Worst professor at UIC! She doesn?t know what she is doing. The syllabus and powerpoints were outdated. Lectures were very unorganized. Powerpoints were posted weeks after lecture. She puts material on the exam that she says won?t be on there. Questions on the exam don?t test your knowledge of the material, they are just dumb questions.

Very unorganized, I attended every lecture and studied from my notes and still did not do as well as I wanted to. To those that say pay attention to lectures, I say not worth it. Just read from the book. She only talks about her research in the Galapagos and her love for lizards. She appears passionate but does not engage the students at all.

Wow lady lay off the cokes its getting to your fat head. The other fat ta make life miserable for us healthy people. Stop grading so hard its animal behavior. Its not that complicated animals want to survive or reproduce why make tests so hard.

You think the tests would be easy because the slides seem so to the point but don't be fooled. This class is difficult. The 1st test is the hardest and after it you can't get an A in the class. You are left with getting a B or C. Bullshit. Don't take her. Plus the extra credit is usually 3-5 extra questions on the exam so don't think its free point

If you think you will get an A in her class... forget about it. You're getting a B.

WHY IS SHE STILL TEACHING? She is very unenthusiastic about biology, indifferent and disrespectful to students, always late to class! What a waste of my tuition and tax money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Extremely hard class. Only three exams. If you mess up on one exam, like literally your grade is screwed. She shows up to class late everytime and you can barely hear her.

WORST PROFESSOR AT UIC! If you want to do well, do not ever take one of her courses. She Hardly knows her material, does not post powerpoints until after lecture. Her slides are all over the place and make no sense. Her exams are very hard regardless of the fact that you spent hours studying. She would probably fail at her own exams.

I have taken three classes with Dr. Nelson and never have I been met with so much animosity when asking questions or trying to clarify her terribly written test questions and assignments. Coming from the anthropology department where teachers are extremely helpful without "academic babysitting", the UIC biology department has been a let down

DON'T take this class. It's extremely interesting but extremely difficult. The average in the class was a 63%. She only curves about 30 points. She asks extremely difficult specific questions like what era certain specific dinosaurs were from. (she uses only scientific names). She's not helpful at all & generally is rude if you ask for help. V HARD

DO NOT TAKE HER! She doesn't care about you as a student. She won't help you. Only 3 tests NO CURVE! I went to almost every class, read both her textbooks and studied ahead but it didn't help. She is rude and not professional at all. If you are a bad test taker DO NOT TAKE HER!

Her tests are extremely hard, she sometimes rants about other useless stuff that is not even part of lecture. She does not give homework maybe because she is too lazy to put in the grade book saves her work. Lectures are also very boring its ridiculous, a lot of reading included as well. Do not take this teacher. I had better professors than this.

If you can deal with a challenge. This is it. But if you're someone who likes homework, quizzes and extra credit. Take someone else. She's not a great teacher. She doesn't curve, no homework, 50% of the time boring lectures that are highly important for the exams. She crams 4-8 chapters in an exam. All in all, don't take her.

Horrible teacher, her exams are really tough, she brings things out of the blue. She does not curve the class. Do not take her, take a different teacher if you can. Would not recommend anyone to take her. Will not curve even if your a 2 or 3 points from passing.

nelson is the worst professor I've ever had at uic. her exams are hard she expects students to know every detail in the book. Her lectures are boring. Gives homework assignments late in the semester with a project. DO NOT TAKE HER. SHE IS HORRIBLE!! Take someone else but do not take classes with her, you will regret it!!

Please save yourself the misery and do not take this professor. She is very rude to her students especially when asking questions. She does not seem like she cares one bit about her students. There are two books and the exams have anywhere from 10-15+ chapters on them. You need to eat, sleep, breath this class otherwise you will fail.

She barely discusses the material. She heavily talks about her past research, and expect to read more on your own. You won't pass the course if you don't read the book and understand the concept on your own.

Honestly, I have never come across a narcisstic, self victimizing waste of a prof like her. She constantly complains about things not going her way yet does not care about anything in her student's life. She does not deserve a respectable job of a teacher when she is this ungrateful and opposite of growth for students.

Had this professor my senior year. This professor alone has dimmed my view of UIC's choices in staff. She spends lectures talking about her past research "glory days", makes jokes about being attractive, and spends most of class degrading confused students while self loathing. Good luck trying to find her during office hours for help on anything

This professor literally opens the books and points to make her tests. Be ready to hear about iguanas. As a prerequisite know the difference between a lizard and an iguana. Also if you dont have a strong understanding of bios 100 and 101 you will do poorly. There are also two books.

