Professor

Nadia Sellami

AD
4.2
Overall Ratings
Based on 4 Users
Easiness 2.5 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 1.8 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 4.5 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 4.2 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (4)

1 of 1
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March 31, 2016
Quarter: Winter 2016
Grade: N/A

Nadia is a great professor, she is engaging during lecture and makes sure that her students have many helpful resources (TAs, office hours, LAs, online discussion, etc). Make sure to go to lecture because the participation points are worth just as much as a midterm. Find a study partner and you'll do great!

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June 8, 2016
Quarter: Spring 2016
Grade: N/A

Professor Sellami is nice and engages class discussion often. The class as a whole is manageable. There are many points given for non test ( participation, quizes, launchapad) and these are needed to do well. The tests go from easiest (mt1) to a tough final. Overall would recommended!

Helpful?

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June 19, 2016
Quarter: Spring 2016
Grade: A-

Dr. Sellami co-taught this with Dr. Campbell, and they each taught half of the course. I believe she handled all of the logistics and grading, though, so the only part of this review that applies to Dr. Campbell is the "Lectures" section.

As People
I didn't go to their office hours, but they seemed nice. A lot of communication occurred through the Piazza discussion forums, and that was a great resource through which the students, TAs, and LAs (undergraduate assistants) collaborated to get questions answered. The professors didn't answer as many questions as they could have, but they provided input on our most pressing questions.

Materials
Launchpad: $120 if you buy from the company
*Don't buy/rent the textbook. You'll have readings, but you won't be studying from them. If you do want it, rent it from Amazon for $20.*

Grading
Midterm 1 100
Midterm 2 100
Final 200
Discussion 100
Clickers 78
Reading 100
Launchpad 100
Straight scale (90=A, 80=B, 70=C). No curve, but "I rounded generously (so more than mathematically correct...) in students' favors as much as I can justify[.] generally, if you were less than half a percent off from the better grade, you got the better grade[.]"

Lectures
She made lectures mandatory through clicker questions. You got 1.5 points just for inputting answers, and another 1.5 for getting three right (0.5 each). There were usually a lot of questions, which served as useful checkpoints. That being said, she was good at engaging us and speaking clearly. Dr. Campbell, not so much. He was your stereotypical professor who had little charisma. I tried giving him my full attention, but his voice was just too soft and disengaging. They both used PowerPoint uploaded onto CCLE, so a laptop was helpful.

Discussion
Instead of having a TA drone at you for 75 minutes, we did worksheets in groups, which allowed us to stay engaged and work at our own pace, making the material easier to digest.

Homework
Launchpad was a pain. A typical weekly assignment consisted of textbook pages and a quiz, videos and a quiz, and a simulation. They typically took a couple of hours per week, and were always due on the first day of class for the week. Even if there was a midterm on Monday, it would still be due then. I'll admit that the simulations made some concepts clearer to me.

Exams
50 MC for the midterms, 100 MC for the final. Although there were a fair amount of memorization questions, the others were tricky because she focused on applying the experiments that we learned about. For example, we all know that DNA is the genetic material rather than protein. In class, we'd learn about the experiment that led to that conclusion. On the exam, she would describe an experiment like that one, but change the results so that they would suggest that protein was the genetic material instead. That would be the correct answer. So, you cannot rely on just pure memorization. The medians are listed below.
Midterm 1: 82
Midterm 2: 84
Final: 152 (76%)

Tips
- Don't read the textbook thoroughly. It won't help for the exams. Just do enough to ace the reading quizzes.
- Only study from lecture and discussion. The discussion worksheets always have questions that will appear in another form on her exams.
- Sometimes you'll overthink a question, but most of the time you won't be. The wording is very important.

tl;dr I recommend Dr. Sellami for her refreshing teaching style and assignments. When most professors make your grade only the exams, it's a relief to have half of your grade come from cushion points. I got an A- as a 3.0 student, so I think the class was fair.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
June 15, 2016
Quarter: Spring 2016
Grade: B+

Sellami is the shit. I'm biased because she gave me a B+ when it should have been at B but nonetheless, she's is an amazing teacher who truly cares about her students. She's funny and she's just an awesome teacher.
She makes you buy Launchpad which sucks because it's useless but hey, it's easy points. Find a study group and trade off questions, and answers and you should get a good grade on them no problem.
Tests are difficult. She doesn't quiz you on your knowledge but more on application of knowledge. She's rarely often asks you defintion based questions and mostly attempts to trick you on exams. This is true of all LS professors including her. I don't really know how to study for the exams or the style of thinking because she doesn't teach to that and the exams are what really stopped me from getting an A. I just memorized everything. Every lecture and every detail.
Please do not spend any time learning launchpad shit. Please just don't. It's not going to be on the test but definitely learn everything you can about the clicker questions and discussions!
Oh by the way, there's no curve so don't fuck up !

