Lema, Kristin Hardy  

This has been the most disorganized class I have taken at Cal Poly. I understand that Dr. Hardy was asked to teach BIO 231 last minute, but I do not think that justified the way she butchered the class. From day one, she was extremely unorganized and unclear on how the class would go for the quarter. She started with using another professor's exams and lecture slides and then randomly started switching things over to her own material. Halfway through the quarter she decided to completely re-do all the lecture notes (last minute, might I add, literally hours before class started she would alter the lecture notes in some way, so if you printed out the slides, you had the wrong information). In addition, our second midterm was NOTHING like the first. She made it at least twice as hard as the first, with a totally different question and testing style. Dr. Hardy does not know how to teach a 200 level Anatomy class, lets just say that.

DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. Hardy is unorganized and unrealistic with the information she teaches and what she expects you to learn in this class. She will emphasize information during lecture that she ends up not even putting on the test, and will test you on information she barely glosses over. She was originally using Shields’ lecture slides, and then about a month into the quarter decided to make her own lecture slides which were very disorganized and made no sense at all. Everyone bombed the second midterm because she decided to write it. She told us she was going to "make the final easier", and it ended up being way harder than anything we had covered in the class. Not only that, but she made at least 10 huge errors on the final. She kept having to correct mistakes she had made on it while we were taking the exam, and it was very obvious she didn't proofread it at all. If you take this class and get her as your teacher, either drop it or switch to Shields because Hardy is a horrible teacher.

Going into BIO231, I heard it would be a hard & time consuming class that requires straight memorization. During her first lecture, Dr. Hardy-Lema told us that she was used to teaching 400 level courses and that this was her first time teaching BIO231, and because of this she would be going off of Dr. Shields course material. Dr. Shields' material was easy to understand and learn from, organized, and straight forward. After the first midterm Dr. Hardy-Lema decided to switch things up and started using her own materials. The new notes were extremely extensive, confusing, and oftentimes disorganized. When anyone would ask her what we should focus on for the test, she'd simply state "all of it" and by no means was she joking. The second midterm was COMPLETELY different from the first (format, question style, types of questions asked, length, etc.) and 10x harder. The final followed this trend and was once again very hard. The tests focused on the smaller/deeper details, requiring you to fully understand the topic and its relation to other topics, rather than just a general overview of both. Study guides weren't very helpful. This is a class that students from every major seemed to struggle with. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Hardy-Lema in the sense that she is very knowledgable and stands her ground (not changing people's grades, staying true to her word, etc.), but I don't think she is suited to be teaching a 200 level anatomy class to students who may have no prior background on the subject at all. I will most likely retake this class in the future, but not again with Dr. Hardy-Lema. Anatomy is a very important topic, but I think you'll spend more time stressing about passing this class than enjoying and fully learning about the human body.

Dr. Hardy is one of the best professors I have ever had. I had her as a lab instructor for BIO231 and she was incredible! She is very personable and wants to get to know you. On the first day of class she comes around to write down your name with the correct seat and asks what you want to do with your major. Not a lot of other professors care what you want to do and don't care about you as a person. She understands you are in other classes but helps you focus on the tasks at hand. She will come around the class whenever you need her to clarify a question during a quiz/practical and during lecture part of the lab is very, very knowledgeable. She has tricks for remembering things and will individually demonstrate dissections and point on each structure in small groups so you can learn it better. 100% take her if you have the chance. She is so smart, funny, and an awesome professor/person.

Honestly the best lab instructor that I've had here at Poly. Apparently there was a lot of problems when she taught the lecture for this class but don't let that steer you away from taking her for lab. She gives you a lot of freedom during the labs and lets you work at your own pace. Also she's extremely approachable and will help you through any problems that you might have with the material. As long as you actually do the labs (which aren't collected the majority of the time) this will be one of the more enjoyable lab experiences you'll have.

I think everyone has a mini-crush on Dr. Hardy after the first day with her accent and all. But after experiencing her lectures and in office hours, I was not impressed. She has memorized every single line in her powerpoints which is cool at first until you realize she will not add any interesting facts, stories, analogies or other tools to help us engage in the material and better understand it. That makes the lectures kind of dull and not original. I realized half-way through the year I was better off with the book. She also talks down to you have gotten bad grades in the past and those on her good side are those who compliment her and ask about her life to no end (which wastes time in office hours). I will say she is an incredibly difficult but amazing lab teacher. You can tell that is her thing and she takes the time for us to understand how to write a lab report! So overall, she can be a bit crazy sometimes and annoying but if you work hard I can guarantee you will be well prepared for Bio 432 and beyond.

