<p>have any of you taken this course with Girandola? Please share your experience. I m not a science guy. Any tips? does he focus mostly on lecture or book in preparation for the tests? is he easy? i was told it's extremely easy.</p>
<p>It's easy. If you're not a science person, I wouldn't say it's extremely easy, but it's not by any means super technical. The labs are pretty interesting, although some people think they're time-consuming. You don't need to buy the textbook. Just show up to class, take notes, and get an A.</p>
<p>If you have Silvana for your lab TA, she's a super picky grader. A lot of people complained, but that's just how she is. Just follow all her instructions and you'll do well.</p>
<p>thanks for the response. Girandola writes very sloppy on the black board which makes taking good notes very difficult. Any tips? </p>
<p>Do you by any change have any notes from his class or exams? i'd be willing to pay you for them. i don't want to waste too much time on this class.</p>
<p>Sit closer to the front. :P</p>
<p>My roommate's taking the class now, so I'm giving my notes to him.</p>
<p>i do; he's extremely sloppy. Can i pay you for photocopies?</p>
<p>If you'd like. PM me with the best way to reach you.</p>
<p>hi protokurios. I pm-ed you.</p>
<p>I found this class to be a total pain. The lectures were really early and the labs were annoying and a hassle. Most of the tests seemed to involve rote memorization of facts, so since I took admittedly lousy notes most of the time the questions were by and large Greek to me. The more I went to this class the more I hated it. It wasn't even the subject matter--which was sort of interesting--as much as how it was presented (bring a pillow to class with you). Fortunately, I was in a position where I could take it pass/fail my senior year, so I pretty much blew it off as much as I could.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was glad I took it pass/fail, because I doubt I could have gotten better than a B- in this class, and more likely a C (as it was, I never got less than an A- at USC--don't mean to brag, but just want to illustrate the point).</p>
<p>If there's a class to take pass/fail, I'd say this is it. It's a stupid waste of time. If you don't mind taking meticulous notes of every little thing he says, then committing them all to memory, you'll do fine on the tests. And if you're cool with labs that alternate between mindlessly following directions and grade school PE class activities, you'll do great. I'm not kidding--the first week of lab was a tutorial on how to use Excel to generate charts in the approved format FROM WHICH YOU MUST NOT DEVIATE. Personally, I had better things to do with my time.</p>