Students noted that the professors were good lecturers and the topics were interesting. However, there are two professors and students said that their lectures sometimes were not connected and the course felt a bit scattered. Many students found homework to be difficult, especially MATLAB-based assignments. Suggestions for improvement included making the two professors lectures more integrated and having TAs who were more familiar with MATLAB. Students should be prepared to do a lot of work for this course and they should have some experience with MATLAB.

The best aspects of the course included the wide breadth of topics covered over the semester. Students found the information interesting, and they thought that they improved their MATLAB skills because of this course. Students found that studying for the exams was mostly a matter of memorization, and believed that memorizing details like long equations that could easily be looked up in the workplace was unnecessary. Students found that the workload in general was too much, especially towards the end of the semester, and suggested reworking the schedule to spread out due dates. Students also wanted the course materials, or at least the exams, to be simplified to focus on big ideas and allow for cheat sheets instead of memorizing everything. Students also wanted the lectures to relate to one another, either through themes, skil s, or materials. Prospective students should be prepared for a heavy workload with a lot of memorization. Students need to know MATLAB and basic biology.

Students enjoyed the way this course covered a wide variety of intriguing topics. Many students believed the biggest shortcoming of the course was a heavy emphasis on assignments using MATLAB and they thought the course could be improved by including fewer homework exercises of this type. They also thought homework could be more balanced between the units taught by each instructor. Students felt it would be useful for prospective participants to know that previous knowledge of MATLAB and cel biology would be useful for this class.