Just finished the first exam, and it was rough. Lectures are so scattered, difficult to understand, and have NOTHING to do with the textbook/learning objectives. Dr. Wilson is infuriating as he laughs at students' confusion. He wants to emphasize "understanding" of the material with no effort to properly teach it. Take anyone else if possible.

Expectations are both high and unclear. Exam I was a bumpy start to what looks to be a poor planned semester.

When your TAs don't even know how to help you in the class, you know you're screwed. We get hit with tons of info with very little guidance on what to emphasize. His office hours are useless too. He doesn't communicate with the TA's either and even they don't seem to understand some of the concepts as their micro classes were way less challenging.

He laughs at students' confusion and complaints about the structure. Is not clear cut about what to focus on for the exam. He doesn't care about his students and their inability to understand him. He is overly passionate about microbiology to the point he forgets he is teaching an undergraduate class. DO NOT TAKE HIM

On worksheets, quizzes, and exams, he often asks questions he didn't cover in class, aren't on the materials provided, and you were not told to seek info out on. No drops. Incompetent professor, thinks he's the first application-based course for THIRD YEAR stem students when in reality 50% of the application Q's are niche knowledge questions.

Content covered and tests given just don't correlate. TAs seem poorly prepared and unsupported. He's new to UT, so I suppose we can also blame the people who hired him for such a messy semester

Please don't take his class if you're interested in microbiology!!! You will spend the whole semester stressing over the seemingly random pieces of information he mentions but doesn't teach that make up most of the exam. Industry veteran with some interesting stories, but he WILL ruin this course for you!

DO NOT TAKE!! Wilson was the worst decision of the semester, as he overloads students with assignments irrelevant to his exams. After the first exam, he dismissed students' complaints and stated, "I hear you, but I'm not listening." All of the TAs are confused and can't help students because he makes the class unnecessarily challenging. AVOID HIM!!

Take quite literally anyone else if possible. He is easily the worst professor I have taken at UT. He acts like he's teaching microbiology to graduate students and thinks everyone has an incredible amount of time to pick up on the minute details he mentions in lectures. I greatly regret taking this class and hope others don't get stuck with him lol

He is the shabbir of the ut bio department, his exams are unreasonable and do not directly align with lecture, tons of busy work with minute details that were barely covered in lecture

If you take Dr. Wilson prepare to memorize 300+ slides for each exam. If you haven't taken biochem, good luck.

makes microbio 10X harder than other professors. exams are extremely hard and dense. doesn't provide clear study materials and is vague when we ask him what to study. exam questions are written badly. does not reply to my emails. one of the worst professors at UT. talks about himself all the time and doesn't care about students at all.

He's awful. I am a senior and this is the worst professor I've had at UT.

An actual irresponsible professor. Skims over stuff in class and harps on random topics that don't show up on the exam. When asked if he ever mentioned a topic that is asked on the quizzes in class, he always says he said it to one of the three class periods or that it was prior knowledge.

Genuinely the worst professor I've ever had at UT. I have had a few bad professors, but at least they were open to feedback and could make their expectations known. After students emailed him for the first exam, Wilson spent an entire class (which could've been devoted to lecturing) defending himself. He incorporated none of the students'

he simply doesn't care about his students' success. way too much information is rambled to us during lecture, he goes on frequent tangents, talks about himself 90% of the time, and we have to read textbook for hw that is not relevant to the exams. I am just so confused about the unclear class structure and he makes micro much harder than need be.

Had slides that were 60+ and went through about 10 of those slides but expected you to know everything else from the slides he didn't go through. Had terrible communication, would tell students to study one thing and another group of students to study another. Exams are impossible to pass unless you devote your entire time to the class itself.

sigh... just obscure class with obscure expectations..

just finished the second exam and it might have honestly been worse than the first. wilson actually doesn't listen to any feedback. 100% the wrong choice for microbio, don't take this man.

He is a bad lecturer and the exams are made up of everything we don't learn. I genuinely have no idea how to be successful in this class because everyone does bad and he barely curves or anything.

Possibly the worst professor I've had which sucks because he seems like a nice guy. The exams are extremely difficult and require so much knowledge that we aren't taught but are expected to know. Half the time the TAs don't even know what's going on and have apologized for how hard he makes the class. The other micro classes are nothing like this.

If you're taking micro bc it's required, wait another semester and take someone else. Only take if you wanna be a microbiologist, but even then expect a trial by fire with the hardest bio class you'll have taken so far. Tests cover "applications" but really cover obscure knowledge he didn't cover in lecture.

Teacher does not use learning objectives or listen to feedback. Expects us to know 250+ slides. HW and readings do not help with the exam. The slides are not well written. Introduces random class assignments we have not learned. TAs are confused by the class expectations. Exam average below passing and expect to memorize unnecessary details.

Nice guy but tests are impossible. Not clear on what is testable material and test questions are extremely complex. Would stay away from this class cause it will hurt your GPA

Do not take this class with Dr. Wilson if you can help it. There are other professors at this school that are much better at teaching microbiology. He is a nice guy but he is so bad at lecturing and it is so unclear what is going to be on the test.

His exams are very difficult and cover materials that were only taught in his office hour. His homework and quizzes are not representative of his exams. He does very little curving. Exams cover a lot of content but he does not provide topics that should focus on when preparing for exam. Do not expect test grade to represent your level of knowledge.

The lectures are not well organized and there is a bunch of information that you have to understand (He also skips slides, so it is hard to know what to focus on). Homework and quizzes do not reflect what will be tested on. Exams are extremely difficult and do not represent what you need to know in the learning objectives. Find another professor.

