[BMEN E4001] Quantitative Physiology I

Kam seems like a nice guy though his teaching style leaves much to be desired. His online lecture notes are great but lectures at times feel like a waste, especially at 9am. Kam doesnt do a very good job of distilling the material and most lectures just degenerate into him writing equation after equation on the board. He gave 5 problem sets during the whole semester which were spaced out pretty well and he is quite flexible with deadlines but when one is set he is very hard on those who hand things in late. Problem sets are quite hard to figure out on your own but he and the TAs are always very accessible. The midterm and final are open book but you will still be faced with time constraints and understanding the material will be key no matter what. Overall, Kam is a decent teacher though he can be a boring lecturer at times. Be selective with the classes you go to, not all of them are worth waking up early for (especially ones where he is going over problem sets or a midterm)

Lance Kam is awesome.

Give him a chance to warm up, and he'll tell you about watching Yu-gi-oh with his nephews.

I agree with the previous review. Professor Kam started off shaky, but I felt that as the semester progressed, he started to gain confidence and became better. Also, this class has very difficult material in it, and it's a hard thing to teach, especially if it's your first year teaching. I thought the organization was pretty good but the lack of examples made the material harder to follow. The workload itself wasn't that bad, and the midterm and final were open notes, open book. He was always available, and the TA office hours helped a lot, especially before homeworks were due. He'll probably be better next year when he has more confidence in himself.

This year was Prof. Kam's first time teaching this class... and to be honest, it was BAD. The lectures are disorganized, his handwriting is awful, and he's not a good lecturer. Of course, it doesn't help that the class is at 9am. There were many times when we got emails after class where he corrected mistakes that he had made in the lecture. However, there are notes online (although these aren't usually too comprehensible), and the homework usually isn't THAT awful- although it helps a lot if you or a friend goes to office hours. The tests are all open-book open-note, which helps a lot, since you don't learn too much in class.
Anyhow, I have to give Prof. Kam some credit- he's a nice guy and it's his first time teaching. His teaching definitely improved over the semester, and maybe next year it won't be as bad.

Costa is a very nice guy and does a pretty good job of explaining some complicated material. He is incredibly approachable and makes extra time for office hours. The class is difficult and the book while good is not enough. The HW and tests are taught directly from the notes so make sure to get good notes and understand the material. Cannot stress enough the importance of doing the homework promptly so that you can ask him questions during office hours.

This course started out nightmarish, but eventually became rather interesting. This was not necessarily due to any fault of Prof. Costa, but just due to the nature of the first few chapters of the course; any professor would probably have difficulty making complex algebraic equation manipulations fun. By the middle of the semester, though, the material was of a more tangible sort, so was more interesting. Prof. Costa presented this latter material generally well - I didn't catch any awkwardness in his board manner (passable penmanship) or sense any resentment for having to teach this intro course. The course follows the textbook (which is copied and distributed in handouts), generally, with some deparatures. It's not a great book, but the later material is not too abtruse, so it's usable. Prof. Costa was generally punctual and organized during my semester, so I suppose that he improved since his first time around. The best characteristic about Prof. Costa, though, is his approachability; I felt very comfortable asking him questions about the material or the course. He offered two office hours each week, and had the TAs show up for three more each week, for a total of 5.

Prof. Costa never seem enthused about teaching this class. This was the first time he was teaching this course after it had been taught by Prof. Clark Hung in previous years. One TA said to the class in recitation that Prof. Costa wasn't happy about receiving this teaching assignment (apparently Prof. Hung's seniority allowed him to teach a different course). Prof. Costa's research specialty is biomechanics so you'd think he stick to teaching those courses. The textbook was a poor choice, published by Springer which is notorious for dense texts not often used as course texts, but often found in college libraries (optional for the course not required); perhaps informative, but not well suited for the course. Prof. Costa doesn't have a good teaching style; he talks into the board, turns his back to the class, and his writing is like fine print. Later in the term, he was often 5 or 10 min. late (910am class) and did not have enough material for the standard lecture time. This course was disorganized enough that we didn't cover a large part of the latter portion of the syllabus. Still, it's shocking that he earned higher ratings in the SEAS Oracle for teaching this course than he's earned for his other courses.