Dr. Turlo is super nice, and she provides a lot of assistance with the assignments if you ask her beforehand. She is also a huge nerd and loves what she teaches. The class itself is also really fun because you get to cover a particular subject in great depth. It forces you to read through lots of scientific literature in great depth. None of my previous classes required that from me, so I'm happy to have had the chance to develop that skill. Since the class is small, I also recommend getting to know a couple of your peers. Friendship is magic.

Turlo is an amazing professor. She's incredibly supportive and encouraging for people to participate and express their thoughts and views. She does call people out by name to answer questions, but you get used to it. Overall, this class is great if you want to think more critically about research literature. The midterm/final is writing a research proposal, and Turlo does a great job of guiding you through it. Highly recommend!

Dr. Turlo grew on me so much midway through the quarter.

At first, it was hard to reconcile how she's a stickler for certain things (which she herself admits), such as attendance and formatting on assignments. But this does come from her wanting us to be able to gain the most out of the class - and the formatting comes from how it needs to be precise when you write grants, so she's just modeling that experience. So, I think she's a little bit hard to relate to at first, but truly, she's just a woman who loves science and she is incredibly willing to help and give encouragement. Office hours are very helpful in doing well in the class. Also, just know that Dr. Turlo is far more accommodating than you might expect based off first impression - she was willing to work with me individually to help me succeed when I was going through some mental health challenges and extreme burnout.

Be aware that she grades harshly on the first assignment (out of 5 points, with a lot of people getting 2's), as a motivator for the rest of the course. But in the end she's not trying to hurt anyone and gives opportunities to make up points and to grow from the experience. She will probably say herself later on in the quarter that after the first assignment, most people get 100% (or near 100%) on the other assignments.

With the proposal in the latter half of the course, it's time-consuming, but I appreciated that she let us branch out from the seminar talk into areas that were more interesting to us. Honestly, this was the experience I was waiting for after 5HA. To write a proposal, because this assignment totally kicked my ass but suddenly within a week, I'd been forced to learn how to truly read scientific literature in large volumes like never before. It was a truly helpful experience and I gained so much from it.

It's also very nice of Dr. Turlo to let us submit the final multiple times until we get full credit. I only submitted once, but I still did well because of how much time I had spent with her in office hours/appointments to get on the right track.

Discussions were less helpful and I unfortunately got a group that just was not very engaged/talkative. Like, no shade against any individuals since I had no issue with anyone in the class, but the discussion project we had was mainly a waste of time and the group work for that was so frustrating.

Symposium was more fun albeit stressful near the end of the quarter and also gave us an opportunity to practice oral presentation skills. Just try your best and it will be entirely fine :).

This is a great diversity credit for a STEM major, specifically more of a life science major. I can imagine someone who hasn't been exposed to biology struggling with understanding the content. I enrolled in this class the day before instruction started with the intention of wanting to read research papers easily. I definitely accomplished this goal. Dr. Turlo can be kind of dorky and chaotic. She runs around front of the room emphasizing stuff all the time. She's really passionate about what she does. As a white woman teaching diversity, she's doing great for the privileged position she is in.

Logistically...you should go to most if not all classes to get credit for the daily worksheet. And discussion attendance is mandatory, but we get let out early all of time.

I loved this course and the instructor, I took this class because nothing else was open, and it ended up being my favorite class so far at this university. Professor Turlo is passionate about what she does and cares about the success of her students. I loved the smaller class size, this is the first time I've been able to form a relationship with a professor and I think she is brilliant and amazing.

I loved this class! It was incredibly engaging and each class completely followed the interests of the students. Grading is an easy A so long as you participate in every class. You are responsible for reading a paper every week with a simple assignment to make sure you read it, for participating in each class by asking a question, and presenting once in the quarter with a group on a research paper of your choosing.

The overall topics in the class were interesting; however, Turlo isn't a clear enough lecturer to appropriately teach these topics in-depth. She often went on tangents and would rush to finish up the rest of the content in the last 10 minutes of lecture. The one time I went to office hours also wasn't helpful because she wouldn't really answer the questions I asked her. Based on the other reviews, it seems like she always changes up her class format though idk why? When I took it, every lecture was mandatory in-person since there was a 4-7 question worksheet we had to fill out every time by hand (though you can miss a few and be fine tbh). Discussion was also mandatory but I often got out early since it was mostly a time to work on future assignments due. Besides mandatory attendance, there were very few assignments in general and they were all graded generously, so I'd recommend this class if you don't mind attending all the lectures/discussion (though you may not learn as much as you'd like).

Class was reasonable, and if you pay attention in lecture it should be very doable. There are 60 quizzes throughout the quarter that take up 25% of your grade, and this was probably the biggest grade dropper. If you do the reading you should at least get 80-90% of the points - everything else was pretty straight forward. The class kind of assumes everyone has a background in biology so I'd only take it if you took AP bio.

Terrible class with a horrible professor that does not seem to realize that not everyone in the class has prior knowledge to complete the frustratingly confusing assignments for the course.

1 midterm, 1 final, weekly discussion worksheets. Turlo is incredibly intelligent and is very specific in what she expects to see from you in the midterm and finals. However, the course material is very fascinating and eye-opening. Turlo is a great professor and very engaging. My TA Tong Xia is extremely intelligent but is not the best at explaining concepts in easily-understandable ways. I recommend this class as a diversity requirement.