I really enjoyed having her, she made biology interesting and fun. Also, she gives a printout of her notes and slides so you can take your own next to them in class.

Wonderful, I learned a lot. I highly recommend her. Her teaching style is very helpful and she makes it easy to learn the difficult material.

A very helpful teacher, with a clear desire to teach her students. The class was a little difficult because it was hybrid, but when we were in lab, she did a great job of making sure we were all on track.

She's a great lady and loves to teach and does it VERY well. She understands that things happen in life, and she is willing to help. Great teacher...even though its a hard class. I worked my butt off for an "A," but I feel GOOD about my "A." I'd recommend her to ANYONE!

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this is an AMAZING CLASS! rene loves her students and understands that life happens! she is clear and wants to help you! work hard and you will do very well!

Rene is full of knowledge. Seems genuinely interested in making the class enjoyable. She is slighlty distracted due to many other bligations. Sometimes grading gets behind and she is not easily accessible. Might just be this time. I am looking forward to taking her for Micro. I love that she still gets excited about the topic!

really a great teacher, but returns graded assignments very slowly also her test questions are odd in comparison to the material???

Rene is awesome and super helpful. Her class is challenging, but she is not unreasonable in her grading or expectations. I am really looking forward to taking her again for micro.

Rene is a very nice lady. That being said, her lecture and the book hit one level, the test questions hit an entirely different level. Test questions are unclear, she wants a specific answer to a broad question so you loose points. Still haven't graded most of our stuff and it's almost the end of the quarter. That isn't acceptable at all.

Rene is an amazing teacher! Very clear in her explanations of the material. Very clear in her expectations of the students for each assignment! Tests are hard because she expects you to use critical thinking to determine the answer... just what we need to do to be successful outside the classroom! I would recommend her to anyone, she's great!

Great teacher really made the subject clear and understandable. She was hard in the way she made us think about the subject matter and apply it, but that is what learning is all about. I would highly recommend taking her class.

Rene is a very nice and sweet instructor. She will help you anytime you need. Overall the class has 4 exams (no final) and some online quizzes, prelabs and labs and icliker questions, and thats it. If you study well for her exams, u should do good. Rene makes bio interesting and understandable. take her.

I found Renee to be a very helpful instructor! She didn't always get things graded quickly, but she was always very approachable and showed enthusiasm for what she was teaching. Many instructors could careless about you once you left their classroom, however Renee was always interested in how I was doing, even after I was no longer her student.

Renee is very nice and knowledgable about microbiology. Her lectures are interesting and clear, and she's good at providing extra help if you're confused on anything. She takes a long time to grade assignments, though, and has missed class a few times. I know she's writing a book so that may be why she's spread so thin. Overall she's a good teacher

Love her. My favorite biology teacher so far :) her test are extremely hard but she is fun and funny and handles labs very well.

Rene is a very knowledgeable instructor and she explains her lectures very well. I enjoyed the labs... learned a lot from the labs & practicals:) Exams were very difficult.. not straight from the text, you gotta understand the material and apply that knowledge on case studies. Overall, she was a lot of fun and very helpful - just ask! Recommended!

She's really nice and willing to help students stay on track with the class. The only thing I had trouble with was following the assignments just because she's not very clear. If you don't check the online side every day w/plenty of time to get the homework done you'll have a hard time in the class. Just make sure you have time and your good.

Dr. Kratz is an awesome teacher! It's not an easy class to begin with, but if you put in the time, you should pull a good grade! If you're having trouble, she's extremely helpful and will work with you until you have a good understanding. She explains everything in an interesting way, I definitely recommend!

Rene is a great instructor. Clear, knows her stuff, always willing to help a student. Yeah, the tests are hard but she really works to prepare you. I would take any class she offered.

Rene is by far the best professor I have had so far. She is very approachable,and doesn't get annoyed from her students asking questions,like alot of other professors do. I would definitely recommend her! Im glad women like her decided to teach.

You need to understand the material for you to do well. She was very helpful in lab also. My biggest complaint is she doesn't grade on time. It took over 1.5 weeks to get our tests back, and we only got 4 of our labs back, the rest were graded after the final. She ran out of time to grade everything, so just gave us full credit on the last few labs

She is 1 of the best instructors i have ever had, always willing to help students to understand and learn the material and the E-Z micro book she wrote is so easy to understand and read. She mades learning fun and interesting and she's always so full of life!!! so fab!!

