I will say that throughout the summer session, Dr. Jarrett tried to be a good professor. She was always willing to help students and made the exams very fair. However, she failed miserably in every other department. It became apparent after the first day that "lecture" consisted of 50 minutes of her reading slides with bullet points that were taken directly from our textbook. In office hours, her explanations only confused me further. Most annoyingly, her organization was horrific. No one had a single grade until the second to last week of classes, and her and the TA told us completely different information about how our weekly worksheets would be graded. Furthermore, we were told of an activity that we had to complete in Week 1 but were not told until the last week of class what it was. The main saving grace of this class was that the exams were a complete joke. They were essentially longer and more convoluted worksheets that we had over three days to complete (three for the midterm, four for the final), and they were all relatively straightforward because the exams were open note. Allowing all students to participate in a four-day scavenger hunt of the entire textbook is not a meaningful exam. In spite of the midterm average being close to 90%, some students still asked for extra credit, which as far as I can tell has not even been factored into our final grades. Why even offer extra credit if you're going to retroactively make it not count?

This class was the perfect disastrous mix of a clueless professorial charlatan and a minority of absurdly entitled pre-meds, and I can say that I walked away from this class feeling thoroughly unprepared for biochemistry topics on the MCAT and in upper division chem courses. If you want to get an easy A in an upper div, take this course with Jarrett. If you want to actually learn the material, find someone else.

Review on her Chem153L course Summer Session A

Let me just say, this class felt as if the innocent friend in the group stabbed me in the back. Seeing the syllabus and meeting the class expectations I was not worried about this class at all. Her lectures were pre-recorded (she didn't attend the one lecture that was supposed to be in person) and they usually tended to be 5-20 minutes long (she just read off the slides verbatim). I knew that as long as I put enough effort into the course, I would be able to come out with an A.

This was the case for all of the homework, lab reports, etc. However, then came the midterm and final. At first glance the midterm/final seemed extremely easy and doable. Nevertheless, my grade did not reflect this view when I got points removed from a rubric that the professor seems to have taken out of thin air. Her questions were very simple. The professor was not looking for simple answers. You think you got the answer right? Probably. However, your correct answer will only give you 1 point and you'll get docked off 14 other points from not answering the question "fully". She wants you to add even more detail than what she has taught you (which is difficult as a non-biochem major). I don't know where she got her answers but it sure was not what the question was asking for and it sure was not what we were taught. She hates negative feedback so she'll just end up ignoring your emails (this includes the TA) and nothing will change. You think a regrade will help you? Well, you're wrong cause all the TAs are told to go off the rubric and if your words don't match exactly what the rubric says then you don't get even .5 points back.

If you take my grades from the lab reports, group project, homework, etc., I finished the class off with an A+. If you include my midterm grade and my final grade I get dropped to a B-.

I should've dropped this course when I had a chance. Also, hope you don't get stuck with a crappy TA who doesn't respond to feedback or e-mail you back on ANYTHING *cough cough* Noelle.

This is a review for Chem 153L. The class is so messed up. The instructor didn’t put into efforts in teaching.

do not take this course with Jarrett if you want to retain a single fact about foundational biochem, regardless of your reason.

Overall, Dr. Jarrett is very sweet and accommodating, but may not be the best lecturer. If you *need* to learn the material well for this class (i.e. if you're a Chem major or something of the sort that requires you to use this foundational knowledge), and don't want to rely on solely self-studying, I would say consider taking this class with another professor. On the other hand, if you're not super interested in Biochemistry and want a manageable workload/exams, take Jarrett!

Her exams are very content-based and taken primarily from her slides, so make sure to take notes on them.

The material can be difficult to memorize since it is very dense. However, the professor really tries her best to explain everything in easier terms. I took the class online so I really benefited from the recorded lectures since I was able to re-watch them until I understood the topic throughly. The grading was based only on three exams. There were no homework assignments but there were supplemental exercises if you need to work through more problems for practice. She offers extra credit which helps take some of the weight off exams grades. The exams are not necessarily cumulative but sometimes topics overlap. She also gives you practice tests that are very similar to problems on the actual exam. We met 4 times a week, the first day we briefly discussed the topics that would be covered over the week and the last day we reviewed those topics and did practice problems together. Overall, she really does hope the best for her students and is very passionate about teaching. You will be very lucky if you have her for this course as the other professors (from what I've heard) are not as great.

Preface: this class was completely online for me. I think the subject of biochemistry is hard to begin with, and it is not my favorite subject, so take that into account. Dr. Jarrett definitely knew her stuff inside and out, but the way she presented it sometimes was very dry and very quick. I was often so focused on writing everything down that I didn't actually know what I was writing down, so maybe do not do that. Her tests were very fair considering the difficulty and density of the material, and she gave plenty of extra credit. She also used zoom polls for more extra credit. I did not find the books useful, and discussion did not justify the time going. All that being said, I would take this class with her, but maybe harder tests would prepare you better for the MCAT with another professor.

This class with Jarrett is terrible. Easy, but terrible. For starters, she is an awful lecturer. She goes through her lecture slides in an extremely robotic manner that has no rhyme or reason. She rarely explains things on her slides, it's kinda like she has a script she just goes through. One particular thing that drove me crazy was her use of the same 3 phrases about 40 times in a 50 minute lecture. It really just shows that she doesn't really know what she's doing when it comes to lecturing. Honestly, the only way I managed to get good grades on the exams was by attending the remote lecture, then rewatching the recorded lecture the same day and taking notes on what she says WORD FOR WORD. But if the exams weren't open note I wouldn't have done nearly so well. That being said, she does supply a lot of EC so you could get by with B's on all the exams and still get an A. It's an easy class, but it's frustrating. Maybe try another professor if you're an actual biochem major.

Class was ridiculously easy but I still feel like I didn't learn anything useful.

If you can take this class with a different professor, I would urge you to do so. While its definitely not the worse class I've ever taken, there is most certainly a lot of room for improvement.
Her lectures are often short, and she mainly reads off of the slides. The notes that she does jot down are typically illegible, so make sure you are listening closely to catch her saying what she is writing. You will want to write down pretty much any extra info she says. The weekly worksheets are sometimes helpful for preparing for her exams, however, the lecture slides and your notes are definitely what you want to be studying.
Her exams are hard. Start studying a week in advance so it does not snowball because there is so much content to know. The way she words the questions on her exams is often confusing, so read carefully and take advantage of her question asking time that she gives on exam day.
She also does not respond to emails, so if you need to ask a question about grades or content, go to office hours.