HOUSECS-59
HOUSE COURSE (SP TOP)
Offered Fall 2026
Term
Instructor
Overview
This code is not a single course in any meaningful sense. It is a bucket for wildly different house courses, and the evidence mainly says that small, student-led seminars can be excellent when the topic and instructor click.
DepartmentARTS&SCI
Terms offeredFall, Spring
Typical enrollment9–21
Semesters of data5
1.8
Hrs / week
311
Responses
568
Enrollment
55%
Response Rate
Evaluation Scores
Overall quality
Teaching, content, and experience combined.
4.4
Intellectually stimulating
Challenges students to think deeply.
4.4
Instructor effectiveness
Explains concepts and facilitates learning.
4.4
Difficulty
Higher means harder.
2.0
Feedback Analysis
Feedback Analysislow
Analysis based on student evaluations
Based on 766 comments across 36 sections
This code is not a single course in any meaningful sense. It is a bucket for wildly different house courses, and the evidence mainly says that small, student-led seminars can be excellent when the topic and instructor click.
Student Reports
How hard is the A?
More reachable A
The bucket skews easy, but section-by-section differences are large.
Homework Load
Light homework load
Most sections sound light on homework, though a few still ask for papers, presentations, or attendance.
Lecture Load
Lighter lecture burden
Student comments describe this as more discussion-, seminar-, or workshop-driven than lecture-dependent. The lecture burden itself does not sound like the main source of friction.
Strengths
• Ratings are very strong overall, with low reported difficulty and high engagement.
• Students repeatedly praise passionate student instructors and discussion-friendly seminar formats.
• The topics can be unusually niche and unavailable elsewhere in the undergraduate curriculum.
Tradeoffs
• There is no stable content, workload, or grading model across sections.
• Quality depends heavily on the exact topic and who is teaching it.
• The course code itself tells you almost nothing about what you are actually signing up for.
Best fit for
Students choosing a specific house course for its topic, community feel, and small-format discussion rather than for the generic code.
Watch out for
• Read the exact section title, instructor, and deliverables before enrolling.
• Do not generalize from one HOUSECS-59 offering to another.
• Some sections still require attendance, presentations, papers, or exams even if the average difficulty is low.
Student Responses
Loved this course! It covered a wide breadth of concepts relevant to medicinal chemistry, from synthesis to various drug classes and how they work. It was a nice mix of chemistry and history that I thought was delightful.
Fall 2023 · Zhang, Justin
I gained really cool insights on medicinal chemistry. It broadened my way of thinking about phram and new knowledge about how drugs are synthesis. Very cool topics.
Fall 2023 · Zhang, Justin
A lot of fascinating chemistry, applying that chemistry, and the pharmaceutical aspect of the chemistry
Fall 2023 · Zhang, Justin
I learned a) about new types of pharmaceuticals, b) how to apply properties of chemistry to real-world topics, and c) about the dilemmas present in the medical industry related to pharmaceuticals.
Fall 2023 · Zhang, Justin
1) I learned about the basics of drug optimization and its importance in the pharmaceutical industry 2) I learned about different classes of drugs, their origins, and their basic MOAs 3) I developed new insights about a potential career path after investigating the role and importance of medicinal chemists.
Fall 2023 · Zhang, Justin
Rating History
Rating history
Error bars show \u00B11 std dev
| Term | Instructor | Overall | Difficulty | Hrs/wk | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2025 | Snyderman, Ralph | 4.4 | 2.0 | 1.8 | 113 |
| Spring 2025 | Fellin, Luciana 4.4Rate My ProfessorsQuality4.4Difficulty2.4Would retake100%Based on 5 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.5 | 1.9 | 1.7 | 148 |
| Fall 2024 | Balleisen, Edward 3.9Rate My ProfessorsQuality3.9Difficulty3.7Based on 12 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.4 | 2.4 | 2.1 | 118 |
| Spring 2024 | Enrico, Danny | 4.4 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 109 |
| Fall 2023 | Zhang, Justin 4.7Rate My ProfessorsQuality4.7Difficulty3.3Would retake100%Based on 6 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.3 | 1.7 | 1.2 | 80 |