Boring lectures that repeat all of the content you have to learn yourself. Silly application activities that remind me of 5th grade. Professor Ng very uncompromising and not understanding with any issues eg. MidTerm scheduling. Would have learnt more just reading the textbook...

I learned nothing in class would've been better off only reading the book. Mini-lectures are pointless and activities childish. Prof Ng herself is uncompromising and makes an absurd amount of mistakes in quizzes and tests, which seem like they're written by a toddler. Honestly just a bad class -- easy to get an ok grade, impossible to excel.

Do not take Neuroscience 102!

The teacher is incredibly rude and not accessible. She will actively call people out in front of the entire class and she says a lot of uncomfortable things. Also, the quizzes she administers are filled with errors and she really doesn't know that much about neuroscience.

Do not take Neuroscience 102! Take 101. The "team-based" learning is an absolute farce and just an excuse for the teacher, who doesn't know the material, to not teach. Instead, the students are supposed to teach each other, even though everyone is in the same boat. Doesn't make sense, now does it? Essentially, you will have to memorize the textbook

Okay, so the teacher doesn't teach. And team-based is supposed to mean that you are split into a group of five other students and help each other learn. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, with people telling other people wrong information or misconceptions that they have concerning the material. You won't learn. You will memorize the textbook.

How can an introductory course be team-based? Nobody is an expert on the material, and if students are supposed to teach each other, you can bet they are not doing a good (or correct) job. You will memorize the textbook and then pretend to pass off as an expert on the material as you engage in mindless debates that are most likely factually wrong.

If you were an unpersonable nerd in high school who went home and memorized random brain regions, you will have an advantage in this course. Purely memorization with absolutely no critical thinking required. By memorization I mean specific sentences in the text. Everyone can memorize so everyone could pass, it's all a matter of your social life.

Honestly a really terrible professor. Lectures are boring and restate everything from the reading, the quizzes have mistakes in them almost every week she is unaccommodating of students, and her tests are way harder than expected. Can be quite aloof, super strict. Avoid as much as possible.

Prof. Ng is the worst professor I have ever encountered. Her quizzes always have mistakes and were unnecessarily difficult. Midterm was impossible. She becomes defensive over her questions even when she is CLEARLY incorrect. Lectures do not help for her tests. Attendance is mandatory and if you do not show up, you get a 0 for the day, NO EXCUSES!

Did NOT enjoy this class. Literally all the content comes from the textbook so class is completely useless, except for the tiniest, most random details that she put on the midterm. The in-class activities contribute nothing and class ended with a final and a 5-8 page paper (for a class with NO previous writing assignments) due on the same day.

She is horrible. Don't take this class.

Worst professor you will have at Duke. She doesnt teach a thing, writes quizzes and exams that she always has to revise after b/c students catch mistakes, and thinks shes the reason youre learning. Got mad at me for asking questions ABOUT HER QUIZZES b/c it wastes class time. Not a hard class, but the professor is awful.

HORRIBLE. I did well ONLY based on my own merits b/c she did not teach ONE THING. Its a flipped class, but she never goes over material learned. She just talks about articles she likes instead of answering questions on her quizzes, which are riddled with mistakes. Is unapproachable and passive aggressive . Can do well, but it's a lot of time.

Probably one of the worst professors I've had in Duke. It is an intro course to Neuroscience but wants you to cram information into your head. If all neuroscience courses were like this, I would probably lose all my interest in the topic.

a rude professor that doesn't care about her students, all you learn comes from the textbook, and she approaches students being very condescending and not helpful at all. do NOT take

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Do yourself a favor and do not take it. It's a flipped classroom so you would expect that you would do well if you just stay on track for the reading. HOWEVER, it doesn't matter how much you study the material in the textbook because the quiz questions and exam questions are ridiculously specific and don't make sense.

Dr. Ng typically teaches the team-based Psy106, but they added that component to the "normal" Murphy 106 for this fall. I felt these assignments were too frequent, felt like busy work (scripted/fill in the blank to discuss research articles felt very condescending as juniors/sophs), and coordinating with teammates was unreasonabl hard in a pandemic

Unnecessarily passive aggressive, unfairly called people out when she thought they weren't paying attention, as if this weren't college and we weren't in a pandemic where its hard to hear with masks. Discussion sections were a waste of time. Tons of busywork, assignments were uninteresting and learned nothing. Grading was nitpicky and harsh.

