Dr. Kuris is a funny and well respected professor, his lectures are engaging and always super interesting. Lab practicals are very hard and require a TONNN of time put into studying, but if you put the work in it will be VERY rewarding. Not an easy class, but I would still recommend taking it.

My favorite professor at UCSB! Dr. Kuris genuinely cares about students and is very passionate about invertebrates and parasites. He's very responsive to emails and is very easy to talk to during office hours. Go take EEMB 111 and 112 before he retires! The lab practicals are tough, but dissections are so fun. Amazing and funny professor.

The lecture exams were fair and if you have a good memory they're not bad at all, but the practicals are really hard because of the sheer amount of info tested. He's pretty generous with grading though and I know a lot of people who got As. Overall, not an easy class and it requires a ton of time, but it was one of my favorite classes.

Loved class & professors, absolutely HATED lab. Required to memorize all taxonomy, pathology, hosts, life cycle, ETC. of hundreds of parasites for practicals, NO ONE did well. TAs not helpful when asked what to focus on for practicals, basically just said to study everything. Altered grading scale, but no curve. Don’t take as an UD bio elective.

If you plan to have a heavy course load for the quarter, this class is going to be painful on top of everything else because of how time-consuming it is. The lab portion was extremely challenging, as you have to memorize the tiniest details of a plethora of parasites. However, professor Kuris was extremely sweet and passionate about the material.

The lectures are great, Kuris keeps things interesting, encourages questions & is easy to talk to outside of class. BUT THE LAB PRACTICALS! Lab practicals are always hard, I get that. But the amount of memorization, number of species, the fact we were not told what to focus on, & NO ONE felt prepared.The lab desperately needs restructuring.