Professor
Michelle Rensel
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you are in the Biotechnology Cluster, take Film in Biotechnology with Krystal Navarro. This class freaking rocked! Not only were there no tests, the weekly homework was to watch a movie and read two, often short articles. The seminar met once a week for three hours, but there were plenty of breaks and I never felt as if I was burnt out. You do have to go to all of the seminars, unless you let Krystal know in advance, and you should participate. Participation was not daunting though as the subjects that were taught in class were honestly super interesting. The grading system is contract grading, so as long as you put in a little bit of effort into assignments, you should totally get an A+. You will do one group project reviewing a movie, an analytical essay for a movie for the midterm, and then a short biotechnology story for the final. In total, the assignments took me a total of like four hours for the entire quarter. This seminar was freaking awesome, and if you can you should take it. Krystal is super nice and accommodating, and you always feel listened too. If there's one takeaway any new first years get from reading this review, it is to take the Film in Biotechnology Seminar!
Spring 2024 - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you are in the Biotechnology Cluster, take Film in Biotechnology with Krystal Navarro. This class freaking rocked! Not only were there no tests, the weekly homework was to watch a movie and read two, often short articles. The seminar met once a week for three hours, but there were plenty of breaks and I never felt as if I was burnt out. You do have to go to all of the seminars, unless you let Krystal know in advance, and you should participate. Participation was not daunting though as the subjects that were taught in class were honestly super interesting. The grading system is contract grading, so as long as you put in a little bit of effort into assignments, you should totally get an A+. You will do one group project reviewing a movie, an analytical essay for a movie for the midterm, and then a short biotechnology story for the final. In total, the assignments took me a total of like four hours for the entire quarter. This seminar was freaking awesome, and if you can you should take it. Krystal is super nice and accommodating, and you always feel listened too. If there's one takeaway any new first years get from reading this review, it is to take the Film in Biotechnology Seminar!
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - This class was taught by both Dr. Rensel and Dr. Garrison. I enjoyed both Professors and the workload was pretty demanding with the amount of readings fluctuating as every week passed. The midterm was multiple choice and had some free response questions, however, if you keep up with the lectures and slides/learning objectives, it shouldn't be too difficult. I would recommend completing the reading guides before lecture as it eases the material that is covered and even correlates into the learning objectives. We do have a research paper that is due by Week 10 and it's around the 1300-1400 word mark with scholarly articles only. I really enjoyed discussion sections and found the TAs to be extremely helpful (Shoutout Laurence!) You get a freebie absence and discussions don't begin until the second week. The final was strictly multiple choice and due to the ongoing protests in LA, our Professors switched it to an online setting AND even made it open-note! This characterized both Professors to be extremely helpful and accommodating and I couldn't be more appreciative to have taken this class this Spring.
Spring 2025 - This class was taught by both Dr. Rensel and Dr. Garrison. I enjoyed both Professors and the workload was pretty demanding with the amount of readings fluctuating as every week passed. The midterm was multiple choice and had some free response questions, however, if you keep up with the lectures and slides/learning objectives, it shouldn't be too difficult. I would recommend completing the reading guides before lecture as it eases the material that is covered and even correlates into the learning objectives. We do have a research paper that is due by Week 10 and it's around the 1300-1400 word mark with scholarly articles only. I really enjoyed discussion sections and found the TAs to be extremely helpful (Shoutout Laurence!) You get a freebie absence and discussions don't begin until the second week. The final was strictly multiple choice and due to the ongoing protests in LA, our Professors switched it to an online setting AND even made it open-note! This characterized both Professors to be extremely helpful and accommodating and I couldn't be more appreciative to have taken this class this Spring.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - I love professor Rensel. She is extremely accommodating, caring, and very engaged with the class. Her lectures were interesting and everything you need for the test is in the lectures. The readings were a bit annoying as they are long and you need to read them for the weekly quizzes. However, it does solidify the information taught in lecture. Love this class and I will take another class with her.
Spring 2022 - I love professor Rensel. She is extremely accommodating, caring, and very engaged with the class. Her lectures were interesting and everything you need for the test is in the lectures. The readings were a bit annoying as they are long and you need to read them for the weekly quizzes. However, it does solidify the information taught in lecture. Love this class and I will take another class with her.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Professor Rensel once again was an amazing professor. She constructed this class very well and made it very fair. This class is basically just setting up for a large group project that was worth around 50% of the grade. But she broke down the steps in the project to make the actual final group project to be worth only 16% of the grade. The rest of our grade came from annotations on Pearsall and participation. I am not sure if this is normal or if it was just because I took the class online during the COVID-19 lockdown
Fall 2020 - Professor Rensel once again was an amazing professor. She constructed this class very well and made it very fair. This class is basically just setting up for a large group project that was worth around 50% of the grade. But she broke down the steps in the project to make the actual final group project to be worth only 16% of the grade. The rest of our grade came from annotations on Pearsall and participation. I am not sure if this is normal or if it was just because I took the class online during the COVID-19 lockdown
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