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.

This class is a complete red flag for anyone that cares about their gpa.PRE MEDS BEWARE. The lab is horrible, cool info, but the practicums are impossible to do anywhere close to passing. They had to throw out our first practicum because highest was a 70%. HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN CURVES, so far no one has enough points for an A and final on Monday.

Midterm was fair, not sure about the final yet. The lecture was interesting, HOWEVER, the lab portion is a MESS. They expect you to know EVERYTHING (taxonomy, specific species names, pathology, hosts, life cycle, life stages, location in hosts, etc.) about hundreds of parasite species and give no guidance on what to focus on for the lab practicals.

THERE IS NO CURVE IN THE CLASS!!! The lab TAs don't really know anything at all, so that makes it really difficult to take the hardest part of the class with virtually no help. Take this class if you want to experience pain and disappointment with no curve or reward for all your hard effort.

This class is interesting but lab is a nightmare. Do not take if you're just doing it for an elective. Everyone failed the lab practicals so they had to throw out the scores. I didn't feel like the TAs knew what they were doing. Lecture was interesting though and fair.

Dr. Oakley grades fair, and gives assignments to reinforce what you're learning, but the material is not that exciting as it is very specific and narrow in evolution. For "Macroevolution" we mostly focused on genetic trade off and rooting, parsimony, heterocrony, and other concepts. Search these up! Only take the class if these topics interest you.

Lecture was boring, sometimes exam had lecture based questions so if you skipped, you would be out of luck. Doesn't curve the class. Exams are reasonable. Takes FOREVER to grade assignments and exams. Took a midterm week 3, had to wait until week 7-8 to get our first midterm grades back 1 week before our 2nd midterm. got MT2 grade 1 wk before final

Armand is a great professor and an awesome person! He truly cares about his students' success and he researches parasites so he is incredibly knowledgeable about the subject matter. The lecture tests are fair as long as you attend lecture and study, but the lab practicals are pretty difficult. Try to take pictures of the sp in lab to study for them

Great, interesting class. I learned to combat anti-evolution arguments.

Relatively easy course for the evolution requirement of EEMB. However, other courses will likely serve you better. The class became too difficult to determine what was expected of us when Bjorn came in. This class is rooted (you will get the reference...) in phylogenetic reconstruction. If this does not sound interesting, do not take the course.

Oakley is a great professor and the class is great. He gives you a practice test that is very similar to the actual test. If you know how to do the different types of problems on the homework and practice test, you will do well. Also Oakley is an amazing teacher and really nice guy.

Armand is one of the best professors at UCSB, especially if you take him for Parasitology. He really works to answer your questions and is enthusiastic about teaching and the subject matter. The class requires a lot of memorization, but if you put the work in, you'll get a good grade. The TAs are also really helpful and nice.

I really enjoyed the class and thought Oakley did a great job presenting the material. I would definitely recommend the class, and I found the best way to study was to take notes of his slides before the test and keep up with the weekly homework. Tests are part multiple choice and part short answer.

this class was interesting and the material was presented well , but come the test ..its as if it was another class' test..I studied hard and attended every lecture..and I was disappointed with my grade.

Oakley knows the material, but his enthusiasm for teaching leaves much to be desired. He does not engage the class, and he tends to be rather monotonous. The lecture slides can be found online following each lecture, but that is the extent of the help he offers. He is difficult to reach and shows little concern for students' success.

This class was dreadful. Material is REALLY easy but the tests are an extremely poor representation of knowledge of lecture material. Practice test answers are WRONG which is awful. Take it if you want a B

Class was interesting for the most part. Kind of dull professor, but lecture portion of class was easy. Lab practicals were harder than lecture exams. I would recommend the class although I disliked that we talked quite a bit about organisms that weren't actually parasites.

Very poor at preparing students for the tests. Examples were unclear, answer keys to practice tests were wrong and full of scribbles. He name-drops all the time for no reason and spends too much lecture time on unrelated stories and basically bible bashing. Easy enough class if you have the book, but his lectures are messy.

Oakley is very bland and narrow-minded. He demonizes religion and his curriculum is very dry and monotonous. He name drops (even though he claims he doesn't) and his test are very tricky. The keys to his practice tests are wrong, but he gives them out anyways, which really shows his passion for teaching and the subject. One word, AVOID.

This class was terrible, he does not know how to teach or make the subject interesting. I went to every class and studied a lot for the midterms and I still did horrible in the class. This professor is a waste of space at this university

he really loves this subject. he really wants us to be able to argue against anti-evolutionists. his tests are not too hard, but the lecture gets boring every once in awhile.

really really nice professor. parasitology is one of the best classes offered at ucsb. the class is really interesting, he's a funny guy. the ta's are all enthusiastic about the subject matter. the labs are interesting, but the lab practicals are hard as hell!