EVSC 2220

I got pre-enrolled in this class, read the reviews, and figured there was no way it was THAT bad. I was sorely mistake. The lectures are like a roller coaster — not in the fun way, in the disorienting and vomit-inducing way. His slides are pointless, he meanders from topic to topic, and will spend significant amounts of time answering a simple question in mind-numbing detail. You have to hang on his every word as the posted slides have little to no information, there is no textbook, and the readings are completely irrelevant. The exams (two of them, which make up the entire grade) are a minefield of trick questions and trivia. I have never before seen a true or false question with more than one possible answer. To make matters worse, it takes months to get a result back on a 15-question multiple choice exam, and he uses a completely incomprehensible curving system that leaves you confused at best and disappointed at worst. As of writing this, there is under an hour until the grade deadline, and I have no clue what my final grade is. Personally, I had to take a make-up exam, and wrote him no less than five emails with no response, as he unexpectedly just didn't show up for the final two classes. Lerdau is a perfectly nice guy, very friendly, but avoid him as an instructor like the plague.

This was the worst course I've ever taken at UVA, so if you could avoid it I would highly recommend doing so. I am a third year biology major who has done well in the rest of my STEM classes, but I was absolutely lost in this class. Prof Lerdau is an incredibly disorganized lecturer. I never knew what to take away from the lectures and had no idea what to expect on tests, which was problematic as our entire grade was based on the midterm and final (although in the syllabus he said 10% was quizzes but never once did we have a quiz). I didn't do much work outside of class (because I had no idea what to do to prepare), so the class wasn't so much a time commitment as it was frustrating and stressful. You basically either get an A or a B and you don't know which until final grades come out. From the other reviews on here it seems people have had the same complaints for years, so doubtful his teaching style will ever change. Once again, if you can avoid it, don't take this class.

This was definitely one of the stranger classes I've taken. Professor Lerdau feels like one of those professors who is here to do research, and they force him to teach a class or two. He seems like a really smart guy who struggles to translate that as an instructor. The final exam was worth more than half of the final course grade - sorry that I can't be more specific than that, but neither could Lerdau. There's a lot of information that I thought was kind of interesting in this class, but his lectures were meandering and disorganized. His slides are essentially useless for studying, but so are the readings. I wouldn't say that the exams are incredibly difficult, but you will feel incredibly unprepared before each one. I came out of the class feeling like I literally did not learn a thing. If you are looking for a STEM credit to fulfill a requirement, don't take this class (even if it sounds more interesting than other requirements). If you are an EVSC major looking to get those first three credits out of the way, don't take this class (even if it sounds interesting). If you're completing the conservation specialization and have to take it, you'll be fine (lots of content is covered in other classes and it's not like the hardest class ever), but make sure you really do pay attention in lecture - it's the only way to learn any of the material.

All of the other reviews here are spot on. At the beginning of the semester, I had been very excited to take this class and learn about conservation. However, my dreams were quickly crushed by Professor Lerdau. His lectures are extremely unorganized, but ALL of the questions on the test come from his lectures and none from the "required" readings that seemed unrelated to the lectures. When studying, I struggled to find connections between the varied subjects that Lerdau tried to tie to environmental science. It took him over a month to get our (multiple choice) midterms back to us. I studied a lot and still ended up with a B (still don't know the exact percentage because he used some strange curve). There are only two grades: the midterm and the final. There was supposed to be a grade for quizzes and participation, but we have never had a quiz and he often remarks about how he knows no one's name in the class, so I don't see how that would be possible. He's actually repeated two lectures word for word over the semester without seeming to notice. This class is a waste of time, but still not an easy A because the information is so scattered and unorganized. Would not recommend to anyone.

Do not take this class, plain and simple. As a science major I took this class thinking that an introductory EVSC class like this would be both interesting and help boost my gpa, the reality could not be further from this. To be honest if someone asked me I could not tell you what I have learned in this class. Half the information seems almost common sense and the other half seems either irrelevant to what the lectures "focus" on. He frequently rewards us for actually showing up to class with pictures of animals which may or may not be on the test, who knows but I do know this is an environmental science class not a memorizing animal names on the test. there are only two grades, the midterm and the final, so if you mess up on one you are screwed. The midterm was probably a quarter questions that actually had to do with things we learned in class, a quarter trick questions (where the answer literally was "this is a trick question") and a half questions that frankly just didn't make sense. The grades on collab are out of 22 even though the test was out of 30 and there is some strange curve meaning I still don't know what I got on it. There is some interesting information but it is sparse and so poorly executed its not even remotely enjoyable. I am confused about whether this class is easy or hard and that should tell you all you need to know.

I didn't read Lerdau's reviews until a few weeks into the semester, and it was solely to confirm that my peers disliked him as much as me. The first half of the semester is ultra boring and he comes off as a dick. I studied relentlessly for the midterm and managed to get a C - oh yeah, the only grades are the midterm and the final. You MUST attend lecture or else you'll know nothing. The "textbook" is used for a few weeks and you don't really learn anything from it. However, post midterm, things turned around. The lectures became more tolerable, as did Lerdau. The class is bearable, but I generally dislike it. Disclaimer: I'm not the best when it comes to science, and it is hard for me to grasp most concepts, even considering I took EVSC in high school. Take this review as you please.

