Since no one does course evals and plus course forum is where it's at.. oh and this review is being written literally minutes after taking the final. Yeah, most of the other reviews embody my sentiment. I had a strong bio background in high school (took 4 years of it but sadly didn't place out rip) and still found this class pretty challenging. Overall, I would say this class is just a get-it-over with type deal. You are required to know large amounts of information which seems to be left out of the powerpoints (she also doesn't post them with annotations either). I do recognize that some exam questions are from lectures but that basically means you need to write down everything she says just in case they do happen to appear. The grade distribution puts unnecessary pressure on how lenient your TA's are at grading lab (because it is 20% of your grade) and 70% exams can be a little overwhelming . Did really well in Dave's class (basically everyone's dad God bless him <3) but with Manson, I struggled. I didn't do any of the readings for the first 3 exams and didn't pay attention in lecture and it showed so I decided to do the reading for the final (felt really prepared) and still ended up not knowing questions because of ambiguity in wording. Hopefully my clicker points which can be a potential 1.5% bonus on the overall grade, 1% test boost, those extra assignment things she had in class, and dropped exam questions (basically the exam curve) will get me over my borderline hump grade. Also, will never look at plants the same way again. Godspeed

This class is very difficult. I know reading this review will not change your mind on taking the course because you have to take it with Manson. But a few things to be weary of: First off her lectures are 100% easier than the exams. Do not let her lectures fool you into thinking this class is easy and she is spoon feeding. Make sure to write down every word that comes out of her mouth, not just the bullet points on the powerpoint. She will say something once and not have it down as a bullet point and then test it on the exam. Second off, when taking the exam, read every word and make sure every word in the answer is correct or else that answer is wrong. She makes her questions very ambiguous and a lot of times you will struggle between two answers because of the ambiguity. She told me in her office that many times she will ask questions where there is a great answer, but because everything else is incorrect there can only be one answer. Also due to her ambiguity many students fight her on answers after the test and then she gets very rude and defensive. If you think you are right for the answer because of the way you interpreted the question, she still will not give you points back. Her test averages for my class tended to be around a 79% and Im surprised they were that high. I guess people can just get the info. So for advice: record lectures and/or write every word she says down (I suggest typing your notes), make sure every word in the question and answer is correct and makes sense, and study a lot for exams but memorizing every word she says. This is the best way to succeed in the class.

Professor Manson is very nice and very responsive to emails. I just do not think she is a good test writer and makes it a more of can you guess of what Manson is thinking rather than do you know your content or not.

I enjoyed Prof Manson's course! I would recommend doing the readings for part 1 if you don't fully understand evolution, and for part 3 to learn more about the different organ systems. She skips over a TON in the biodiversity section so don't waste your time reading those.

Lectures are really easy. The exams are much harder.

Manson is a great person but does not teach the material well enough to prepare you for the exams. The notes are a joke and the exams are so hard. I wish she prepared us better for the exams as it is 70% of your grade.

Professor Manson is very enthusiastic about her class and tries her hardest to make it fun. She is a good teacher and I feel as though I learned a lot it was just the fact that the exams were really hard, there were some topics that I couldn't see how they would be application based but she found a way to do so which made it more confusing. That is the only problem, her teaching skills are impeccable and she is always willing to help. This course requires a lot of effort and office hours in order to understand how the exam questions would be.

Overall a horrible experience. Manson is nice and all, but the class was frustrating at best. The average grade on the first test was in the C range, despite it covering material students have known since 7th grade. The material is presented in lecture as if the students were first graders, so I attribute this dissonance to her masking test questions as "application-based" when in reality they're just exceptionally confusing and poorly written. The only way to reason out an answer is to find the three answers that make less sense than the "correct" answer which still isn't always true. With that said, I learned the hard way to not stress about doing the readings--some of my friends found it only hurt them to know the material presented in the book. Focus on studying the lectures and accept defeat on the few "trick" test questions. Most TAs are awful with the exception of maybe two or three, so your lab grade essentially depends on a Russian roulette of scheduling. Unfortunately, the labs take at least 2 hours each, so do yourself a favor and sit next to someone who smells good the first day. The only saving graces are MasteringBio and iClicker questions (although her controversial iClicker questions often sparked lively debate). She spends more time discussing the gymnosperm life cycle than human anatomy and animal phyla combined. I still hate plants.

Manson has been one of my least favorite professors to work with. Her class is very unengaging and it often feels like she's trying to butcher every word possible. Her exam questions are often worded very poorly and she refuses to listen to her student's criticisms. When I visited her office hours to discuss a test question, she was extremely condescending and defensive and refused to regrade the question despite admitting fault. One of my least favorite classes but you have to take it for premed . Try and wait for a different professor if possible

I liked Manson and I liked this course. Towards the end it got a little dull, but what can you do you have to take this if you're pre-med. Overall not that bad, just make sure to keep up with readings and to go to office hours if you're confused.

The professor made this class super bearable. For bio majors, or for anyone, most ecology and biodiversity is either their thing or its not. I thought it wouldn't be exciting to me, and really the material wasn't that all fun, but Manson was so excited to teach! Her lectures were super engaging, and her excitedness to teach the course made the class so bearable. I'd say I liked her more than Kittlesen. Her tests were definitely a bit difficult and tricky and almost as hard as Kittlesen's tests though. I ended with a B+ in the class when I definitely thought I was an A- or higher so I have a feeling I was downcurved.
Pro: super engaging professor who loved plants and almost made you also to also love plants
Cons: Tests were tricky even still