Our grading scheme ended up being 10% in-class question (ask once throughout the quarter), 15% a library assignment, 25% article summary, 10% abstract, 35% for the group podcast, and 5% for some surveys/questionnaires.

This class basically just consists of guest lecturers coming every week and talking about their research. We had a few assignments due throughout the quarter based on the class reading articles and summarizing them/utilizing library tools. Final project was a group project based off a chosen topic (we were given a list). The work load was pretty light in the first few weeks but we ended up having this 12-15 minute podcast assignment due week 10, which was not fun to worry about during finals. If anything, I'd follow the recommended schedule and get writing and recording done early.

Basically, an A in this class is guaranteed. However, you do have to put a relatively heavy amount of work in for a 2 unit class. The article summary takes a very long time to do. It took me like 12 hours, and that's not even longer than average. Definitely start a few days in advance. The podcast was annoying, but the bar is set very low for an A on that so don't stress. You can skip lecture if you want, because you only have to ask one question, and once that's done it doesn't matter. However, the guest lecturers were often pretty interesting so I liked going (most of the time) anyway. The second part of lecture, which he calls "writing workshop," is literally completely useless and basically the equivalent to 6th grade English class. Feel free to leave after the guest lecturer. A nice little GPA booster with no stress, but more work than it should be.

Looks like a lot of work, really isn't. Kinda boring tho but its a required course so whatever.

I don't know why this class got so many negative reviews. Content is extremely interesting (physio) and the professor is quite knowledgable and good at communicating the working mechanisms of systems biology. A useful class for every bioengineer (especially pre-meds) and taught by someone who knows what there doing. Also, the slides are good, reviews that say otherwise are capping.

I agree with the other most recent review. His slides are pretty decent, it's useful information, and he does a good job presenting it. A lot of the content isn't difficult to digest, and lots of the info from class can be supplemented in other areas online if you need a different perspective. Minimal time commitment and not the hardest thing by any means.

He's a nice person but not the best professor. He is very vague at telling you what you need to know and often tells you to post a question on Piazza when you ask him something in person (he won't even answer the Piazza question until much later). A lot of students felt that there was a lot of ambiguity and unclarity near the end of the class due to mistakes in lectures and slides that he didn't clear up until last minute. In my opinion, this is one of those classes where you never feel prepared for exams regardless of how much you study. He gives very few practice problems, making it hard to raise your grade once you do bad on one exam. Additionally, exams are graded relatively harshly-- you need to have specific phrases in your answers to even get credit on some of them. This class will also make you question what the point of lecture is. Linsley uses the "flipped classroom" style where instead of lecturing in class, he relies on student questions and like four clicker questions over the span of two hours. To actually understand what goes on in "lecture," you have to watch around three hours of videos beforehand, which he tends to post very last minute (4-6 hours before midnight on Sunday and they are very information overload). He will also sometimes cancel or delay class last minute, which is very annoying considering that this class is typically an 8 AM. Overall, it's a shame that such an interesting class is taught so poorly. The way this class is run with the asynchronous videos, mediocre lectures, vague responses, and lack of practice questions to reinforce concepts makes it extremely unenjoyable and probably one of the worst classes I've taken at this school. He always tells us he appreciates our effort and reassures us that everything is fine (which is nice) but it's disappointing to see the lack of effort on his side to help us succeed as students.

I disagree with the last 2 reviews. I am pre-med and was excited for this class. While the content is interesting I think the slides are really bad and Linsley did not really seen knowledgable about the content. He improved when it came to the kidneys but the cardiac lectures were the worst. Many people just stopped going to class cause the lectures were so unhelpful.

His written tests are fair though. Quizzes are a bit annoying and short on time.