Lema, Sean  

Well he is obviously very knowledgeable of the subject he taught this bio 100 series class as if we were all advanced molecular science majors when the class is intended as entry level foundation class. Tests and labs where incredibly difficult requiring advance knowledge of the subject. This being the first time he taught the class, I don't think he figured out that he was teaching and testing at levels beyond many of his students until the final when he did curve the grades. Because he did not curve the midterms it was too little too late. Avoid him for intro level bio classes.

Professor Lema is a smart guy, and he knows his material. His lectures tended to be on the drier side, but it is kind of expected when the subject is molecular biology. The tests are very straightforward and are based on material presented in lecture so make sure to pay attention.

Dr. Lema is an incredible lecturer! He presents class material very well and genuinely cares about his students' successes. He is very approachable and will answer all questions to the best of his ability. I highly recommend taking a class from Dr. Lema, and I really hope I'm able to take one from him again soon!

Dr. Lema is one of the best biology teachers I have ever had. He is very personable and constantly adds additional office hours to help his students. He presents info in very clear ways and will reiterate important themes and concepts multiple times until his students understand the material. Genuinely cares about his students and wants them to succeed. Very friendly and knowledgeable. Would definitely recommend Lema!

Dr. Lema is amazing! I had his Bio 161 course my first quarter ever at Cal Poly. I was terrified. His grading policy scared me more than anything, as his class is predominantly based on your grades on the midterm and final. But do not fear! His exams are not too bad as long as you study and GO TO LECTURE. Seriously, so many people never went to his lectures because he "just repeats what is in the book", but seriously, would you rather listen to an enthusiastic professor for 3 hours a week, or read the monster of a book that is the textbook? My class was a mix of bio and non-bio majors, and I was admittedly annoyed by some of the questions that people would ask, especially when it was something that had just been on a slide a moment prior. It's basically AP Bio all over again, so if you took that in high school, you should be fine. If not, you'll probably need to study a little bit more. Dr. Lema would always do his best to answer any questions, and often had some pretty interesting stuff to say, but then we would run out of time and the lectures would be rushed, with some pieces cut out entirely. The exams require you to know your material cold so that you can turn around and do some pretty cool interpretations. His exams don't have simple questions like "What is the function of a lysosome?" or "What is a codominance?", but instead require you to use the knowledge of these answers and apply them to more specific instances. They're sometimes trickier because of this, but oftentimes it allows you to reason your way through it more. The lab for 161 is terrible and boring, but there's not much you can do about that.

I LOVED professor Lema. He is one of the only professors I have had at Cal Poly and he is so stoked about bio, which makes me stoked about bio. He is very knowledgable and his tests are formatted off of his lectures. In lecture, there are only mastering bio assignments (8), and while these may help some people, they are actually very easy to look up the answers to online if you need help. This being said, don't worry about spending TOO much time on hw assignments, his lectures are helpful for review and he is a lot of help in office hours.

I'll be honest, I hardly ever showed up to lecture for this class. However, at the lectures I did attend, Professor Lema appeared to be a comprehensive, smart, and understanding teacher. He makes his way through powerpoints at a good pace and explains tough concepts very well. Attendance is not taken (obviously or there'd be no way for me to get a B) and the Mastering Bio assignments are essentially a free midterm A (they're weighted the same as one midterm). The final is fairly tough but a week of studying netted me an 80%. Try and do well in the lab (25% of the course) to give your grade a cushion if you aren't a great test taker. He also looks like a mix of Kevin Spacey and Tony Hale, so that's something.

Sean is wonderful. He's an engaging lecturer and cares so much about the success of his students. He'll start the quarter as a hardass, claiming that 20% of the class will fail. However, he's so, so helpful in office hours and will explain something 100 different ways until you understand. Also, his midterms/final are all multiple choice, which is nice. Take Sean's class! You won't regret it.

Lema is a great professor. He presented the material clearly, and recognized which topics were difficult and made sure he spent a lot of time on those topics. The only assignments he gave were weekly Mastering Bio assignments, which were very helpful in making sure you kept up with the material. The exams were predictable, and he posted a list of objectives and vocabulary every week. If you had these objectives and vocabulary down, the test questions weren't a surprise. There were definitely some difficult application questions, but if you understood the material thoroughly they weren't too bad. My only issue is that he doesn't make himself very available. Every time I went to office hours, he was always late (or sometimes didn't even show up). However, when he showed up, he was super helpful and really wanted you to understand the material. Overall, take Lema if you can!