I would not recommend her to anyone. We were behind 7 lectures, she cut half the material due to limited timing, exams were multiple choice with "choose the best answer" approach, hardly any homework, and was reading intensive with 2 textbooks. She even messed up final grades upon submission. You think you know ecology until you take this class.

She doesn't really care about her students. I would not take her class again. She is disinterested in how her students are doing and has on several occasions been dismissive on issues the class has.

This instructor does not care about her students future. During the pandemic (Sp 2020) she did not even continue to instruct our class properly. She uploaded lectures from previous semesters and it was not helpful. When we would ask questions to clarify she was reply negatively. I DO NOT encourage you to take this professor!!!

There are 3 exams. You have to study a lot to get a good grade. As a teacher, she doesn't care about her students. She is too passionate about her tropical iguanas. Also, she is very sarcastic when answering questions.

The content is not that bad, but the professor makes it really hard. She goes off topic a lot in lecture, is all over the place, pushes exams, never updates the syllabus, gives tricky exams, responds rudely to emails, falls behind on lectures, and gives rude comments. I don't think she cares much for the students. I DO NOT RECOMMEND HER AT ALL

Was taking this class at UIC until COVID started, then we switched to online classes. I have never been more shocked at how unprofessional, uncaring, and naive Karin Nelson & her TA were during a world wide pandemic. She couldnt even provide us up-to-date lectures, so she just uploads ones from years ago. This isnt what I paid 15K/semester for.

Does not care about her students very much is not accessible.

This professor has a tendency to make easy concepts much harder than they actually appear. Was practically nonexistent once everyone was forced to go online. I recommend taking this class elsewhere if not taught by a different professor. Her grading cutoff is extremely strict.

She tasks you with reading up to 5 articles of 5+ pages every week with the focus on 1 or 2 papers which you then have to write 2 papers on. Except that she has not read them yet. How do I know that? She was asked to describe one paper during a session. She had to wait to go home, read the paper, and then explain it to the student in an email.

Don't take her if possible, there is another professor for this class which is way better. She used all the old recording videos while the transition to online. She responds to emails in a very rude manner. exams are too hard and She doesn't even round upgrades for 2 points.

If you want to spend a whole semester listening to constant iguana rants and watch her chug two diet cokes every class then take her. Grade is heavily dependent on exam scores so if you mess up once it will be very hard to bring your grade back up. Ignored every email I sent her. Refused to round up my grade and I was off by just 1 point.

I'll put it simple. Late on giving assignments. Discourages cooperation and asking for help. Bad quality lectures. Kidnapped a cat for some reason. Has a weird fetish for iguanas. Quizes are not related to material studied most of the time. Requires 2 textbooks. Rude when emailed to. Rude when asking for help. Rude when rude.

I can't tell what are we paying her for... she uses videos from last year (on some of them, it's not even her who is reading the lecture but some unfamiliar person), and you would think since she spends 0 time lecturing that she would have more time to grade our tests and respond to the emails, but no.... she is as slow as she can be

Do not take this professor. She will email you a day or two before hw is due instead of having it clearly laid out in the syllabus. For college students with jobs it makes it really hard to stay organized. She also does not have a point total listed in the syllabus. I emailed her to ask the total points available in the class but she ignored me.

Nelson is an AWFUL choice in a professor the only reason people take her class is because the good professors get full first. She is rude to students, disorganized, inconsiderate, and a liar. She says no plagiarism but uploaded a lecture that wasn't even her presenting, she lies about answer choices she'll accept from students and gives them 0s.

UIC did them selves a disservice when they hired her. She does absolutely NOTHING in this class she makes the TA send emails, grade homework, and make up quizzes. She has no point total in this class and tells us to "try our best" without us knowing what we need to get an A in the class. She does not care about students and only cares about herself

Run the other direction. It's almost like she is a professor as a 5th job where she makes her TA do all work of emailing students regarding work and making quizzes. Quizzes are extremely random and unrelated to the material. When we ask for help both the TA and professor come off blunt and unwelcomingly. Again, run the other direction.

Theres a quiz every week. And by quiz I mean 20-40 questions each time all while being timed. And the time she gives is unfair and unreasonable. She also doesnt follow her syllabus and is uncompassionate about her students. Emailing her always leads to her being rude and unhelpful. The worst professor Ive ever taken at UIC.