I honestly cannot describe how awful this professor is. I have taken some terrible professors while at UT but this man is honestly something else. He barely pretends to actually care about us and really just wants to keep lowering students' grades to make his average look decent as a new professor.

He is a kind person but the course is absolutely awful. The workload is ridiculous that it seems he forgets that we have other classes that also require our time and effort. It is impossible to do well; 4 exams with no drops, constant HW and in class assignments, quizzes, group projects. Very defeating class structure, its unbearable.

The lectures do not cover all of the material, so there is a lot of self-studying. There are quizzes, homework, readings, and random extra assignments assigned each week. Slides are ALWAYS skipped in lecture, and students are expected to learn everything on their own. Tests cover material outside of class and are unreasonably detailed.

The WORST professor I've ever had. He makes micro incredibly difficult when it shouldn't be. The TAs have no idea how to answer questions because the exam content is so incredibly difficult. I have never struggled as much as I am now. Please take ANYONE else. I wish I waited another semester to take microbio instead. He will TANK your gpa

His RMP at TXST gave me high hopes, but his first sem. at UT ends up being poorly planned, lectures are scattered, and tests are substantially more difficult compared to the content taught in lecture or in homework. He doesn't take students' criticism into account as much as he should, considering an unfair majority of the class probably struggles.

This class makes learning stressful. I came into the class excited about the course, and now feel defeated, demotivated, and unheard, because nothing was changed based on our feedback and poor performance. I wish I could have liked this class and/or took a different microbiology class.

Please beware this professor. The textbook assignments are entirely useless and his exams have questions irrelevant to the lectures and reviews he himself posts. I genuinely can't recommend this class to anyone. Study hard and memorize everything you possible can. I'm so sorry if you have to take this class you have my condolences.

The structure of the class is difficult to follow. You learn so much material, only for the exam to not represent what you studied & the wording is confusing. Other microbio professors have clearer class structures. The lecture slides are so dense & he skips over so many slides, saying that it should be review. He doesn't take criticism seriously.

Why did most people at Texas State recommend him, and at UT he's uniformly hated? Did he come to Austin and decide he wants start torturing people?! Anyway, everything everyone is saying is true. Busywork- endless. Tests- impossible. Response to feedback- ambivalent. Path to a good grade- complete mystery. Hours out of class needed per week- 20??

Dr. Wilson is the worst professor I have ever had at UT. Exams are nearly impossible, especially given that he skips lecture slides in class and assumes we will just magically know the material come exam day. It sucks, because he makes a bio elective feel worse than a weed out class - avoid him at all costs if you enjoy being mentally healthy!

Worst professor in all of UT austin and maybe the world tests are impossible WTF!!!

If the sheer amount of criticism you've read so far isn't enough, here's my take. This professor provides a plethora of information through lecture slides and busy-work that would seemingly be indicative of what would be on the tests. Wrong, there is no way to study for these exams and he doesn't respond to feedback nor keep TA's in loop. Beware…

I took this class for one day and dropped it because he was the worst teacher I have ever seen. His expectations were absolutely unreasonable and his teaching style was terrible. I have never seen a professor that is more terrible and hated than him.

Listen to everybody else and do not take this class. The tests are impossible and he is all over the place in his lectures and skips 3/4 of the material that shows up on the tests. There is no way to study everything and the TA's don't even know the answers to his test questions.

Dr. Wilson makes his exams extremely difficult. It is stressful and has ruined my interest for microbiology. Exam 2 average was a 58. He's a nice guy, but the main reason why his RMP is so low is because of the difficulty of his exams. Make exams easier and remove all the busy work (the smartbooks) and people will enjoy your class more.

Avoid him if possible and take with Partridge. The exams are insanely difficult and the difficulty of the class is unfair compared to Partridge.

completely unrealistic expectations in my opinion. i attend class, do the homework, study on top of that, and still cant pass the exams. its very difficult to figure out what we're supposed to study or focus on because he wont tell you. tons of small assignments too that are time consuming and dont even really help your grade or learning

Units/exams were super content-dense and tested on tiny details. He tried to give us a group project to save our grades, but instructions were extremely vague and even he didn't know what he wanted when asked. He generally didn't seem to be sure what his expectations of students were except "high". He also made up curves/points recovery on the go.

Maybe he'll be better in the future, but this semester was NOT it.

Professor Wilson's exams did not correlate at all with the lecture material. During lecture, he skips around slides and different powerpoints and makes it difficult for students to follow along with their notes. Busy work assigned in homework, smartbooks, and quizzes have no connection to exams.

Insanely difficult professor. TAKE ANYONE ELSE. He doesn't lecture and makes exams so hard to the point where the TAs can't answer exam questions. He will tank your gpa and he will not care. Absolutely horrible and I wished I had dropped when I had the chance.

learned a lot at the expense of my sanity.

A million slides and tests were basically impossible to study for. If you are already not to great at biology, get ready to cry.

Dr. Wilson definitely has passion for teaching, but he made his class way too difficult. For the first two midterms, the question were very detailed and lecture based, so I would recommend watching the lectures again instead of reading the textbooks. It is doable, but you would have to dedicate a lot of time just to understand one lecture.

Absolutely horrible. Take someone else and save yourself. His exams are impossible and he doesn't care.

Horrible class do not take!

Dr. Wilson was not a good lecturer, and I would not go to class if he did not make them mandatory. His exams were really difficult, and he assigned too much busy work. Take partridge or anyone else if you want to learn even a little bit of microbiology

Took genetics and biochem and can you tell this class was not a “piece of cake”. He is not organized, he had two days of lecture material covered in one day and rather than move the test he chose the lecture before to cram it into one day and ran through it. When students asked if he could move it since it was halloweekend he laughed in their face.