I'm a freshman and came into Duke really excited about neuroscience. But, Minna Ng is the WORST professor. Her lectures are so disorganized. She skips through slides because she rambles on about unimportant material and then tests us on those skipped slides ? The most interesting lectures were given by the TA's

I'm a freshman and Dr. Ng is the reason I will no longer be majoring in neuroscience. Her tests constantly have mistakes, and she grades assignments WAY too harshly. She wastes an unimaginable amount of time during lectures, is not engaging, and excludes important info from lectures. Extremely team-based class, lots of busy work, waste of time.

Minna is a robot in human form - no one goes to her lectures anymore, the only valuable lectures are given by the TA's. The TEAM format is a waste of my tuition. (don't quit neuro because of her tho!)

I came to Duke excited about Neuroscience; however, I have left this course with no interest in neuroscience or psychology. Minna Ng herself does not know what is going on in the course. The class relied on TAs who are tough graders, and exams which tested materials that were not taught. Avoid this class at all costs.

This was my first class as a prospective neuroscience major and I'm deeply disappointed. Dr. Ng is condescending and her tests are arbitrary, requiring regrades because there are so many appeals (which she is defensive about). The course is groupwork-heavy with unnecessarily harsh grading. Take this gateway course with another professor.

This course design is extremely insane! Everyone agrees that the team based component is a waste of time. You just stayed with your groups and answer some questions, which could in no way help you digest the materials. Minna Ng is never helpful. Don't let her teach this course any more! Otherwise, no one would major in Neuroscience at Duke.

The class is horribly taught: no structure, random tangents of info that seem unimportant but are on tests, and exams that make no sense and are way too specific. Tests are often blatantly wrong and are contradicted by or ignore textbook material, which is ironically the only real substance you get. The final was atrociously specific and misleading

Decided to drop Neuroscience major after taking her Neurosci 101. Grading rubric is unclear, doesn't care about student's questions or opinions, will not accept regrade request. Does not care about student's improvement and learning in class.

The grading was a bit harsh for projects that constituted a large part of our grade. We spent more time learning about research methods than actual neuroscience; then, we were given an in-person final exam that was tougher than the other tests we had throughout the semester. I was excited about this class, but in the end, was disappointed.

This class was actually horrendous. The material is not hard but she makes it hard to get an A because the grading is completely arbitrary and the tests are SO specific (often about things not even discussed in lecture/the textbook). Also very unreasonable and frequently teaches material incorrectly/contradicts the textbook. Avoid her.

This class was probably the worst I have taken at Duke so far. She skipped over everything important during the lecture. Most of your grade is dependent on team projects where the grading is too harsh. All of the group activities are busywork and you learn nothing. The Final was the only test in person but was way to difficult. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

This is the absolute worst professor I have had at Duke. If you are planning to take a class by this professor, DROP it asap. Her lectures are copied and pasted information directly out of the textbook. She simply reads her slides with no explanation. AVOID HER.

This class was all over the place. Tests are all multiple-choice and very specific, and there are a lot of heavily-weighted group projects, so it feels like your grade is not in your own control. Lectures did not feel very organized. I would recommend against this professor.

AVOID HER. I repeat, AVOID HER. Terrible lecturer, confusing class structure. Overall, a terrible experience. Any of these sassy positive reviews you see are absolutely written by her to try and save face. I have never had nor heard of a worse professor. If you are not going to heed this warning, you deserve to suffer the pain of her class.

I would avoid her at all costs. She teaches the class like everyone in it is already a neuroscientist. She also lectures way too much for a TEAM-based course. She also told us after tests that we could stay after to discuss wrong answers to get points back. However, she would sit there and refuse to listen to our argument or give us points back.

This professor is hilarious in the sense that it is comical how horrible she is. Her lectures are horribly unorganized, constantly has to make changes to the questions she asks because they make little to no sense, and to top if off is extremely passive-aggressive. If you have to take this class for a requirement then be prepared for an awful ride.