She is the worst professor I have ever had. At one point this semester she assigned us reading from our textbook for a chapter that didn't exist. She would send us lectures from youtube to avoid making them herself. Her quizzes were ridiculously hard as some of them covered 6 chapters of material and were random facts. Shes rude and unhelpful. BAD

Karin was my worst experience at UIC thus far. She was the most rude and uncompassionate teacher I think I've had in my life. She provides NO wiggle room in terms of scores dropped or extra submission attempts, and if you make a mistake and upload the wrong document you will receive a catty email and a zero in the grade book. DO NOT TAKE NELSON

literally the worst and rudest professor at UIC, especially during a pandemic. Even she does not know what she is doing in the class, forgets to assign homework and then assigns 2 in a week. 2 required textbooks and several chapters from each are assigned weekly on top of 6+ hours of lectures where she rants about random things and explains nothing

super easy class made impossible by a professor who does not care about her students. expect sassy rude emails where she blames her students for everything- if she even bothers to respond. they grade the homework and quizzes wrong all the time but you do not recieve a key for anything. dont bother going to office hours b/c they "cant answer that"

she is the worst professor that could ever exist. she will assign weekly quizzes which are 20-25 questions and will be covering 6+ chapters for each week. she is very rude, like she will volunteer to be rude. nit helpful when asking questions and emailing. she will always be rude when replying and sometimes not even reply. don't take her class

Worst professor I've had so far. Mean, rude, lazy, poor communicator, not accommodating, and leaves emails on read. No answer keys for quizzes and HW gets graded late w little to no feedback. Makes 1 TA grade 200 assignments at a time. 25 EC pts; lots of us ended w high Bs but she doesn't even round 0.50+. Lectures and slides are too long.

Do NOT ask this professor for a Letter of Recommendation - she ghosted me. Highly unprofessional professor. I am glad her faculty-led study abroad program was canceled, it was meant to be that I did not travel to another country with this woman. She is a useless instructor as well, I completely taught myself the content.

I am here just to agree with all these reviews. I took her class thinking she might have changed her style after seeing all these reviews but NO. If you're reading this to take her class DO NOT repeat my mistake. Run the other way.

This class has weekly homeworks and quizzes, and is super super heavy on lecture and information given. Youre taking a quiz weekly on about 3 different chapters of reading and 2+ hours of lecture, and her questions are from herself so its really hard. Be ready to think you got a 100 on a quiz then you end up with a 75. Homeworks are unclear.

I am so relieved to see that I am not the only student that felt this way towards this professor. She is HIGHLY unprofessional and not accommodating at all. By far the worst professor I've ever had at UIC.

She is very bad professor, doesn't really give clear instructions and give zero points for not following instructions. Don't take her class.

Do NOT take Karin Nelson. She never gives full points on anything but maybe one homework. Try as hard as you can, still get a B. You will not get full points. I was looking forward to this class until it was completely self taught online. Worst decision I ever made to take this class, and I did go into it with an open mind after reading her reviews

This class is terrible, dont take it unless you have to. Weekly quizzes are over 20 questions and are harder than exams, only 12% of students got an A after the low 20 point curve

Super strict on deadlines, she doesn't care about your grade at all. Doesn't respond to emails, and it feels like she want to get lectures and everything over with so she can leave the class. sometimes late to class

This is the absolute WORST professor I have ever had at UIC. She doesn't care for her students and makes her practicals similar to "med school exams" to help "prepare us" for our future and does not seem to care about students' grades. Don't take this class if you want to keep your sanity. About 60% of students dropped the class.

I never seen like this professor ever before. She is a very disorganized person. Don't even believe her syllabus, everything will be changed as what she wants. THE WORST PROFESSOR EVER. do not take her class, if you can. Trust me.

This professor is no good. She makes her weekly quizzes difficult for no reason, she hates teaching as can be seen by her voice. You won't get good grades on the homeworks, only 12% of the class got an A after he 20 points curve (the TA said it would be 30...). MY advise is do not take her, avoid her at all costs, you won't learn anything. GL

I found this class and how she teaches it to be very difficult. Lab is very difficult. There is no guidance what so ever, even the TA is lost. It is a "here is the bone/muscle name, now find it" kind of lab. There is no study guide or word bank for the practicals. Grade is based on lecture ad lab exams only.

Due to the professor's inability to be organized with the material we lost out on many assignments that could have helped students get points. Quiz times were odd and certain questions weren't in the lecture/reading material. Her unwillingness to accept any late assignment was very frustrating seeing as she would wait WEEKS to put grades in.

