her assessments is ridiculous. Good Luck.
This prof was absolutely brutal. The lectures were fine and easy to follow. However, her instructions are unclear, her exams are a word salad, and tutorial questions are incomprehensible. The final exam does not test students knowledge of cellular biology... it tests how good they are at catching trick questions. Unbelievable final....
I really like Dr. Shemanko as a professor. She seems like such a kind, lovely person. However, her tutorials and especially the online final exam were incredibly challenging. All of the questions were multi-select and lacked direction. Really felt like the final nail in the coffin for this class, I expect the final will cause my grade to plummet.
The class was relatively easy except for tutorials which were hard to understand. However, the final was harder than the organic chemistry midterm... terribly designed test
I really enjoyed the material for 331, and the lectures were great. But the assignment/tutorial/exam was far harder than for the first half of the course (different professor). The multi-select were brutal as it was poorly worded and in a way that would make more sense as a multiple choice. It was open book and did have an extra hour (buffer) time.
The final was honestly one of the worst tests I have ever taken. Not only just the final but the tutorials and assignments as well were extremely difficult. I spent so much time studying and working hard throughout this course and whatever marks I have received are not reflective of my learning. Avoid if you can.
I am a straight A student and genuinely think I failed this course and will plummet my GPA because of how unfair and inadequate the learning strategies were. We were taught one thing and tested on another, and assignments/exams were not reflective of my knowledge at all. So many deserving, hardworking students got screwed over, avoid like Covid-19.
Taking this class with Shemanko was a nightmare. The way she words assignments, tutorials and tests is pretty bad, and most of the questions are not anything taught in lectures or in the textbook. Tests were pretty unfair as they were almost entirely multiselect, and assignments required so many key terms when the space given was super tiny.
I have never taken more poorly worded, poorly designed exams. I am traumatized, truly.
Her lectures were good, but her final for this class really solidified my desire to never take any CMMB class ever again. It was horrifying. The combination of poorly worded questions, miniature graphs you could hardly read, and an illegal amount of multi select questions, made me want to punch my laptop into the abyss. Never again!
BEWARE. Avoid this woman like the black f*cking plague. Her tests and assignments are incomprehensible and beyond difficult. This woman was out to get us. Sincerely, Every student who just suffered through Bio 331 W2022
notmuchspaceso: Her final exam=horrible. Questions were not straight to the point, graphs were small and hard to read, the overall objective didn't make sense at all, there are more than half multi-select questions with no instructions on how many right ans. she is looking for. I now know why stem profs need to take english courses too. icouldgoon.
A good lecturer and a great person, but her assignments & exam were a nightmare. It's a shame because she really cared about the material & she helped build interest in otherwise dry subjects. However, the marked components were very difficult & weirdly formatted. Adequate feedback on assignments was also not given. Sad cause she seemed passionate.
Worse online prof. Tests and assignments were a nightmare. Questions made no sense and content we had never seen was on our final. The final was half multi-select when they could've easily been multiple choice, but instead she gave multi-select which induced so much anxiety. Cant say much about her in person but stay away from her online courses.
Unnecessary assignments close to end of term when we're already doing tutorials. No relation between lecture material and tutorials and assignments. Excessive use of multiselect on exam questions which sets students up for failure even if they study hard. Lecture content is heavy but organized. The prof just makes the course super tough.
I get that this is a difficult course in terms of content but Dr. Shemanko did not prepare the students properly. Very basic explanations in lectures while the exam questions are incredibly hard. We should also complain to the dean for her use of multiselect instead of multiple choice on more than half of her exam questions because that's unfair.
That final was harder than OChem, which is why this prof should be held accountable. Absolutely no reason to put students through this level of pressure. The use of assignments on top of tutorials, with super confusing questions that we were not taught of in lectures. TOTAL. NIGHTMARE.
AVOID. HER. AT. ALL. COSTS. The final was the hardest test I've ever taken, might as well not have studied because putting in all the hard work made no difference when it came to those horrible mutiselect questions. She single handedly will bring my gpa down. VERY. UNFAIR.
The final exam was brutal! The number of multi-select questions and the way they were worded was unfair. There were questions on things we didn't even cover in lecture. Her tutorials are wordy and tough. Dr. Shemanko seems like a nice person but she cannot design her exams to make students suffer simply because it's an online course.
Her lectures were interesting and she is knowledgeable about the course content. Even though the final was difficult, concerns about the exam were reviewed and the final grading was fair.
The final averaged 70% after being adjusted. It's definitely not the easiest class but what makes it so hard is the grading criteria is so specific, you almost need to say the exact answer on the written assignments. The content was awesome and I liked it but exams and assignments were pretty tricky.
Her lectures weren't extremely hard to follow through, but the questions asked during the final exam were a lot more complicated and very applied in comparison to what was taught in lecture. It was hard.
Dr. Shemanko was kind and her lectures were clear and easy to follow. However, her test was quite a mess. It was mostly multi-select and examined a degree of knowledge that was not taught in lectures (or even the TB). Her tutorials were also a word soup that the lectures did not help with. Although a manageable class, it was made more difficult.
BIOL 331 was made into a nightmare thanks to the exams put out by the proffs. I hope they read these reviews b/c everything was unreasonably hard for an already heavy, but manageable course. Also, the tutorials were pointless. Basically mini group tests that didn't accomplish anything but confuse people with unreasonable, untaught inferencing.
AVOID this class with her at all costs!
Tutorial readings weren't helpful, tutorial questions were difficult to understand. Only made possible by an extremely helpful/caring TA. Lectures were OK, she's very passionate about the subject. Final exam was a disaster, difficult, included terms never covered. She had to send an email during the exam to clarify. This should never happen.
