Grisham is a great professor. The class is hard and requires a lot of work, but he gives you a fair warning from day one. There is a lot of memorization but that comes with the territory. Biochemistry is all about memorizing structures. I say all the complaints before and I agree with most, but after all this is a 400 level course. It is easy to dislike Grisham while taking the course, but after seeing other professors in 400 level courses, I have grown to appreciate him as a great professor.

Grisham says that if he wants us to memorize he will give us an entire phone book instead of a textbook. In reality, we basically had to memorize the entire book. Grisham is a great guy but a questionable professor. He is very knowledgeable about his subject and you can sense his passion but memorizing every paragraph of the textbook is just not efficient nor useful. Also, reading off of the slides during class does not count as a lecture. Know the names of the scientists he mentions in class, bizarre chemistry, bacteriorhodopsin, how to make light beer and how to draw a perfect diagram of a top-view of an alpha helix (in 2 minutes or less). Does not give nearly enough time for exams yet he expects you to be perfect. Biochemistry is an interesting but tough subject and Grisham succeeded in making it tougher than it really is and less interesting than it should be.

Despite what Professor Grisham says at the beginning of the class, this class is mostly memorization, but he tells you exactly what you need to know so you just need to spend the time to do it. I found it was best to read the book before class so you had a general idea of the material and then when he goes over the exact same information it makes a lot more sense.

Possibly the toughest class I have taken at UVA. You are responsible for pretty much every fact, figure, and table in the first 16 chapters of the book. Emphasizes memorization of irrelevant details such as names of scientists, length and timescale of bonds and bond vibrations. You will need to memorize probably 50+ structures. FINAL IS CUMULATIVE and ridiculous. 38 kids got some sort of A, 89 got some sort of B out of 140 kids. Grades are determined by rank and this class is full of the most intense premeds. Have fun!

Basically what the other people have said. Book material = slides = what he tells you in class. Exams are wicked detail oriented on stuff that may/may not have any bearing on how much you actually "learned." And finally, if you're taking this class, it's probably because you're a biochem major and have to. He does tell you some of the specific things you'll have to know for the exams in class, so that helps, but avoid this class unless you're biochem.

Oh, where to begin. The relevance of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the production of light beer, and knowing how to free hand 18 residues worth of a helical wheel is questionable. Dr. Grisham always says that he wants this to be "the best class at UVA." Ha. If this were actually true, I wouldn't have spent time on my final singing the ABCs, trying to track down the amino acids that have two chiral centers. Instead, I might have been thinking about how specific residues bind to specific types of substrates. But this would have made sense. The redemptive factor is that you are forced to plow through the stuff once, which will make medical school that much easier, assuming this class doesn't completely turn you off.

"If you're studying any less than 10 hours/week, you should expect a C or lower." -Grisham
I'd say, that's an understatement.

This class was not fun. Grisham served up random memorization questions, and never really tested fundamentals of what you're learning. The bulk of the class is memorizing random formulas and numbers which have nothing to do with the overall study or practice of Biochemistry. There is no structure to his exams, and I honestly got more out of reading the book than I did out of his lectures. Avoid class, unless you HAVE to take it.

Professor is great, he really enjoys teaching and wants you to learn. You do have to be ready to put a lot of effort and brain power into this course though.

The class was a fair amount of reading on the side but definitely not the time involvement that Grisham claims at the beginning of the semester. As long as you go to the lectures and read the information, the tests are not that hard. Although it may have been different because the TAs made up the exams this year as opposed to Grisham himself.