He's a terrible professor. He makes 100s of typos in the exam and doesn't know the difference between translation and transcription. Honestly, I could write a better exam than Nathan Brouwer.

honestly the most unorganized, incomprehensible professor imaginable. The exams are train wrecks and incredibly unprofessional. Avoid at all costs.

The most disorganized teacher I have ever seen. He had more typos on his exam than actual meaningful facts about Biology he taught this semester.

Professor Brouwer is one of the most disorganized confusing teachers I have had. During the test he changed multiple questions due to typos and left out information. Nothing connects with the text other than broad terms, and makes you read Doctorate level research articles without explaining how to decipher them. He's nice but the class isn't.

WORST PROF TO TEACH AT PITT EVER!!! The man does not post his slides until 2AM the day of lecture. His lectures do not follow the book at all, especially after the first test. His recitations are also a disaster. He makes you read doctorate level work and analyze it, when he can't even do that himself. His tests are finished at 3AM the day of...

Dr. Brouwer is one of the worst professors I have had in my 3 years of college. He is extremely unorganized and stopped us multiple times while taking our exam to make corrections to it. I took this Bio 2 last semester with a different professor and Dr. Brouwer has been teaching us irrelevant things that I have never learned before. Avoid him.

The worst professor I've had at Pitt so far. He's so disorganized, which is detrimental to his students' ability to learn. He goes very in depth in lecture about detailed topics, which makes it hard to understand the bigger picture of what is being taught. I study for hours and still get C's on exams. If you want to save your GPA, do not take him!

Is the least organized professor Ive had at Pitt. Lecture notes make course seem not so bad but exams are disorganized and kind of ridiculous compared to what happens in class. Definitely should be teach ecology and not a foundations class. Avoid if possible. Nice guy but horribly disorganized.

The lectures are usually at least 70 slides long and he never gets through them, which makes it difficult to understand what you need to know. In addition to all of the constant typos, he uses Facebook, course we, and email all together to get the point across. He has really ineffective methods and I had to teach myself everything. Avoid please.

It's very evident that Dr. Brouwer is new based off his style. He's very sloppy with his work and adds in too much information that isn't relevent with little actual content. This was his first year, but given that I pay the university a lot of money I would recommend not taking him unless you're okay doing the majority of learning by yourself.

He's the most unorganized professor that you will ever take at a university. He brings up uncomfortable topics, unrelated to material. He does not understand Biology 2. His tests always have typos that confuse the questions, and he likely won't give you the points back. There are not enough characters to describe how terrible of a professor he is.

You will learn more about bio by looking on Wikipedia.. thats where all his lectures come from.

Brouwer is a decent guy, but a really really bad professor. Granted, it was his first time teaching a big lecture, it does not excuse how horrible his organization was and how bad his lectures were, not to mention he was very rude. His lectures did not prepare you for his exams, which contained heavily of mistakes an typos. Avoid him if you can.

if you take brouwer be prepared for: meaningless lectures &recitations, not knowing your grade in the class until after finals, incorrect grade updates, poorly worded & confusing exam questions, a level of disorganization that you didnt believe could be possible, 1000s of emails, & posting on FB instead of courseweb.

Save your money with tuition and just buy the book because it's better than taking his class. I got 2 responses from him all semester after sending multiple emails. I left that class not learning anything about biology. If you want to learn from a book and leave every lecture annoyed, then he is the professor for you.

Taking Brouwer was truly fascinating because he continuously amazed on just how bad and disorganized a professor could be. Bio 2 content isn't super difficult but this probably ended up being my most stressful class just because of how disorganized and clueless he was.

He really had no idea what he was doing. His slides were 80+ and he would never get through them so always repeating stuff. Didn't get through all material on his syllabus. Tests were a mess with typos and vague questions that he refused to change. Constant emails with long grade calculations that were wrong. Ruined my GPA.

It was his first time teaching the course and it was a disaster. I got A's on all of the tests except for the final which tanked my grade. I was less than one point away from an A- and he wouldn't change my grade. Normally I wouldn't ask for a grade change, but the entire course was a mess and every test was riddled with mistakes. DONT TAKE HIM

So nice and so so smart but hard to learn in this class. I never know what is important in class or what I should remember. I get 20 emails a day from him with assignments or just general thoughts for the class. Takes me a really long time to just figure out what I need to do for the class.

