Reviews of professor Neal Lin

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
you only have 4 exams, 2 lab exams, and a final. your lowest exam gets dropped too. i literally failed every test i took (my highest grade was a 41 not bc of the teaching just bc i dont want to learn it) and i still had a B+ in the class. theres a good bit of classwork everyweek, but its all completion grades. as long as you do the work, youll pass

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Lin is a great professor. He wants his students to succeed, so he will help if you are struggling. He has a lot of extra credit opportunities. Most assignments are completion based, so do the work, and you should have a decent grade. The tests are very difficult and the questions are challenging. He teaches using lectures/ group activities.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 1.0/5
Almost all assignments are completion based, making up about 60% of your grade, with certain accuracy-based lab assignments making up 10%, and 6 exams + a final for 30%. If you don't at least have a background in biology or chemistry, or if you're just not interested in biology, this class can be pretty tough. Honestly, I really enjoyed his class.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
After reading most of the past reviews, it's a shame to see he was having the same issues 5 years ago he is now. He is a very affable guy, but not an outstanding teacher. His classes subsist on lectures going into a very specific set of ideas, leaving the rest of the learning to you and your textbook. Exams average at around 65% failing grade.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Dr. Lin's in person lectures operate at a snails pace, taking 30 minutes to cover concepts that can be learnt in 5. Students are forced to use the textbook/online resources in order to succeed. Dr. Lin is otherwise a great professor but he should better utilize his instructional time if he wants more students to do well in his class.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
He's okay. The class itself wasn't too hard. His schedule was unorganized and assignments were not taken off that should've been and the due dates were messed up. There's honestly nothing as stressful as that. He literally wont email you back for a long time so if you foresee having an urgent issue, I would go with someone else.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Lin is my favorite! He wants you to succeed and actually understand the material, not just memorize it- so not an easy A. He does assign a lot of homework, but if you do ALL of it and manage it right, it's not that bad. He gives lots of extra credit and explanations, you just have to ask him. He really cares about his students :)

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
I'm not aware of the other Biol 1107K professors, but Dr. Lin's makes this "intro" bio class discouraging. There are 4 tests, 1 final (application based). The average is always around a 65% despite having extra credit. There is a weekly lab quiz, lecture quiz, lecture assignment, lab assignment, a discussion post (basically busy work and no use).