So I had Samonina for both Orgo 1 and 2, and I honestly really liked her. I think we often forget that Orgo in general is just super difficult, and it requires a lot of self-learning and a lot of time, regardless of the professor. I enjoyed Samonina because for both semesters, the first thing she told us was "If I can get all of you to get A's, then that's what I want" which made me feel so much better because for once, I didn't have a professor wanting to make us fail. Plus, she provides extra credit, it's tedious but if you actually do it and try, then it really really helps your grade out. You can basically get up to 110% in the class and I think that takes a lot of stress off of you when it comes to exams (she does not give any curves or extra credit on exams so that's something to keep in mind).

One thing I did NOT like about her, was that she spent a lot of time explaining certain concepts, and then rushed through others, and often times, the rushed concepts would have a decent-sized role on the exam. But again, self learning is very important. She also gives you a test requirement sheet, so that's very nice, even when it has everything on there. Most things aren't a surprise.

This class was really pretty terrible. It seems that Prof. Samonina really cares about her students but she is not a very effective teacher and slightly unapproachable. During lecture she would explain easy topics very in-depth, then skip over the more difficult concepts which would appear on the tests. I found the textbook to be more effective than attending lecture. There were TAs that would sit in during lecture and answer questions that students had, this was probably the only helpful thing Samonina provided the students. Samonina also had attendance-based discussions throughout the semester with grades based on participation, however, she ended up making one discussion section graded without telling the students and weighted this more heavily than any other discussion. Felt blindsided not gonna lie, especially because this was revealed during the last week of classes and with no prior explanation. Would not recommend this class to my worst enemy.