Professor: Rand Course format: Seminar Number of respondents: 11 Total Enrollment: 22 Class Composition: Froshs: 1 Sophs: 5 Jrs: 7 Srs: 9 Concs: 8 Non-Concs: 1 Don't Know: 2

Instructor Average: 1.42 Course Average: 1.35

'Evolutionary Genetics' aims to provide its students with an understanding of the basic principles and theories governing evolutionary genetics and a knowledge of the various study techniques used in this field. The stated prerequisites for this class were BI 47 and 48, but many students felt that a good background in statistics, biochemistry or molecular biology would have been helpful.

Professor Rand was universally loved. He had an excellent command of the material, and he was a fantastic lecturer. He used a conversational style of lecturing that broke complex concepts down into understandable components. However, some students were intimidated by his Socratic method of teaching, because he often put students on the spot with questions. Professor Rand was very open to students' questions and he encouraged student participation in class.

As one student put it, 'This is not a class to be taken lightly.' The course load consisted of 30 challenging pages of primary literature per lecture, weekly labs, homework sets, many pop quizzes, and a final grant proposal. Most students stated that they put enormous amounts of work into the class ‹ approximately 8-10 hours of work per week ‹ either because they were very interested in the subject or because they felt that the threat of embarrassment during discussion was very motivating. Reading period was observed.

Despite the challenging workload, students were very glad to have taken this course because they learned a lot about evolutionary genetics and how to go about investigating it. They were also stimulated by the abundance of inquisitive, highly intelligent students in the class. BI 141 is a great course, but be prepared to work and THINK!

View BI/0141 in the Brown Online Course Announcement.