Dr. Hardy was a great professor. She is extremely helpful in both lecture and lab. If you don't understand something is more than willing to reexplain things. We had some overtly annoying students my quarter in the lecture and she was very patient and handled that situation well too. You should definitely try to take a class with Dr. Hardy before leaving Cal Poly.

This is the worst bio professor I've ever had. She doesn't care about her students. A very selfish lady who wont budge on any aspect of the class no matter how bad

Professor Hardy does not fuck around. She's a relatively good professor, but do not expect to slack off in this class. Her exams are very detailed and require a lot of studying. Best advice: do really well on the pre- and post-lab quizzes to keep your grade up in case the midterms lower your grade. Only con is that she has questions on the midterm that EVERY QUARTER students get wrong, yet she keeps them on there. Most professors would either change the question or teach the material differently, but she's too stubborn.

This class was extremely difficult. The content in itself was dense but not terrible, however, Hardy made this class hell. There are lecture exams, and we had one lecture quiz, but for lab, there is a pre and post lab quiz every week. The prelab quiz is basically free points if you study the lab. It is online, and timed (about 50 seconds per question). If you prepare, you’ll be fine. On the other hand, the post lab quizzes are hard. There will be troubleshooting questions and hypothetical questions that will fully test your understanding of the lab. The average on most of these quizzes was a C, and as many of the students in this course are pre-med, they are smart and hard working which still resulted in a C average. If you want to do well on these, plan on spending a couple hours a week just for the post lab quiz. Exams are multiple choice and short answer. The multiple choice are tricky, just her wording in itself (she sees them as being straight forward). She will provide a very subtle piece of information in the question that will change the answer from what most would look at as a straight forward, test your knowledge question. Lastly, even for questions that SHE ADMITTS were unclear, she would often respond, “You are right…that should have been worded differently. I’ll be sure and change that for next time, but I am not giving any points back…” I feel like that sums up her personality. Also, when our class did study a lot and do well, and the average class grade (not test grade) went to 80%, she did her best to bring that down by increasing the course difficulty even beyond where it was. She claimed her job was to have an average of 75%. I personally would not recommend her. She can teach, but she often had a rude, egotistical attitude that made every class a struggle.

Ok all, Dr. Hardy is an amazing teacher! Don't let all of the crappy 200 level reviews stop you from taking this class, because it rocks! Her tests are completely fair and comprehensive, usually a mix of multiple choice and short answer. Yes nobody holds your hand and gives you a list of all the material you need to know... because of course you should know everything from lecture thats a given. If you are confused, she is extremely helpful in her office hours, and if she realizes topics are too confusing or unclear she will clarify the simpler details you need to know on that specific topic. She is also super fun, and loves to get her know her students, which is a great asset in a teacher. Last, she is soooo smart; you will learn a lot and enjoy it! Take this class with Hardy, you wont regret it.

Dr. Hardy is awesome. Everyone should ignore all of the BIO 231 reviews. Those reviews are from non-majors taking an anatomy and physiology course because they need it for transcripts to get into graduate school and they are upset by the fact that A&P is innately challenging and Dr. Hardy doesn't cut corners to make it easier for them. Dr. Hardy is an amazing professor who wants everyone to learn as much as possible. She understands that the point of upper division BIO classes is to prepare us for our next step, whether that be in academia or the workforce. She is very knowledgeable and super helpful, as long as you are willing to ask for help. Her lectures are very informative and entertaining with interactive learning for difficult topics. She assigns work that is appropriately challenging and very related to the topic at hand. Her tests are hard, but fair. She includes all topics covered in lecture on the test so you never have to face a situation in which you study one topic really hard and it doesn't show up on the exam. She is genuine and straight-forward. She's an awesome professor!

