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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Genetics and Evolution by Duke University

4.8
stars
1,532 ratings

About the Course

Introduction to Genetics and Evolution is a college-level class being offered simultaneously to new students at Duke University. The course gives interested people a very basic overview of some principles behind these very fundamental areas of biology. We often hear about new "genome sequences," commercial kits that can tell you about your ancestry (including pre-human) from your DNA or disease predispositions, debates about the truth of evolution, why animals behave the way they do, and how people found "genetic evidence for natural selection." This course provides the basic biology you need to understand all of these issues better, tries to clarify some misconceptions, and tries to prepare students for future, more advanced coursework in Biology (and especially evolutionary genetics). No prior coursework is assumed....

Top reviews

AT

May 28, 2020

I recommend this course for someone who is interested in learning of basics of population genetics and evolutionary processes. Prof. Noor is a very good teacher and I like his explanation of concepts.

YH

Jul 3, 2017

The course is really interesting! I love the way the professor demonstrate genetics theories by countless examples and evidence. And those questions about debates in genetics are thought-provoking!

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26 - 50 of 404 Reviews for Introduction to Genetics and Evolution

By hamza b

Oct 10, 2019

this is a great course about evolution , thanks for Dr.Noor

By Styliani P

Feb 18, 2021

This course was so interesting, useful and funny. It is by far the favorite course that I have enrolled in coursera. Dr.Noor is an excellent speaker. He has passion and loves what he is doing, making me love his lessons and trying my best to succeed in this course. I found the course difficult, even though I am a biologist. I say difficult, but in fact this is a compliment, because I learned so many new thing and I am happy about it. I wish that every professor in the world had this passion that Dr. Noor has. Thank you for these past "genetic weeks". It was a pleasure being a part of this course's community!

By Sanskar G

Jun 28, 2020

“Introduction to Genetics and Evolution” offered by Duke University is a mandatory course for anyone who wants to have a deep understanding in the fields of Genetics and Evolution from the introductory level, all the way to the advanced. I learnt many new things from this informative course and I recommend this to anyone who wants to have a thorough understanding in the above mentioned fields. I am glad that I utilised my time of lockdown fruitfully with the help of this amazing course. THANK YOU DUKE UNIVERSITY AND COURSERA.

By Jonathan N

Aug 9, 2017

An excellent course suitable for students, novices and amateur experts alike. Prof. Noor gives a comprehensive introduction to the topic and his enthusiasm is infectious. As well as making the technical genetic material much easier to understand than it might otherwise be, he does a great job of explaining clearly and convincingly (in Jerry Coyne's phrase) 'Why Evolution is True'. Plus he seems like a really nice guy, which always helps! Highly recommended for anyone with the slightest interest in genetics and evolution.

By MARCELA B M

Aug 3, 2020

Excellent program. Thanks professor Noor; maybe you could speak a little bit slower... Also, maybe it would be a good idea to include more conceptual exercises, in addition to the "proof" one included? In the quizes, sometimes it is the first time the student is challenged with putting concepts together and driving conclusions; and it is not necessarily that easy, eventhough the student might have watched the videos several times and eventhough the student has read all the additional material...

By Laura M M

Mar 13, 2021

I am very glad I took this course. It is much well explained. It is quiet easy to follow, but you also have to focus and really follow it to pass the tests. At the end of it, you will have a better knowladge of bothe genetics and evolution. The videos also contain invideo questions, to make sure you are understanding, and it also contains examples to make it easier to learn. I really recomend it.

By João G S C

Nov 30, 2020

Awesome! I am a Psychology undergraduate in Brazil and I participate in a research team in Evolutionary Psychology, this course has helped me with many insights for the studies that we are conducting and has helped me to better understand the principles from which Evolutionary Theory operates. Thank you Coursera and thank you Prof. Noor, hope we might work together one day!

By Kim W

Dec 27, 2020

This course was amazing. More difficult and complex than I had anticipated, but extremely well paced with content sectioned off in a very appropriate way. Professor Noor was fabulous—knows the information well and injects humor into the course just when a little lightening is needed.

Thank you to everyone who worked on this course—I thoroughly enjoyed it.

By Isabella D e S

Sep 7, 2020

I made this course when i still was in my class of evolution on college, thanks to my evolution teacher and that was the best recommendation! I'm very grateful to professor Mohammed who teach the course, he made the most difficult things become the most fascinate ones and show me more approaches for evolution.

Thank you so much professor!

By Ruchi B

Sep 3, 2020

This is one of the best courses on Coursera. Thank you Dr Noor for teaching the subject so well. I would highly recommend this course to everyone who is interested in evolution. I had one of the most exciting experience learning introduction to genetics and evolution. Thank you Coursera.

By Don C

Dec 5, 2020

Prof. Noor is an engaging lecturer and has structured an informative introductory course. The homework is relevant and worthwhile. The weekly quizzes are sometimes challenging but usually stimulating. I recommend this course to anyone interested in the basics of genetics.

By Owais A K

Mar 17, 2021

It was a great learning experiene with Prof. Mohammad Noor through this course. Everything related to Genetics and Evolution was very well explained through this course especially, relating and calculating things by the real data and examples.

By Michael H

Sep 21, 2020

A wide-ranging introduction that will make you want to read and learn more. The assessments are doable but challenging. The instructor is a widely-published expert in the field and a delight.

By Geraldine N

Jan 24, 2023

The course is a lot more time consuming than I expected. If you're considering to take this up, make sure you're not on a tight schedule to completing it.

