Reviews of professor Vankatesh Balan

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
He is very knowledgeable in his field, but is not very good at teaching it. He managed to take my favorite subject and make it boring. His class is disorganized and tests are a mess with tons of spelling errors. When you ask questions, he's not good at answering them or not making you feel dumb. He listens though and took our advice on things.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
He is very good at putting all the information you need to know for tests on the powerpoint, you need to put forth the effort to learn in his class and you will do fine. Take advantage of all the extra credit and his tests are a lot of memorization but if you pay attention during lectures you will do fine.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
He is extremely good at what he does as a researcher, but as far as teaching its pretty much rock bottom. Dont expect to learn anything from lectures and his test are a train wreak with spelling errors and typos. Please, just dont. Are negative ratings possible?

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Isnt good at teaching the material in lecture. I bought the recommended textbook (not required and it was like $3) and it does help a lot in understanding the concept of the lectures and connecting things, whereas he doesnt, but still go to lecture!

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
There are no other words to say but absolutely terrible. I hope the UH Biotechnology Department investigates him as he clearly treats students unfairly and has been very disrespectful to myself and my peers. For any class you have with him, make sure you do well on your homework and quizzes because the exams will be tough. Sorry you have to suffer.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Isnt very good. If possible I strongly recommend taking someone else. The class is pretty hard. Point based. Just show up and study as much as you can.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Unorganized with everything, does not know how to teach, tests are all memorized, test reviews are nothing, set the expectation to yourself that you will not only teach yourself but do everything yourself. His class makes me want to change my major. He is a trainwreck and you have to be on that train with him.