His powerpoints are pretty much everything you need to know! Just make sure you go to class and take really good notes of everything he says that is NOT on the powerpoint. If you are still confused on the material read the chapters in the book. Overall he is really nice and you can approach him anytime for help.

Prof Lema is a nice guy, but his lectures were one of the biggest wastes of my time ever. He makes powerpoints and then reads off of them most of the lecture, and then posts them on polylearn making it hard to find the motivation to even attend class. There are occassional in class pop attendance quizzes, two midterms and a final. The midterm questions often had multiple correct answer choices and were wordy, and when I went into office hours he agreed with how my answer was correct but still wouldn't give me credit for it. I'm not sure if it was because of the topic or the teacher, but I feel i really didn't learn anything new in this bio class. His tests however are straight from the powerpoint so if you study the powerpoints (don't even bother reading the book) then you should go in to the test with a good chance of a solid grade.

He's pretty boring, and you don't learn as much as you would with another professor, but the stuff that he covers is really all you need anyway. Go to lectures, take good notes, and get the free participation points, and you should do fine. He's really good in office hours if you can get there before the line is too long. Textbook not required.

I really liked Dr. Lema! He always was so willing to help and made things easy to understand. Going into his office ours helped so much because it was good to just talk out the content with him. He is also really interested in the material, so that made the class a lot better. Loved having him as a teacher!

Dr. Lema is so cool. He has a witty sense of humor that made lectures interesting. He supplements his powerpoints with relevant films and videos. The powerpoints are very informative and easy to understand. Sometimes Dr. Lema would talk about his research which was really really fascinating. Favorite Bio teacher at Poly!

Dr. Lema's lectures are AWESOME! He's funny, and brings in cool examples that make lecture fun. He knows a lot and clearly stays upto date in the field with an active research lab. Definitely the best BIO 263 instructor at CalPoly. Take his section if you can get into it.

Great teacher especially if you are able to take him for the 161-263 series. Great explanations in office hours. Make sure to study formulas

Professor Lema is the sweetest guy ever. Our lecture was filled with tons of examples that explained concepts he was teaching, which made evolution and ecology a bit more interesting. His tests can be tricky because they are all application based questions rather than straight fact memorization and regurgitation, which a lot of bio majors are used to. Overall, not too difficult of a class and Lema is very very nice. I would definitely recommend.

Dr. Lema is awesome and you can tell that he is really passionate about what he is teaching, especially when he uses his research as examples in concepts such as conservation biology. He presents the material very clearly and I loved his class. I recommend his class wholeheartedly, he's very nice and great at what he does.

Absolutely LOVE Lema. Such a cool guy & really knows what he's talking about. He doesn't take himself too seriously, either, which makes the class so much more enjoyable. Overall, he's such a low key dude, makes his tests EXACTLY from the lecture notes, and always makes his class interesting by using relevant examples and videos. Nothing bad to say about this guy!

Not a good class. Lectures are nothing like exam, and there is no supplemental instruction. I can't imagine how you can get an A without prior knowledge. It is not difficult material at all. Lema makes it difficult because there is very little correlation to his lectures. The amount of time you study will do nothing for you since you can prepare for the questions he will give. Opt for a different professor if you can.

Easily the best teacher I've ever had. He is kind, understanding, and a kickass lecturer. His lectures are interesting and and very well organized. The tests are hard because they are multiple choice application type questions, but the class itself is pretty easy. The lab is totally unnecessary though and hardly related to lecture. I have so much respect for Dr. Lema because he is not only intelligent but very real with the whole class. He will randomly through in some life advice, like how he thinks we should take a nap or go surf instead of study

As a professor Lema is just ok. He’s definitely a nice guy and pretty approachable but his lectures and tests just never seemed to perfectly match up. I really appreciate that he says he doesn’t really use the textbook (and pretty much everything is covered in lecture) however, some of his test questions are directly from the textbook and/or were never covered at all—but assumably were covered in previous years. The most frustrating part of these questions though is that they are TINY detail questions. Overall he’s still a good teacher and the class is ok.