She's a very sweet woman and happy to help. I had two issues though: 1. She doesn't get your work back to you, so you don't really get to figure out how she grades, and 2. Her test questions are ridiculously hard, and sometimes not covered in the lectures, book, or online material. I like her but don't think it's fair to withhold homework.

Rene is very knowledgeable on what she teaches, but her class is very hard. I would say it is more than twice the workload of any class I have ever taken at EVCC. Test questions are hard and vague and may not even necessarily be covered in the material.. You have to come to your own conclusions based off what you have learned and hope for the best.

My favorite science teacher by far. Very approachable, and explains things so well if you do not understand. She is an awesome teacher, and down to earth. Not the easiest, but worth it, learned so much!

Tough,her tests are brutal, her labs are stressful,but all in all it was all worth it.She makes her students work hard,as she should since most are pre-nursing students who are going to be put in tough and uncomfortable situations later in RN school. She's very available to her students(lacking in email though),even offers her lunch break to meet!

Though Dr. Kratz's life was pretty crazy when she taught my class, I still learned so much! She is a woman of science and it's awesome! She is an instructor who cares about learning. The emphasis on complex lab work in the class was fascinating and challenging. If you have a passion for science you will enjoy her class, though it can be stressful.

Online prelabs and exams are very difficult. Labs are interesting, but a lot of work. She records her lectures so you can go back and watch online whenever you want, which is cool. Rene is a nice person and is passionate about Microbiology, but not an easy A(or even B).

Rene is very passionate about biology! Those that complain probably never asked for help, you will do well if you are committed and get in the habit of getting everything done. SLOW grader. Online was 4ish assignments, 2-3 annotated lectures, DF, & quiz every week. Two books & the midterm & final were a test and an essay. I learned a lot!

The best way to study for this class is to attend lectures, really try on the clicker questions, print her power points , go home and listen to her lecture recordings, do her practice problems, && go into her office hours when you need help. For the unknown project type up your report as you go, start with sugar fermentation tests if applicable

Good class with a very organized workload which helps get all the work done better. Not an easy class necessarily but the teacher is nice.

Good class, spend the time reading outbreaks and studying and you will do well. Class felt easily accessible. Lectures are put online and i found that very helpful.

Good professor, her lectures are pretty organized. Sometimes she replies to inquiries after a deadline, rendering her advice useless and she assigns ALOT of homework. I took her online class, which means she tended to leave assignments ungraded, which is frustrating. And the discussions are bad but the class, is pretty easy if you do the work.

An awesome professor! The online class was very organized. It was very clear what you needed to read for each assignment. The labs were interesting and simple enough to understand. I love Biology so this was an enjoyable class.

Rene is very passionate about her field. I took this course during the summer along w/ 2 other intense courses. This course did have more assignments than a regular online course. It's doable if you manage your time wisely. There are 3-4 assignments, 10+ hrs of reading, discussion, and a quiz per week. There are 2 essays and 2 exams. Work for it.

Difficult course, no matter the instructor you will need to put in a lot of work. Kratz is knowledgeable and loves biology. There are in-class participation questions and she is really good about explaining any concepts you have questions about in class. Takes a bit longer than most to grade. With effort and engagement you'll be golden.

Rene is absolutely the best professor I have ever had. She is truly passionate about what she teaches. Her depth of knowledge and decades of teaching experience allow her to explain high level concepts so simply and concisely that a 3rd grader could understand it. I have never had a professor with such complete and up-to-date knowledge.

She's passionate abt her own teaching and your learning and genuinely wants you to understand even tho I feel lost just bc it's retention heavy. Lots of paper handouts and very repetitive and takes a long time to grade stuff not on canvas but overall love her class and makes labs fun by engaging herself. Grades mostly made up of labs + exams

She was ok, We did a lot of in-class practice, but there wasn't really a lecture. We did get to use 2 pages of notes for each exam, but no one really felt like they knew what they were doing.

Amazing professor! Doesn't heavily lecture, mostly small group work "POGILs" and then checking with the whole class. Super kind and caring for the students, will talk to you outside of class hours and responds extremely quickly. Grading is very clear, though slow at times. Highly recommend her for beginning the biology series. Would 100% take again

Professor René Fester clearly has a passion for biology, the lectures are simple and the assignments have detailed instructions. Weekly labs, discussions, quizzes and plenty of assignments. Do not reccomend if you have a tight schedule.