Principles of Biochemistry

Very difficult course. The first unit is relatively easy but this impression is deceptive.

The course has many pros that other people said without me. I'll do unpopular thing to name minuses.

The main minus that there're big details about certain diseases and their treatment. This is useful for students who aim to become medical practitioners. But I took the course to become more knowledgable and helpful in anti-aging reseach, so I'm interested only in understanding of fundamental biochemical processes in the organism. Instead of that, I was forced to spend a lot of time delving in some traditional diseases and their treatment. To heal people is a great profession but my goal is to be part of researching community and to search ways to prevent illnesses. Prevention in more important than healing!

Other small minuses. Several slides contain errors or cause misunderstanding - keep your thinking critical. Grading via simple quizes with only several options to answer is not the best way to evaluate and strengthen knowledge. Some quizes are not well-thought-out (for example, you should choose only True/False and have two attempts for answer). Once again, many quizes are "too medical" and designed only for physicians. In some places authors give statistics that are relevant only for the students of USA but useless for students from other countries.

This course is 5 starst for physicians, but 4 stars for people interesting in fundamental researching. Alternative for this course is "Biochemistry: Biomolecules, Methods, and Mechanisms" from MIT at Edx, but it looks even more difficult and is required more prior knowledge. These two courses are not direct competitors but complement each other.