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
LIFESCI 3
Quarter: Winter 2016
Grade: N/A
March 31, 2016

Nadia is a great professor, she is engaging during lecture and makes sure that her students have many helpful resources (TAs, office hours, LAs, online discussion, etc). Make sure to go to lecture because the participation points are worth just as much as a midterm. Find a study partner and you'll do great!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
LIFESCI 3
Quarter: Spring 2016
Grade: N/A
June 8, 2016

Professor Sellami is nice and engages class discussion often. The class as a whole is manageable. There are many points given for non test ( participation, quizes, launchapad) and these are needed to do well. The tests go from easiest (mt1) to a tough final. Overall would recommended!

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
LIFESCI 3
Quarter: Spring 2016
Grade: A-
June 19, 2016

Dr. Sellami co-taught this with Dr. Campbell, and they each taught half of the course. I believe she handled all of the logistics and grading, though, so the only part of this review that applies to Dr. Campbell is the "Lectures" section.

As People
I didn't go to their office hours, but they seemed nice. A lot of communication occurred through the Piazza discussion forums, and that was a great resource through which the students, TAs, and LAs (undergraduate assistants) collaborated to get questions answered. The professors didn't answer as many questions as they could have, but they provided input on our most pressing questions.

Materials
Launchpad: $120 if you buy from the company
*Don't buy/rent the textbook. You'll have readings, but you won't be studying from them. If you do want it, rent it from Amazon for $20.*

Grading
Midterm 1 100
Midterm 2 100
Final 200
Discussion 100
Clickers 78
Reading 100
Launchpad 100
Straight scale (90=A, 80=B, 70=C). No curve, but "I rounded generously (so more than mathematically correct...) in students' favors as much as I can justify[.] generally, if you were less than half a percent off from the better grade, you got the better grade[.]"

Lectures
She made lectures mandatory through clicker questions. You got 1.5 points just for inputting answers, and another 1.5 for getting three right (0.5 each). There were usually a lot of questions, which served as useful checkpoints. That being said, she was good at engaging us and speaking clearly. Dr. Campbell, not so much. He was your stereotypical professor who had little charisma. I tried giving him my full attention, but his voice was just too soft and disengaging. They both used PowerPoint uploaded onto CCLE, so a laptop was helpful.

Discussion
Instead of having a TA drone at you for 75 minutes, we did worksheets in groups, which allowed us to stay engaged and work at our own pace, making the material easier to digest.

Homework
Launchpad was a pain. A typical weekly assignment consisted of textbook pages and a quiz, videos and a quiz, and a simulation. They typically took a couple of hours per week, and were always due on the first day of class for the week. Even if there was a midterm on Monday, it would still be due then. I'll admit that the simulations made some concepts clearer to me.

Exams
50 MC for the midterms, 100 MC for the final. Although there were a fair amount of memorization questions, the others were tricky because she focused on applying the experiments that we learned about. For example, we all know that DNA is the genetic material rather than protein. In class, we'd learn about the experiment that led to that conclusion. On the exam, she would describe an experiment like that one, but change the results so that they would suggest that protein was the genetic material instead. That would be the correct answer. So, you cannot rely on just pure memorization. The medians are listed below.
Midterm 1: 82
Midterm 2: 84
Final: 152 (76%)

Tips
- Don't read the textbook thoroughly. It won't help for the exams. Just do enough to ace the reading quizzes.
- Only study from lecture and discussion. The discussion worksheets always have questions that will appear in another form on her exams.
- Sometimes you'll overthink a question, but most of the time you won't be. The wording is very important.

tl;dr I recommend Dr. Sellami for her refreshing teaching style and assignments. When most professors make your grade only the exams, it's a relief to have half of your grade come from cushion points. I got an A- as a 3.0 student, so I think the class was fair.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
LIFESCI 3
Quarter: Spring 2016
Grade: B+
June 15, 2016

Sellami is the shit. I'm biased because she gave me a B+ when it should have been at B but nonetheless, she's is an amazing teacher who truly cares about her students. She's funny and she's just an awesome teacher.
She makes you buy Launchpad which sucks because it's useless but hey, it's easy points. Find a study group and trade off questions, and answers and you should get a good grade on them no problem.
Tests are difficult. She doesn't quiz you on your knowledge but more on application of knowledge. She's rarely often asks you defintion based questions and mostly attempts to trick you on exams. This is true of all LS professors including her. I don't really know how to study for the exams or the style of thinking because she doesn't teach to that and the exams are what really stopped me from getting an A. I just memorized everything. Every lecture and every detail.
Please do not spend any time learning launchpad shit. Please just don't. It's not going to be on the test but definitely learn everything you can about the clicker questions and discussions!
Oh by the way, there's no curve so don't fuck up !

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
1 of 1
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