Laura Duwel
| School: | Drexel University |
| Department: | Biology |
| Location: | Philadelphia, PA |
Overall Rating
rated by 20 students
| Helpfulness | |
| Clarity | |
| Easiness | |
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Cons: The lab work was hit or miss. Didn't draw a strong correlation to the lecture material all of the time and almost all three of the major assignments were due the same week. Did NOT flow well. You need to know that you have to get cracking immediately on any outside lab projects or they will bite you.
Overall Dr. Duwel was pretty easy to approach and really knew her stuff. She was more than willing to talk to you about issues related to this work that were outside of the curriculum if you were interested. She was quick to give study tips on how to study for her class, so it's really on you if you don't do well. Extra credit was available on all tests and even in lab!
labs are interesting
work in a group of four (choose WISELY see below)
Cons: THESE REPORTS THOUGH
**keep in mind things might change for future classes but this is my experience**
Can't comment on Duwel cause she doesn't teach the class, the TAs do but having a good TA will make your life SOOOOO much better.
Quizzes are a bit challenging but if you study the slides your golden. If you find someone with back quizzes, it will make your life easier since the questions were pretty much reused.
The final was basically all the quizzes combined, it was tough but just review the slides and know the concepts behind ALL the experiments.
There were three reports in the class. The first we did segments of it that were due each week till the final draft was due week 6. The TA gave us back corrections for the first draft which gave us an idea of what he expects. He didn't give us corrections for the other two reports.
So until week 6, I'd advise you get ahead in your classes and make use of that time because what comes next sucks ape balls. For the next two reports, you have two weeks to submit them. They will usually be between 15-20 pages long and the details that you have to include are absolutely insane. I would highly recommend you group up with people you know and are hard workers. Otherwise you would be like me where you will spend nearly 5 hours a day the week its due, correcting other peoples mistakes and rewriting their half-assed sections.
Steve was my TA, he is the best TA I ever had for anything. He is such a down to earth dude and you can pass the time of lab talking to him. He was helpful for the reports and he was always available when you needed him to be.
Final thoughts: This class has an immense workload for only 2.5 credits. But things like this don't surprise me anymore being this far into my major.
Cons: - The lectures for this class are usually useless and she makes you take notes to prove you were listening
- They treat you like a freshman and scold you for using your cell phones or coming in late (granted if you are coming late then you are acting like a freshman)
This class is pretty simple. You do a massive research paper in the form of a pretend grand proposal with four other people over the span of three terms. The lectures are mostly just guest lectures who talk about how they got to their career and then a lecture about what their research. You are guaranteed an A if you participate in your group paper and always come to lecture.
she.....talks.....like ......this every.....single.....class and its incredibly funny at first but just gets annoying and you end up tuning everything out.
half the time, she talks about things that are so blatantly obvious its torturous. procrastination.......is...bad. do...not....plagerize. ...do not......leave.....a million notes.....on your advisors door..
like no shit.
one kid even asked her, "why are we learning this, we arent doing this until next term". and she responded with "uh...eh...uh ...well...you see"
class itself is a complete waste of time. you have to write three questions about the presentations during the class as your "attendance". no computers allowed out or phones.
the group picking is COMPLETELY unorganized (ex. go to this corner of the room if you like ecology!")
have i mentioned i hate senior seminar?
Cons: everything. the workload, her expectations for you to know EVERY single detail, even ones she doesn't cover in her slides, she expects you to know from the book, and if you miss lectures and she says something that isn't in the book, you need to know that too. her entire outlook on life is that she doesn't teach at an undergrad level, and that she is a teacher of phd students.
do NOT take her. she is monotonous, hard to pay attention to, and will blame the entire class for a bad average even though if the class average is a 58.. there is definitely something wrong with the teacher and not just the classâ¦
THIS IS FOR BIO 218. not 219
Duwel did not teach this course, the TA's did so I can not give a review on her but the course itself. Group work consists of 70 % which leaves 30 % on you. Choose your group members wisely! Lab reports and notebooks count heavily so definitely pour effort into it! The 30 % is geared towards quizes and the final. Go to the review for the final and you will do fine.
Cons: You may never see Dr. Duwel because TAs teach the course.
LOTS of writing since it is a writing intensive course.
In my opinion, it is too much work for only 2.5 credits
Cons: Her exams were IMPOSSIBLE and had nothing to do with class material
-All second grade questions
-Average exam grades : 60
-Even all the class notes and google didn't help people pass
She is very rude to approach
Cons: Sometimes she sounds unenthusiastic, but she finds a way of convincing you any work she assigns in necessary or at least beneficial
Her lectures were not mandatory, but she gives extra credit and can actually be interesting about the diseases (or at least for me it was).
Lab is a significant part of your grade and you get a lot of stuff done in the 2 hour time slot.
Overall, she's really knowledgable in her field and expects dedication from her students!
She is an excellent teacher whose goal is simply to teach the students quality, truthful, up-to-date material. (This also reflects her position in the Bio department.)
If you hate doing work to help propel your education, you will probably hate her as well. However, if you realize the reason you're in college in the first place and value a quality education, you will definitely value her classes.
The 4 18-20 page lab reports you will have to do for both classes are completely unnecessary. In no other labs will you have to do reports this large, dense, and detailed. They'll make you want to rip your hair out. And if you have bad lab partners you'll be doing double or possibility triple the work to make up for their half-ass'ery.
"Quizzes" should be changed to "Exams" because that's exactly what they are. They are filled with all short answer questions that are ridiculously hard unless you know every word of the powerpoints. Don't pay attention to how the syllabus states they'll have multiple choice questions because that's a lie. If you don't answer a question with every little detail, you get points off. They aren't worth much of your grade alone, but if you fail all of them, you're only screwing yourself over.
The TAs are kinda bad. The ones that have ran both classes seem very bored, disoriented, and uninterested. The more questions you ask, the more you're treated like a retarded person. Dr. Duwel NEVER shows up for any of the labs so these horrible TAs basically have to do everything. And when she does, she's there for 5 seconds, yells at the class, and then leaves. Blink and you miss her pretty much. She is impossible to find for help too, and is a pretty difficult woman to deal with. You basically have to suck up to her in order for her to like you, and if she doesn't she'll talk to you with this smirk attitude Any and all problems with both these classes are all because of her.
Overall, I think Dr. Duwel is a great teacher. She doesn't pull any surprises on quizzes or the final, and her class definitely has improved my lab techniques (pipetting especially). If I had to take the class again, I would definitely take her. I have heard nightmares about the TA's, how some of them never actually teach the material for the quizzes, and then the students fail miserably since it's too difficult to figure it out yourself. Honestly, this class was the first real college class I've taken at Drexel.
BIO 219 was easier than BIO 215 by far, especially since the entire class had just one experiment that was expanded upon throughout the term. BIO 215 just piled on different types of lab techniques, and you don't get to understand the material as thoroughly.
Dr. Duwel is overall a very good professor, and since she makes the quizzes for all the course sections, it's definitely a benefit to be in her class. Her quizzes and final exam are straightforward. If she doesn't mention anything in her lectures, then it won't be on the quiz.
Basically, the key requirements for the course are to not procrastinate with the lab reports and to study HER notes. I guarantee an A.