This is the worst class. It is nothing that you expect. The tests are the most arbitrary questions and lectures are SO boring.

Do not ever take this class with Lerdau. His lectures are so hard to follow and much of the content he reviews is irrelevant to the exams. The readings are also irrelevant so don't bother doing those. He took a month to give back our midterms and graded many of them incorrectly so they had to be resubmitted for a regrade. I walked away from this class with no knowledge on the subject but really only took this course because I thought it would be easy for the science requirement. Not an easy A because you just have no idea what could possibly be on the exams.

Lerdau is a fine example of a professor who should be fired. Lectures were very disorganized and hard to follow. The slides were just pictures or diagrams and you would have to listen carefully because all information was given verbally. At some point he recognized that the powerpoints were cryptic and said he used tricky abbreviations so that you had to be in class to know what he was talking about. Let me tell you, I was in class and I STILL did not understand the slides. Readings were posted every week; some were optional but others "required." It was not clear which were which; if you missed what he said in the beginning of class, too bad. I'm saying "required" because I skimmed all of the readings and none appeared on the exam. He did not post any readings during the second semester of class. In fact, we barely did anything the second semester; a week was dedicated to going over the midterm and one powerpoint was a repeat of a previous lecture down to the pictures on the powerpoint. When we got to the midterm, there were some badly worded questions and some that I just thought "Why would we EVER need to know this and when did he mention this?" Since it was free response and there were no TA's, it took over a month to get them graded. However, there were many grading mistakes because he had asked a few people with differing opinions to help grade, and all tests had to be regraded. This is just one example of how Professor Lerdau is disorganized and does not think beforehand. Did I mention one time he forgot to tell the class that lecture was cancelled and left us waiting for him? Do not take a class from him.

This was easily the worst class I have ever taken at UVA. I don't even know how to explain how terrible it was...Lerdau's lectures are disorganized and difficult to follow, he assigns reading that does not correspond to lecture whatsoever, and generally he just makes a topic that could be engaging and interesting unbearable. The only two grades in the class were a short answer midterm and a final exam of 36 multiple choice questions that Lerdau copied and pasted from questions students submitted without even reading through for typos. I can honestly say I didn't learn anything in this class and it was a total waste of time and frustrating beyond words. do not take !!!!

Do not take this class under any circumstances unless you want to see any of your love for environmental science die. Lerdau is a terrible lecturer and speaks in a way that is overly complicated and doesn't make sense. He is incredibly smart and knows his stuff but cannot pass his knowledge on in an understandable way. Half of the notes you take in the class are unfinished sentences because he will trail off in the middle of a key concept or switch ideas or go onto another concept and you will never get to the main point. Lectures are also very boring. All of the tests are based off of lecture so while it is nice that you never have homework or have to do the readings, if you do not write down every word he says in lecture you have no hope for the tests. He did not give us our midterms back until a week before the final (a month and a half after we'd taken them) and they were graded by grad students who made mistakes so we had to grade all of our own tests in class and then come to him if we had complaints. There was a line stretching into the hallway waiting to talk to him about grading mistakes and he barely gave back any points to anyone. Our final was a 36 question multiple choice test with questions on it that weren't even related to conservation and ecology such as "Which Fungi gives people hallucinations?" Overall the worst class I have taken at UVA, not because of difficulty but because it was so painstakingly boring and unrelated to ecology. I learned negative information

Professor Lerdau is hands down the laziest teacher I've encountered at the University.

Although this is supposed to be a simple ecology class, he complicates things with connections out of the scope of the class. There is no textbook, and his powerpoint slides really have no content. So all my notes consisted of hanging onto his every word in class - pretty pointless in the long run. Going to office hours is a waste of time. He is painfully condescending, most likely to chase away students, and isn't even attentive.

It took over a month to return our midterms back - about a week before finals, and his grading was subjective and unreasonable. I mean, the guy graded my test with a freaking crayon. He likes to mark everyone down/up to maintain a test average to work out better for his curve. (I still don't know how helpful this is to students.)

I had high hopes for this class, because the reviews were so positive. But I guess the professor really does make or break this class - and Lerdau made it awful. Don't take EVSC 2220 with him!

Do not take this class with Prof Lerdau. He is not an engaging lecturer. He explains simple concepts in the most confusing way possible. His powerpoint slides are very minimal and do not aid studying whatsoever. The class jumped around topics like economics, physics, chemistry, history, politics, however Lerdau was not very good at explaining the connections. Things hardly ever made sense. Going to his office hours are not helpful either. He is snarky and very disrespectful of student's time. On more than one occassion I waited for 30mins -1 hr while he was on the phone/in a meeting (during his scheduled office hours). His disorganized lectures reflect his personality. It took over month to get our midterms back. I found out my midterm grade a week and half before the final.
The only good thing about this class is that Prof Lerdau says there will be no exam questions on the readings, so after the first couple weeks I stopped doing them and still did fine on the tests. This class wasn't too difficult, but I dreaded going to it and would not recommend. (I've heard it's a fun class with other professors though!)

I haven't finished the semester yet with Lerdau, but so far I'm really unimpressed. Only two exams so you don't know what you know and what you don't. Lecture style is boring and pedantic. Changes simplistic slides once every 30 mins or so. Will update towards the end of the semester, but so far I'm pretty unimpressed.