The class was extremely disorganized and students would receive 20 emails a day. The content was also much higher-level than expected and did not provide a solid foundation of computational biology. Professor Brouwer did not seem competent and was hard to follow during lectures. Exams were also extremely poorly written, ambiguous, and confusing.

Dr. Brouwer is disorganized and very careless in a lot of the material he teaches and assigns. Every single lecture and homework has had a mistake. His students always have to correct him. I've spent significantly more energy worrying about his mistakes than actually learning anything.

Brouwer is nice, but is so disorganized. His class is difficult because his class/study info is spread out between Courseweb, FB, Google Drive, emails, and random lectures -- it's like a scavenger hunt. The tests are doable, but questions are vague and subjective. Your only grades are tests, recitation wkshts and some TopHat.

the WORST teacher/professor I have ever had in all my years in school. DO NOT TAKE HIM. He is so unbelievably disorganized its not even funny. 80% of the class is tests and his tests are impossibly hard with questions that make no sense. He also never updates his grades so you dont even know what your grade is.

Brouwer is the most unorganized and unprofessional professor I have ever had (and hopefully will ever have). He makes countless mistakes during every lecture and on every exam. Considering his lack of confidence in the material, I found the exams to be more difficult than they should have been. If I could give any advice it would be to steer clear.

Was diagnosed with COVID-19 and emailed him about how my condition would affect me with anything regarding the class, and he never replied to my email. Very discouraging. All of the presentations are 80+ slides each and were scattered in a google drive. The worst teacher/professor I have ever had in my entire life.

After going online he just gave up on this class. no more zoom meetings and discussions anymore. He didn't reply to any email and sent emails afterward saying that he will catch up with us soon (but never). Anyway, he is an easy grader on this course but I have to agree with others that he is extremely disorganized.

Avoid at literally all costs. I saw he had bad reviews, but everyone had okay grades so I figured it wouldn't be bad. I was mistaken. Brouwer is a nice guy who is passionate about biology, but should not be teaching. Disorganized. Careless. Unclear. Typos in everything. I don't have enough characters to list everything wrong with this class.

This man was easily the worst professor I've ever had. The most disorganized, frequently spelling important concepts wrong in lecture. It was hard to keep track of what was due because of his poor ability to be precise in emails. This was supposed to be one of the easier biology classes, content wise, and I have never done worse in a biology class.

Very disorganized. Lectures are dry. He delves deeply into unnecessary complex research papers. His test questions are worded so broadly to where there's more than one answer depending on your interpretation of it but he only wants one answer. He spent the first two weeks or so teaching us statistics. Please don't take him and just spare your GPA.

DO NOT TAKE HIM! DO NOT TAKE HIM! He is EXTREMELY DISORGANIZED and all materials he taught are messed up. I didn't learn anything from him.

VERY UNORGANIZED AND IS EASILY DISTRACTED! He likes to talk about recent things related to the topic so it is difficult to find specific videos about what he talks about in lecture. AVOID IF POSSIBLE!

VERY UNORGANIZED!!! Get ready to teach yourself! He is a very caring person but easily one of the worst professors I've had. His tests are heavily application based and the examples are not covered in the textbook. He gets off topic a lot and recitations are not a review of lecture material. AVOID IF POSSIBLE!

Extremely unorganized. His lectures and assignments are messy, but he is trying to make his exams harder. Pay attention to your quality of teaching not grading please, Dr. Brouwer!

This is the most incompetent professor I have every taken (not an insult, just the truth). I somehow managed to get an B+ in this class, but what surprises me even more is how this man managed to get a job here. Cannot keep anything in order, assigns things like he doesn't think you are taking any other classes, and test questions are ridiculous.

Don't take him. I failed every test despite studying for weeks before and understanding the material completely. I could recite lectures by memory but couldn't pass a test. Save yourself the agony.

He is awful. Do not take his class. I dont even understand how he got a PHD. He genuinely made me hate biology and I changed my major. Everything about him was truly so awful. He didnt know how to teach, he took 10 years to release grades for tests even though they were automatic. Save yourself and take ANYONE else. Hes an unintelligent idiot.

