Professor
Kimberly Berthet
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - I'm surprised there aren't more reviews for this course + prof. combo after taking it and wanted add to validate the other recent post. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice person, gentle voiced lecturer, loves to speak about herself and her research which sounds interesting. But not a great instructor. THE COURSE WAS SO MESSY, and she had delayed or vague answers to our questions. The other review's experience of the campuswire is correct! Why have the page if we couldn't get the answers we needed - TAs would answer only random questions, not sure if they needed to check with her for other Qs but they were mostly left unanswered. Save yourself and try and take it with someone else! Lecture: iClicker required, 2x a week 50 min., except she would read off the slides, mention small details about example organisms for 1 minute while she spent the rest of the time going over the broad concept - which was misleading because she said we didn't need to know specific organisms, and somehow you get the question wrong on the test because you don't know it by name. It wouldn't be worth going to lecture if there was no iClicker - oh wait! I'm pretty sure she gave everyone full iClicker points because she kept opening/closing polls by accident so even if you were supposed to have a certain amount of them done there wasn't really a way to track them. TLDR: very basic microbio topics, very detailed Qs on exams - you have to do quite a bit of inferencing. Lab: As the other post says, it's a lot more work than you'd expect for a 5 unit course. But this is where most of the fun was and I really enjoyed the lab portion - some days you get out after 2 hours and some after just 1 you're done. You get an "unknown" you're tasked with identifying through vary many tests and present on at the end of the quarter with your group, which is a good bit of your grade too (100-200). Lab worksheets are 1-4 points (think, out of like almost 700 points) so not much but graded on accuracy and because you need results from tests back to analyze them they're due two weeks after each exercise is due. Mid-quarter you'll get to the point where you have like 8 sheets due every Sunday. There's lab practicals to check your skills but the TAs will prepare you well for that imo. I liked that we did a lot of the tests we learned in 101 and even more! Further Logistics: She said the syllabus would be out of 705 in the first lecture, syllabus said 685. No answer to anyone's questions on this. A hefty amount of your grade is tests even though it's a LAB class - over 50% lol. They were fine, a little tricky and you obviously did a lot better if you could remember that one specific organism she mentioned for 0.2 seconds of the class - but some questions we all walked of the class in unison like "what the _ was that," and her wording on a lot of the questions would make you think she plugged a straightforwardly written Q into ChatGPT and went "make this harder to understand," truly. She gave us a 9 question study guide for MT1 which was way too easy to help with anything, and then none for the next two exams (lack of continuity there, thanks). Also I'd like to CLARIFY something from the other post - NO EXAMS WERE CURVED, there was an ERROR on the key of one version of the exam which I happened to have - they put like 3 or 4 wrong answers on that key (also, each MCQ was like 3 points which is so much to lose, which is why it may have seemed like a curve but really the grading was just incorrect).
Spring 2025 - I'm surprised there aren't more reviews for this course + prof. combo after taking it and wanted add to validate the other recent post. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice person, gentle voiced lecturer, loves to speak about herself and her research which sounds interesting. But not a great instructor. THE COURSE WAS SO MESSY, and she had delayed or vague answers to our questions. The other review's experience of the campuswire is correct! Why have the page if we couldn't get the answers we needed - TAs would answer only random questions, not sure if they needed to check with her for other Qs but they were mostly left unanswered. Save yourself and try and take it with someone else! Lecture: iClicker required, 2x a week 50 min., except she would read off the slides, mention small details about example organisms for 1 minute while she spent the rest of the time going over the broad concept - which was misleading because she said we didn't need to know specific organisms, and somehow you get the question wrong on the test because you don't know it by name. It wouldn't be worth going to lecture if there was no iClicker - oh wait! I'm pretty sure she gave everyone full iClicker points because she kept opening/closing polls by accident so even if you were supposed to have a certain amount of them done there wasn't really a way to track them. TLDR: very basic microbio topics, very detailed Qs on exams - you have to do quite a bit of inferencing. Lab: As the other post says, it's a lot more work than you'd expect for a 5 unit course. But this is where most of the fun was and I really enjoyed the lab portion - some days you get out after 2 hours and some after just 1 you're done. You get an "unknown" you're tasked with identifying through vary many tests and present on at the end of the quarter with your group, which is a good bit of your grade too (100-200). Lab worksheets are 1-4 points (think, out of like almost 700 points) so not much but graded on accuracy and because you need results from tests back to analyze them they're due two weeks after each exercise is due. Mid-quarter you'll get to the point where you have like 8 sheets due every Sunday. There's lab practicals to check your skills but the TAs will prepare you well for that imo. I liked that we did a lot of the tests we learned in 101 and even more! Further Logistics: She said the syllabus would be out of 705 in the first lecture, syllabus said 685. No answer to anyone's questions on this. A hefty amount of your grade is tests even though it's a LAB class - over 50% lol. They were fine, a little tricky and you obviously did a lot better if you could remember that one specific organism she mentioned for 0.2 seconds of the class - but some questions we all walked of the class in unison like "what the _ was that," and her wording on a lot of the questions would make you think she plugged a straightforwardly written Q into ChatGPT and went "make this harder to understand," truly. She gave us a 9 question study guide for MT1 which was way too easy to help with anything, and then none for the next two exams (lack of continuity there, thanks). Also I'd like to CLARIFY something from the other post - NO EXAMS WERE CURVED, there was an ERROR on the key of one version of the exam which I happened to have - they put like 3 or 4 wrong answers on that key (also, each MCQ was like 3 points which is so much to lose, which is why it may have seemed like a curve but really the grading was just incorrect).
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - Professor Berthet brought an extrordinary passion to microbiology but the class had so many flaws that made me despise the class. She will blaze through lectures and will try to finish as quick as possible if she realizes she is running out of time. Though she emphasizes that you must read the textbook, it isn't necessary as all the content on exams are on the slides. She hosted office hours directly after her class. You can only receive your SAQ for exams back and you will need to put an unnecessary amount of effort to just find out what you got incorrect on your MCQ portion. The exams are 30 MCQ with 4 SAQ while the final is 50 MCQ with 5 SAQ w/ a notes sheet. This class is doable, but receiving feedback on exams was my biggest frustration in this course similar to lower division courses. I would pre-read the slides before lecture, to account for her speed and reference the learning objectives as a resource to have a cumulative representation of exam content. I did not enjoy this class.
Winter 2025 - Professor Berthet brought an extrordinary passion to microbiology but the class had so many flaws that made me despise the class. She will blaze through lectures and will try to finish as quick as possible if she realizes she is running out of time. Though she emphasizes that you must read the textbook, it isn't necessary as all the content on exams are on the slides. She hosted office hours directly after her class. You can only receive your SAQ for exams back and you will need to put an unnecessary amount of effort to just find out what you got incorrect on your MCQ portion. The exams are 30 MCQ with 4 SAQ while the final is 50 MCQ with 5 SAQ w/ a notes sheet. This class is doable, but receiving feedback on exams was my biggest frustration in this course similar to lower division courses. I would pre-read the slides before lecture, to account for her speed and reference the learning objectives as a resource to have a cumulative representation of exam content. I did not enjoy this class.
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