Prof. Nelson's lectures were pretty interesting but the class itself was so disorganized that it was very hard to gauge how well you were doing in the class. Her quiz times were at a sort of inconvenient time and some of the questions were never covered in the lecture. So it was sort of a hit or miss. Definitely wish the class went better with her.

She's always behind. Quizzes have material you didn't learn in her lectures, and seem easy, but then your grade is failing. She makes her single TA grade everything, so she doesn't allow anything late which SUCKS. Heads up, missing one assignment drops you a significant amount. She sounds like she hates her job. Literally take anyone except her.

By far the worst biology professor at UIC. She needs a reality check because this is not medical school. She would claim to try and "prepare us" for Med school when half the class isn't even going. On top of that, she's never clear about what should be studied for the exams and practicals. She is running this class like the Navy.

although there is no exams quizzes are just as hard and complex. Timing sucks on them you have a minute per question when some include math. You can barely read the question and understand it and you have to move on because time is running out. Takes off points off worksheets even though she solves that way on her lectures. Horrible.

Sadly, I am here to agree with everybody else. She was behind the whole semester, causing her to put multiple chapters in quizzes which made them harder (some questions weren't even covered in lecture). She comes to class ten minutes late, and a lot of the times homework was graded strictly. People don't show up to class and I get why they didnt.

There was a day where she scheduled a guest speaker the same day and time, we had extra time to work on our cat dissection and she got angry with our section... like maybe don't plan horribly because no one's going to be there. She's not an empath and doesn't care for any of her students. Quizzes are incredibly hard; you need 3 people helping.

Stay away if you can. Always late in class and does a horrible job teaching stuff. Quiz often has questions that were never covered in class or in powerpoints. Some of the questions in the quiz are vaguely written and difficult to interpret.

Try to avoid this professor. Very unprofessional/inappropriate on one occasion, where she spent all of one lecture class to discuss individual student grades (many, if not all, students were close to failing at the very beginning). She instructed all students to gather in a line (40+), and one by one, talked to each person about their grade.

No mercy

Unprofessional and does not care about students at all. Super rude.

This course has been frustrating due to the professor's disorganization and poor communication. She focuses on irrelevant material, dismisses student questions, and doesn't respond to emails, leaving students unsupported. Overall, the course is stressful and lacks clear instruction.

Always late. You are only graded on quizzes and very few homework. Missing a single assignment will make your grade plummet. Very disorganized lectures. You will only learn your final grade letter, not the final percentage.

Run. Run. This prof TA is RUTHLESS, she will literally take so many points off the hw for no reason, like this is an elective class. Nelson would show up late every class and has extreme lack of empathy for students. Would often switch group activities around and wouldn't update the syllabus to reflect it resulting in loss of points

incredibly rude and not accommodating

Not accommodating to students at all, despite showing up 10 minutes late every class. Content is easy enough, but the material covered in the lecture is always weeks behind what is outlined on the syllabus. Would not take another class with her.

Your whole grade depends on only the problem sets and the weekly quizzes. Mess up on either one and your grade is severely impacted. The quizzes have questions that the lecture doesn't even cover. If it's 20 questions you only get 20 minutes and so on. Super behind schedule, unorganized, and just no. Avoid if possible.

She is absolutely terrible. I never want to see her again. Lecture will sound like a bunch of iguana stories and nothing actually useful. She doesn't go by syllabus and always falling behind. She would ask you questions on the quizzes that you wouldn't find anywhere in lectures or slides. She wouldn't give you extra credit except course evaluation

She is absolutely terrible. I never want to see her again. Lecture will sound like a bunch of iguana stories and nothing actually useful. She doesn't go by syllabus and always falling behind. She would ask you questions on the quizzes that you wouldn't find anywhere in lectures or slides. Wouldn't give you extra credit except course evaluation

If you are not a religious person, pick a religion and start praying.

What they said 👇

Literally the worst professor I have ever had. Her quizzes (closed note) have absolutely NOTHING of what is on lectures/slide, plus the questions can be super specific where you will literally not know the answer no matter how much you study. We are only graded on quizzes and problem sets so mess one up and your grade is done for. DO NOT TAKE!!

Your entire grade is based solely on problem sets and weekly quizzes, which leaves little room to recover if you don't do well. The quizzes did not reflect the material covered in lectures or slides. She was frequently late to class. Overall, I had a very negative experience in this course and do not want to see her ever again.

While quizzes are closed note and online, they do not reflect the lecture material very well. Oftentimes quizzes have ultra specific questions or originate from the textbook which she expects students to read 80+ pages a week and in itself is far more in depth than the course. Almost always late to class and weeks behind in lectures.