Course content is pretty interesting as the Prof does a great job in explaining the concepts clearly and using real-life case studies for you to see why the concepts are the way they are. However,

Quizzes are extremely difficult to pass. Questions are mostly application types or scenario-based so you need to have a very strong grasp and deep understanding of the lecture material. There were barely any "straightforward" questions. If you fail the quiz, you have to wait 8h to access it again and that really slows down your course progress significantly. The next time you re-do the quiz, you may be getting a different set of questions as well. Most of the time, I have to take 2 - 3 tries to pass the quizzes.

There's a lot of Math involved in the course so FYI for those who don't like to deal with equations. 60-70% of the content is geared towards genetics topics.

By BEGIN

Feb 1, 2016

The content of the class is very nice. It gives a nice overview on genetics, and it was made accessible to many of us. Also, Mohamed Noor is very enthusiastic, and provides a lot of nice examples to illustrate the course. However, I think some parts of the class were a little bit dizorganized. For instance, I was sometimes confused by the vocabulary or the variable notations which are not always clear.

By Matthew G

Mar 29, 2023

The biggest reason for a low rating is that I feel the title of this course is extremely misleading. This is not introductory level. I honestly thought that I had a decent understanding of basic genetics and was easily able to get through the first week's materials, however, after the first week I cannot believe how much the difficulty increased. The lecture videos are very dry making them hard to follow and stay engaged throughout and the quiz questions are based off of the lectures, which is good, however, if there is one small piece of a topic that you do not understand you will not be able to get through the quiz. They are unnecessarily difficult and are all set to only let you take them once every 8 hours which can be a MAJOR setback if you get really stuck. Also,when you retake quizzes the questions/answers may change. Maybe I am rambling, but I am very irritated having thought that I was going into a true introductory level course, when clearly am not. I wanted to learn a little bit more about basic level genetics NOT become a geneticist.

By Dawn R

Jul 30, 2020

You have to be a mathematician major to understand anything passed the second week. I dropped. This super fast talking guy seems to enjoy hearing himself talk. Maybe I am simple minded, but this course made me proud of that. His passion gets in the way of his ability to actually teach.

The only thing I learned is that if you have to retake his exams, the actual answers change meanings.

Also, according to his lessons, I am green colorblind. That is ridiculous. Emerald is my favorite gemstone.

Also, just because a woman is attractive according to him, doesn't mean that she is the only type of woman worthy of a husband. I think he talks before he thinks.

By Elizabeth J

Aug 17, 2021

cannot purchase certificate after completing the full course

By Nur A A P

Jul 6, 2020

Contents lack in-depth compared to assessment.

By Pegah

Jan 4, 2022

I am with computer science background and this course was the start of my journey to shift into bioinformatics. I wanted to compensate the gap in my biology knowledge through this course and I was NOT disappointed. This course was really engaging, easy to follow, and fun! I really liked Dr. Noor's teaching. It felt like we were in a real classroom :) I found the course overall easy, but it had its own challenging parts too. I always squeezed my studying time in between my work schedule, so many of the mistakes I made during the exams were avoidable if I had taken more time before submitting them. So I think a full mark on the course is doable for a vigilant student, and if you are in a rush like me, you can at least pass them, albeit not with perfect score :)

By ROBERTO C L

May 19, 2022

This course gave me the opportunity to deppen into very interesting topics in genetics. I congratulate Dr Noor for being an excellent teacher; charismatic and with an extensive knowledge on the subject. The program extension allows you to get involved into the surrounding discussions of biological evolution from the genetic point of view, with fascinating and informative case studies. The difficulty of the exams and questionnaires lies in the need to use critical thinking, more than only the acquisition of knowledge. An excellent university-level course that undoubtedly contributed a lot to my training as a biologist. Thank you for the opportunity!

By Abrar H

Apr 1, 2023

The course was well-organized and structured, making it easy to follow along and stay on track. The instructor was engaging and knowledgeable, providing insightful explanations and examples throughout the course.

One thing that I particularly appreciated about the course was the interactive nature of the online platform. There were plenty of opportunities for me to engage with the course material and participate in discussions with other students. Additionally, the platform included a variety of multimedia resources such as videos, quizzes, and simulations, which helped to reinforce key concepts and keep the course interesting and engaging.

By Kurt J K

May 23, 2023

This has been a really good course to study and I can thoroughly recommend it.  I wanted to study genetics and evolution as, whilst I had an interest in these areas, I wanted to gain a more formal understanding of the concepts involved and be more scientifically literate about them.  This course certainly helped me a great deal with these aims and I am proud of having learned so much.  The course is challenging at times, but the course materials are really good, including the  additional reading materials, for which links are provided.  It was an enjoyable course to study, and tutor, Professor Noor, is an excellent teacher.  

By Bahar P

Feb 20, 2022

It is introductory level but the way of story telling makes it possible to see the whole relation between genetics and evolution. Anyone who has a basic biology knowledge can learn a lot about genetics and evolution to better understand the biodiversity, human genetics, diseases etc. A person who is advanced evolutionary biologist like me can learn about the best way of teaching the relation between genetics and evolution at the introductory level. Prof. Noor is a great scientist that I knew but now I also saw that he is a great lecturer.

By Ivan H A

Oct 25, 2020

I really enjoy the experience, Dr Noor is well known authority on genetics and evolutionary processes and have a course with him is a privilege. Also is an amazing theacher, really walk me from the basic topics to principles and aplications in a easy and interesting way. I'm more than satisfy with the course. I'm very glad to find the course on internet and willing to get more. I'm interesting in aplications for species diversity and conservation and I will love to have a more advance course on population genetics. Thanks a lot.