Nathan Brouwer has to be the worst professor I've taken here at Pitt. He's so unorganized, doesn't teach information that matters for exams, and makes so many mistakes during lectures. The only reason his exams are hard is because no one ever knows what's going to be on them. Avoid Brouwer. Save yourself.

This was the worst class I've taken thus far at Pitt. Dr. Brouwer, although like most professors was polite and nice, is incredibly unorganized. He's a late grader and his lectures are never ending (I took this course online, but I have not heard good things abt his in person classes) He also corrects himself bc he teaches info wrong initially.

It's the end of the semester, I have an A, and I have no idea what I've learned. You do a lot of busy work that is super unhelpful. He doesn't seem to have a plan for each lecture. He seems to just spew random facts about computational biology and he takes a lot of time repeating himself on straight-forward info, but speeds through harder material.

Brouwer is a nice guy, but that doesn't make up for his lack of teaching skills. This man is very disorganized as he is constantly correcting himself and going over the same notes. He assigns many 2 and 3 point quizzes on canvas that do nothing for grades. He provides exam rematch questions that don't give points back nor are correct. Save yourself

Worst biology professor I've ever had. Never consistent with his teaching style, changing the way he lectures all the time, not all the material is made available and you never know what will be, exams are HEAVILY weighted and difficult with unnecessarily specific questions, and he's unbelievably disorganized. Do not take if you have the option.

Do not take. Worst professor I've ever had. Very disorganized in lectures, and on canvas. He will switch between multiple topics during the same lecture, and doesn't even know his own material. He can never answer the questions asked in class. You never know what will be on the exams. I can't think of one nice thing to say.

Dr. Brouwer is incredibly disorganized, it's almost impossible to know what assignments are due. There are tons of assignments but almost none actually factor into our grade and he frequently puts the wrong answers on canvas. His lectures are ridiculously disorganized and we barely covered half of the material we were supposed to for this class.

Dr. Brouwer is very disorganized and unprepared for lectures. His assignments are not weighted towards final grade although he assigns MANY quizzes/HW "quizzes". These often have incorrect answers listed and typos and do not help to boost your grade. We take 3 exams- which have many typos- you can drop 1. I would avoid this class if possible.

simply not fair

I typically would consider myself a strong biology student, succeeding in AP bio and bio 1 without much of an issue. However, Brouwer's extreme disorganization both in lecture and on Canvas made it incredibly difficult to gather study materials and keep track of assignments, causing my grade and my overall quality of learning to suffer greatly.

I would consider myself to be an above average biology student, however, I struggled greatly in this class due to the lack of organization by Dr. Brouwer and him not be clear with what material would and would not be on the test. The exams make up the majority of your grade, with a bunch of small assignments that have little to no impact.

I have never met a man as disorganized as Nathan Brouwer. It was almost MORE difficult to understand the class material if you attended lecture. I frequently had to read the textbook/watch Youtube videos to get a basic grasp of concepts, his canvas page is a mess, and he'll make mistakes in his slides and even exam questions. Take someone else.

He is just about the worst professor you could have. He is extremely disorganized, teaches your fake biology concepts, and cannot form coherent thoughts. His canvas page is a mess; there is little to no way to do well in his class. Do not take him.

He is not accessible, he is terrible in all aspects. He is standoffish when you ask him questions and his office hours barely helped me when I went to them. his tests were nothing like any of the concepts he taught in his class and almost the entire class ended up failing this semester. If you want even a passing grade, do not go with him.

This class was so difficult solely due to Brouwer's lack of organization. It was v difficult to find notes and his assignments were all over the place. I found that reading the textbook was very helpful. In order, I got a 64, 79, and 94 on the 3 exams and ended with an A (v complicated grading system). The rematches were identical to the final tho.

I have absolutely no clue how I got an A in this class. The Canvas page was a flaming hot mess, the tests asked the absolute dumbest/irrelevant questions, and I can confidently say I learned nothing from his chaotic error-ridden lectures. The material would have been a lot easier if he gave us the resources we needed to learn/practice ourselves.

Dr. Brouwer is insanely disorganized and sometimes teaches the wrong material which can make it difficult for finding online resources. He taught his own recitations and uses that material on the exams. I would use the slides that he releases before lecture to study the material but make sure to write down what he says because he tests on that.

