Reviews of professor Michael Harwich

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Hands down the worst professor I have had at UR. The workload is unreasonable and his expectations are too high. The majority of the class dropped within the first few weeks of school and I wish I had done the same. Consistently runs over lecture time and doesn't do a great job of teaching. This class is a semester of work alone. Do not take.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Harwich really makes you work for every point that you get. This class is tough if you don't come in with prior biology knowledge. It is not impossible to catch up to the class if you haven't, but you have to work for it. This class is extremely lecture-heavy and quick-moving. The lab is incredibly simple and he does a great job teaching lab.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Harwich may have started off in a rough spot at UR, but he has absolutely improved his BIOL199. His lectures are information-heavy, but the tradeoff there is that his tests are mainly, if not completely, based off of the powerpoints and require little to no supplementation from videos/the textbook. I'd absolutely take his classes again.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
I've only had him for a few weeks but he's already made his mark as one of the worst profs I've had at UR. His expectations for our prior knowledge and workload are so unreasonable that 1/3 of the class had already dropped within 2 weeks. His lab is bad, his lecture is bad, and the workload for his class is extremely unreasonable. Overall awful.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I think Harwich has gotten an undeserved bad rap on here. He's new at the school, and from what I've heard, his teaching style and its application to Richmond's culture specifically has gotten a lot better since early on. I'd call it the same difficulty as most 300 bio classes at UR.