PRofessor Lema was awesome. Strongly recommend taking this or any other class with him. His class is organized, and he's funny. Always adding examples that are amazing! I learned more from Dr. Lema then from any other BIO class so far. He'll answer just about any question that you ask, and knows so much about so many areas of biology. He's also really nice if you talk to him in office hours. Really. Take this class from Professor Lema.

Lectures do not match tests and he does many trick questions!

'Marine Ecology' has gotto be the best course at CalPoly. It fills quickly, but you should DEFINITELY take this course if you can get into it during enrollment. The labs are 6 hours each friday, which makes the course hard to fit into your schedule, but the time goes by quickly because the labs are so AWESOME. You spend most weeks inthe field observing and measuring marine organisms, and you get a great experience into exactly what its like to be a marine biology. Take this course if you can get into it!

BIO 328 is probably going to be the BEST course you take at Calpoly. It's not easy and the labs last for 6 hours each Friday, but it's worth it. Dr. Lema really places a lot of emphasis on learning by doing in this course, and you will spend almost every week outside working in ocean habitats near SLO. Some labs even have you on a boat learning ecological sampling methods. How awesome is that? This class fills really quickly (you will need to take a priority to get a spot), but it's going to be one of your best class experiences here at Calpoly. Take this class with Dr. Lema if you can!

Okay so I took marine ecology because I thought it would be a fun and somewhat easy way to fulfill my ecology requirement. I was so wrong! This class was unesseceraily difficult. The midterms were so hard and nobody gives a crap about fish. Avoid this class at all costs! Lema sems nice but is a terrible teacher and a dick when it comes to grading fairly.

I took Dr. Lema for the first time my last quarter at Cal Poly, and it turns out he is one of my favorite professors! He is highly enthusiastic, fun, and cares about his students. He presents the material extremely clearly and goes at a good pace. However, his tests are hard. I did very poorly on the first one, so studied a ton for the midterm and final. My hard work paid off as I ended up doing much better on these. He posts study guides ahead of time, which I highly recommend doing. Also, do the online reading! He didn't test us on it on the first midterm, but he did on the second and a number of people got screwed over because they hadn't done the reading. Overall, an amazing professor!

I've had Dr. Lema for Bio 161, 263, and 328. Marine Ecology was the first class where the subject material was engaging. 161, and 263 were part of the required series. They were very straight forward courses. 328 was a semi-difficult class purely because we spent 6 hours in lab, and 2 hours in lecture a week. A lot of the lecture you had to dig into on your own, or remember during the lab. The individual who wrote that 328 was boring, and Lema was hard. Well I know exactly who that was in that class. That student did not connect well with the material. This class is amazing and I highly recommend it.

Dr. Lema is straight up one of the best professors at CP. He doesn't force you to memorize inane things for the tests, nor does he write test questions designed to trick you (at least not on purpose - there were a few really confusing questions, but he always acknowledged that they were unfair after the test and gave everyone credit for them). Of all the professors I've had, he seems the most interested in what he's teaching. He just has this amazing way of connecting the material to you and getting you really interested. He inspired me so much the first time I had him for 263 that I signed up to do lab work with him and took 328 with him. I honestly cannot speak enough praise about this guy! Now, onto the class. Oh. My. God. It is amazing! If you're the type of person that enjoys nature documentaries this class is like porn. The lectures were all fascinating, and he never rushed through them. He wasn't afraid to delay a new lecture because we still hadn't finished the old one. You could tell he really wanted us to learn as much as we could. And don't even get me started on the field trips! Every Friday you're at the Cal Poly pier, Morro Bay, or even the Monteray Bay Aquarium! It was a total blast, yet still informative. Seriously if you get the chance to take Marine Eco with Lema, do not hesitate for one single second!

By far the least interesting BIO professor I've had. Would not recommend.

Marine Ecology is without doubt my FAVORITE course that i've taken at Cal Poly! Its what I thought college would be like for other courses too...but isn't. You spend each Friday lab in marine habitat around SLO learning sampling methods and collecting animals. The trip to MBARI and Monterey was so much fun...it's changed what I want to do when I graduate. Definitely take this class with Dr. Lema if you can get into it. It will be one of the most fun classes that you take at Cal Poly.

I learned that if I were to take up hunting, I should shoot deer, not bears, because a bear will hunt me back if I successfully wound it. Fascinating! I didnt know that the key to production and operations management was so brutally simple!