Brouwer is extremely disorganized and gives you a bunch of homework that doesn't contribute to your grade at all. He struggles to grade the exams that HE created, and most of your time will be spent deciphering what you wrote in class. I was stressed all semester, but doing well on the final saved my grade. It wasn't worth it - choose anyone else.

This class was awful and I don't think I learned anything. He did not stick to his timeline so we ended up not learning about evolution at all, which is the unit I was looking forward to the most. The only reason I did well is because the final allows you to greatly improve your grade.

Brouwer has to hands down be the worst teacher I have ever had. He is extremely disorganized and his PowerPoints are so redundant. He will spend an entire class and 50 slides to teach 2 things that are barely relevant. I taught myself the entire class. He was infuriating to listen to and his stupid 1 question quizzes were useless.

He does not care about the students whatsoever. Very smart man he might need to reconsider teaching though.

Dr. Brouwer is so unorganized, yet very intelligent. This man had us read his own textbook that he wrote, to find errors before he published it. This is not a challenging class, but the specifics he makes you know lead to more memorization than actual learning of the processes. He is not worth the trouble of trying to understand what he teaches.

Dr. Brouwer is one of the worst professors I have ever had. The majority of your grade (80+%) is based on exams, which are difficult to succeed on due to his disorganization. Information from study materials conflicts with information from class. There are typos on every exam and many of them will cause you to lose points. Avoid at all costs.

Disorganized. Rarely could answer class questions. Started multiple lectures with "So I misspoke last class and gave you wrong information..." Creates a bunch of random assignments. You will never get feedback on them. Instructions will never be clear. You will never know what actually counts towards your grade. Exams are fine.

Dr. Brouwer's lectures generally consisted of him repeating the same content over again. Unrelated material was put on exams, so no matter how hard I studied, I never did fantastic. Would strongly discourage taking classes with him, especially if it's a "for non-majors" class because he treats it as if it's for majors.

The 4 exams are worth 82% of your final grade with no dropped exams, no extra credit, no curve, & no opportunity to earn points back other than what are called "exam rematches" which are basically you retaking the exam before you even know what grade you got. His lecture slides are 300+ slides making it painful to even attempt to look over them.

Nathan Brouwer is quite the professor. Your exam grade makes up most of the grade (82% of the class), but here is the catch, no drops, and does not post averages. Do not take the class if you are trying learn Biology, difficult when he goes over 350+ slides a lecture. When I asked for guidance, he said "withdrawing is an option you know".

Test questions are terrible, super disorganized.

If you are a computer scientist just don't bother you will not learn anything. He doesn't really go into how any of these computer programs actually work or how to design them, the course is very surface level and lots of pointless memorization. You won't get much out of this class.

His lectures are hundreds of slides long and are super difficult to follow. It is really hard to stay engaged in class and he is super unorganized. Tests are basically your whole grade but he does this weird replacement thing with the final. He is a smart guy he is just not a good teacher at all.

By far, the worst professor I have had till now. His tests are the most unpredictable on this planet, and his slides are so disorganized. Apparently he curves if everyone did bad on a test, and does this weird replacement thing with the final which replaces your first three exam scores if you do good on it.

Severely disorganized lecturer. Inaccessible online (did not respond to several emails over several weeks regarding an exam). Every person I know who took his class (previously) had to retake with another professor, either for grades or for comprehension. Avoid at all costs if you need to retain the material for future classes/med school.

Dr. Brouwer is the WORST professor I have ever had in my life. His lectures are so unorganized, he talks in circles, and he is VERY unaccessible outside of class. His slides are 300+ long, and he doesn't post them until after lectures. His canvas page is a NIGHTMARE. Exams are basically your only grade and he doesn't drop. DO NOT take Brouwer.

Terrible all around. Terrible class organization, poor teaching ability, terrible tests. Everything is bad. Do not take this guys class please save yourself the time and stress.

Dr. Brouwer is the most unorganized professor I've ever had. He uses slide decks from previous years with hundreds of slides that he tries to update while lecturing. Some lectures he would barely cover any new material while others would be 200 slides of new terminology.