A full 6 months later, and this class is still haunting to me. The course's lack of organization, minimal accessibility for questions and mentorship, and overall poor quality lectures and exams were detrimental to me. It took immense time and energy to learn to enjoy my studies again and find confidence as a student. Self-learning is imperative.
Dr. Shemanko was really great for 519 and she was really nice to everyone. I would recommend taking this class with her if you want to take an upper-year CMMB course.
I really enjoyed Dr. Shemanko's section of 519. Her lectures were engaging, she gave very constructive feedback on written assignments, and her grading was clear and fair. This course was a welcome change of pace from memorization-based classes and I would strongly recommend it if you are looking for a 500-level CMMB course to take.
The professor is very disorganized, you can barely see the connection between all of her lectures. Tests are very difficult with her.
Honestly I think that people don't like Dr. Shemanko just because they didn't study enough and therefore found the content hard. Honestly her lectures were not disorganized and were really easy to follow. Her test was very fair as long as you actually put the time in to study. She is also very nice and clearly cares about students.
She's so sweet and easy to get help from outside of class. Her lecture slides were disorganized but if you read the textbook you can manage. Other than the disorganization of her slides and tutorials, she was great!
Dr Shemanko is a really good lecturer, the middle part of her section was confusing. Loved the first and last couple lectures! Tutorial and assignment of hers are hard and long, and final average was 70.3%. But questions were fair and you can definitely get a B-A grade in this class, it's not like before for sure. Decent prof.
BIOL 331 is a difficult course and quite disjointed, with multiple lecturers and a huge number of topics covered. Dr. Shemanko's lectures are very informative, though hard to follow if you aren't 100% mentally present. Her tutorials made less sense than the other profs. She was great at answering questions and linking topics to the real world.
Dr. Muench teaches the first half and he is hands down one of the nicest professors and then we get stuck with Dr. Shemanko who is unnecessarily tough. Her assignments were awful and her class presence sucked. If she didn't teach 519 I bet more people would take it.
Not a nice person at all, hated her section of the course. She seemed very judgy and I don't understand why she couldn't just act normal. Didn't like her in 331 don't like her in this course either.
Constantly unnecessarily unclear, confusing, bad writer, bad professor. Probably has a sad life outside of work to be like this :(
Dr. Carrie Shemanko is a pleasure to have as a professor, especially in smaller classes. She is overall an amazing person and does her job so well, in the lab and as a teacher. She is a very fair grader and even gave everyone a boost in their final grades.
idk what people are on about with shemanko's reviews, she was great! to be fair, i found myself zoning out during her lectures but her test wasn't as difficult as people are saying. the tutorials hit or miss, some of them were tough and others were suspiciously simple.
Had a fantastic time in Dr. Shemanko's Cmmb 531 course!! The entire class being set up with a discussion-participation style was nice, and she did a great job teaching us how to criticize articles. Lots of articles to read, but overall an easy course compared to other cmmb/biol classes, especially compared to biol 331.
Her individual lectures only make sense at the end, in the context of all the other lectures because they build off of each other. She doesn't explain concepts very well in class, so her lectures are hard to follow unless you're fully engaged and understand everything prior. Her final was more general than expected. Textbook reading helped.
Her lectures were a bit disorganized and hard to follow. However, I believe as long as you review your lectures and read the textbook to deepen your understanding you can do very well on her portion of the final.
Dr. Shemanko was a nice professor. She seemed so nice that I felt bad for giving her a low rating. The issue arises with her teaching. I found myself unable to keep up with her during lectures. Thankfully, she does have recordings of her lectures which helped. Tutorials were either really difficult or very easy. She is not as bad as others say.
Her lectures are hard to follow and can be a bit confusing to study from. With enough preparation you can do fine on her exam but its not easy.
Shemanko's lectures can be hit-or-miss, but with some effort, you can manage. Tutorials can be tricky, but the tests are fair if you study. unstuck ai was a lifesaver for prep.
Lectures :(
Dr. Shemanko is great because she'll have you questioning your worth as a human being beyond academics. I have never wanted to drop out of university more than I did during this course. Easily the least engaging lectures I've ever sat through. Oh, and the textbook sucks, not as much as her lectures though
I'm not sure what traumatizing things she did to the class of 2022, but it definitely was not that bad at all. I used her recordings for lectures as notes, and as long as you wrote down most of the important things she said the final was super straightforward. Easiest final out of second year bio sci, and easier than the midterm.
Nice enough prof, but she uses a million abbreviations for everything, and exam questions will be like "which protein does this? a- abc, b-abd, c- abe," which can be pretty confusing.
She is very knowledgeable about cell biology and enjoys the science. Courses are a lot fun when the prof is passionate about the field, and she is! Her lecturing style is also nice despite the complaints about her slides being disorganized (they are not that disorganized).
she was pretty good to start, but as the lectures went on they got more disorganized. the best way i could explain her teaching is that she teaches you with expectation you already know all of the random acronyms she throws your way. she's lowkey kind of funny in lecture though, and the exam components are fine
3rd unit was the worst just from sheer content, 4th was the best because everything was tied back into earlier content. Overall, just your standard bio class, but more dense in terms of material. I never went to lecture since it was recorded. I sacrificed 2 weeks of my life, but the final was fine, definitely easier than earlier years.
I feel like many blame the prof because of the course's content, but she was not that bad. It's a lot of memorization, but lectures have everything you will need to know and are recorded on top of that. The final was way easier than Polvi's midterm. Even though the content was dense the questions were very simple.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
61%
Textbook Required
21%
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3.7
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331
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4.3
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