She was the worst professor I've had at Duke but I had to take this class for the neuro requirement. Midterm was written so badly with mistakes that they had to offer a re-mediation opportunity. Very passive aggressive and unhelpful. My grade is fine but experience was terrible

This class was incredibly frustrating with the way that it was taught and set up; it almost discouraged me from majoring in neuroscience. Although we need to read lengthy chapters from a textbook, her lectures in class are a complete repetition of the homework. Midterm was awful with many errors - unfortunately this class required for neuro majors

Hard class for intro level

100% recommend avoiding Prof Ng if you can. Exams are a much higher (unrealistic) application of the material covered. Hw is to teach yourself the entire semester [spending hours reading the txtbook & watching pre-recorded lecture vids.] The whole class failed our first exam and she didn't curve (& blamed us)!! Much more to say (hit char limit).

Incredibly passive aggressive. Failed nearly evryone on first exam then let us do test corrections for some points back (bc she refuses to curve) then blamed it on us (4 QUESTONS ON THE EXAM ABT SOMETHING MENTIONED

I lowkey think she uses chatgpt to write her exam questions

Definitely the worst professor I've had. She assigns unreasonable and trivial busy-work, and the lectures/labs are incredibly disorganized. The midterm was unfair and the class collectively struggled with it. Not to mention that she is super passive-aggressive and "fake nice." Don't take this class unless you need to. Waste of time.

Pretty hard to avoid taking her class if Neuro major or Psych major, but God was this class awful. Her new exams are literally impossible. Midterm was so bad we were all allowed huge remediations (at least) but she didn't give us this opportunity for the final (which was DETRIMENTAL for final grades). Nice lady, but horrible class structure

The midterm was so horribly written that she had to offer a remediation opportunity. Same issue with the final. She tested us on things that we never learned, and then blamed us for not studying enough for the exams. The class itself is a lot of content and it's just frustrating when you put a lot of work into studying and it doesn't pay off.

Her tests (and final) were poorly made and had many flaws. After spending a week fixing my exam questions and even attending office hours, I still received minimal credit as she offered "corrections" because her test was flawed and unclear. Met with her to discuss this on Zoom with her and she was passive-aggressive/condescending.

the class is mandatory for neuro ppl but good lord minna is the absolute worst teacher, nay person i have ever had the misfortune of interacting with. take this class knowing you are about to enter the most grueling mental torture of your life

WORST professor I've ever had. Never done a Rate My Professor before, but she enraged me so much that I had to. And what's crazy is that the class was so interesting. She wasn't. The textbook was. In fact, her lectures might have made me understand the material LESS. She is the sassiest, most demeaning professor. Can I rate her lower than a 1?

Just okay…makes mistakes during lecture and exams which won't be called out unless you say something. You have to prove your answers right sometimes because she's not sure herself. Can be rude with students sometimes and haven't had this problem much with other Duke professors.

She's too condescending and passive-aggressive to students. The exams are not based on the material learned in class very well. The class is interesting but I'm not sure if it's taught well by her. Adjust expectations. Grading criteria can be more clear sometimes.

Her class was pretty simple, however she goes back on her word, she doesn't support her students' academic goals, and she doesn't respond to emails. You don't want her.

The assignments aren't too difficult, but the only way you learn is from reading the textbook. Ng is hands down the worst professor I have ever encountered. Her lectures are not helpful at all. She appears nice in front of the large class, but as soon as you talk to her, it's clear that she thinks very low of you and isn't afraid to show it

This class was literally such a joke and a waste of time. The "flipped classroom" is an excuse so the professors don't have to teach. Minna was disorganized, always going back on her word and uncertain about the answers to the quizzes SHE WROTE. Expectations were so unclear. Also, Minna was condescending, treating us like middle school students.

Easy course as long as you do the weekly readings and it is flipped classroom.

I feel my neurons die around Minna.This is the worst class I have taken at Duke-- there is no standard difficulty level across weeks, grading is arbitrary on labs, demands dissecting insects, and also being asked to play with Play-Doh. Don't take if you don't have to. Psych major? S/U this class. Minna should not be allowed to teach.

Professor Ng was disconnected from the class and extremely unfriendly. They were the only professor I had in my entire 4 years at Duke who didn't seem like they wanted to be there.