Nathan Brouwer is a terrible proffessor. He is incredibly disorganized and does not know how to teach. Lectures are entertaining, but only because he acts like he does a line of coke before every class. Test questions are either random facts directly from his 200 slide presentations or complete application. Do not take him unless you're a bio god.

Very unorganized and confusing. Lectures are 200+ slides that could easily be squished down to 20. Office hours are unorganized. Unresponsive to emails. Exam material not clear. You have to teach yourself stuff. Grading scale unclear. Nearly finals week yet his canvas page still has the week 1 schedule only. The rest of the canvas page is a mess.

I didn't understand things most of the time in this class because of the way he presented lectures. He jumped around from topic to topic, confusing students. He has vague fill-in-the-blank questions on tests that nobody knows how to answer. He often goes on tirades that don't matter, like how his brother runs a hairless dog puppy mill.

He's literally the reason why i'm dropping my bio major. Worst professor I've had so far. So incredibly unorganized. His exams have mistakes all over them and he needs to correct them in the middle of the exam. His slides are 300+ slides long which is super inconvenient. Literally stopped studying for exams because it was such a joke. AVOID!!!!

DO NOT TAKE HIM!! By far the worst professor I have had. His exams are 85% of the grade and he often makes mistakes on the exams or will have questions based on his own interests that isn't found in the textbooks and barely has information online. He gives roughly 200 assignments that are only 7% of your grade. Very unorganized

This class was a mess, canvas has over 200 assignments that are so hard to find with the amounts of links he posts and reposts. Lectures all over the place, would being up unnecessary info and tangents. The only good thing is the final, it will replace your overall average so you could fail all the exams and get 100 on the final you still get an A+

Most disorganized professor I've ever taken. The lectures are 300 slides sometimes, because he likes to make it a semi-animated slideshow. Makes it hard to go over after class or before exam because note taking in class is a task not meant for the weak. You don't know which definition to write down as he skips through each slide every 10 seconds.

He is very disorganized has multiple quizzes which are worth just one point but it becomes very hard to keep track of them. Tests were very hard, only good thing is that you get another attempt at them during the final. Has 300+ slides per lec and does not go over content properly in class. Questions on the test are weirdly worded. DO NOT TAKE!!!

I am writing a second review just to STRONGLY recommend NOT taking him. Altho I am good at bio i struggled a lot. Till date I am not sure of the content I learnt in his class. Has a lot of questions in his tests and they are worded weirdly. He also interrupts and corrects his tests in between the ongoing exam. Multiple 1pt quizzes which do NOT help

3rd review: YALL PLS DO NOT TAKE!! He is a great guy and accessible outside of class but he will make it very hard for you to pass the class. Although if you do happen to be in his class follow up with the material from the start and perform well in the midterms so that you do not have to stress for the final. there are total 2 attempts for exams.

DO NOT TAKE HIM! Tests are overall worth over 85% of your final grade and the questions either don't make sense or do not have a correct answer even though he claims the questions came from previous years. The only nice thing is that the final exam is broken into 4 parts and can replace the first 3 exams if you do better. Wasn't worth the stress.

As everyone else has said; just don't take him! Exams are worth way too much (yet you won't learn anything). I am still unsure how I managed an A. My tip (if you HAVE to take him) is to make flashcards on what is discussed heavily in the slides at least a week before the exams. For the final, take notes+ review EVERY slide set and the past exams!

Awful. Do not take him he is beyond disorganized and should not be teaching

Do not take Brouwer's class. He has 200+ slides in his decks, 90% of which is completely nonsensical and repeated. 20-25 Canvas assignments per week and you never know which ones count for credit. Grades are virtually ALL exams with no drops, a lot of which is just based on random things he says in lecture. Take LITERALLY any other professor!!!

He's so unorganized. Everyday he has a lecture with 200+ slides. Lmk why I am being tested more on geography than biology? Tests were difficult and he almost always made a mistake on them and silently would write a note on the projector like "this word should actually be this word on problem 7" which also almost always would change the answer.AVOID

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE HIM FOR BIO 2!!! I cannot stress this enough. he's a great person but a concerningly disorganized professor. His lectures? I could not sit through a single one. He messed up grading and the class painfully disengaging. I was praying for his lectures to end. Again, very sweet person. Should-be-avoided professor.