This class is hard BUT Dr. Hardy makes it worthwhile. All of the information learned in muscles and locomotion will help prepare you for any medical career you are interested in. It's so important to understand how the body works, and the skeletal and muscle systems are a huge part of that. Although I found the information challenging, I found Dr. Hardy to be very helpful. She expects a lot of her students, but she is totally there for you if you need her. Her lectures are intriguing, informative, and interactive where appropriate. Her tests cover all of the material presented, but are absolutely fair. I am so glad I took this class with Dr. Hardy.

Really fun and informative class. She presents the material well and the tests are graded fairly. I'd recommend her to anyone pursuing a medical career.

All of the people on here that are complaining because they didn't do so well is lame. Dr Hardy is a great prof and if you have a chance you should take her! She is a great lecturer and posts her powerpoints before class (so print them out). She doesn't go that fast and if she gets stuck on something or gets something mixed up she will correct herself and then won't expect you to have it memorized for the tests. Her tests are fair (example based questions are common) but not easy. So if you want to actually learn the muscles (only the really important ones) and bones take a good prof!!! I took this class before taking the other physiology classes and I thought it was a great foundation for my knowledge. My only critique is that while she is very friendly and approachable if you ask her a question or about something and your wrong she shuts you down. Like before you even finish your sentence she's like "no, no, no ...etc" but don't be offended by this! she does it to everyone and isn't mad etc she just wants to make sure you understand everything correctly.

Dr. Hardy is hands down the best BIO professor I have had at Cal Poly. She is extremely knowledgeable as well as is able to present the material clearly. While the material is innately challenging, her tests are fair. The learning objectives she posts serve as an excellent study guide for her tests, although it is important not to rely on them entirely. One thing I really respect about Dr. Hardy is that if she is unsure of the answer to a particular question, she won't just give you a BS answer. She'll write the question down, refer to the primary literature between lectures, and inform us of her findings at the next lecture. As others have mentioned, Muscles & Locomotion is a great foundational course in A&P, and Dr. Hardy tailors this course to really benefit those interested in a career in medicine. It is clear that Dr. Hardy really cares about her students; I am so glad I took this class and recommend it to anyone interested.

This was the hardest class i've taken at poly. she grades lab reports extremely harshly but ironically provides no guidance whatsoever or any background on how to perform the statistical tests, what we should be looking for, or how to analyze the data. In lecture she talks way to fast, includes tons of random terms that she may or may not expect you to know, and gives very little emphasis on things that may be important. she has unreasonable expectations about the amount of knowledge you should have of physiology, chemistry, biology, and everything going into the class, and has high expectations about what you need to know for her exams, especially considering her lecturing ability is sub par

Dr. Hardy is an awesome professor! I had no idea what to expect from an environmental physiology class, but I wanted to try something a bit different than the typical A&P concentration classes. I am so glad I did! This class was super cool! We covered the physiology of a bunch of different animals an how they survive in their specific environments. It was the perfect class for both ecologists and physiologists alike. Dr. Hardy was super engaging and helped us work through topics we struggled with, just show up to office hours if you need more help. She is a super cool person, very helpful. Her tests were well rounded and covered what was taught in class. Even though topics were challenging, I feel like I gained so much perspective from this class. I highly recommend Dr. Hardy and this course!

Dr. Hardy was a good professor, and I would recommend taking this class. I took Bio 434 as my physiology/anatomy elective, which was a good decision because I don't know anything about anatomy and would have failed the regular class. The lecture is interesting, though you have to pay attention and write down things that she says as well as things that she writes on the board because sometimes she will mention something that will be on the test. There were two noncumulative midterms and a noncumulative final, and to study I would recommend focusing on the important numbers that are mentioned on the slides as well as being able to draw the diagrams/graphs from memory. I tanked the first midterm because it was different than other bio classes, like there being some fill-in-the blanks for not only terminology but also random number values. However, once I knew how to study I got an A on the next two tests. For the lab we mostly just performed experiments and then wrote lab reports. I would definitely recommend going into office hours to ask about your report, otherwise you will do terribly on it. She doesn't specify really what to put on there so office hours really helped.

Dr. Hardy was one of my favorite professors I've had at cal poly. She packs lectures full of information but as long as you print out the slides you will be able to keep up fine. To study for tests I just re-wrote my notes and did relatively good (high Bs). The lab was dynamic and fun, we planned all of our own experiments along the parameters of the tools and time available to us and it felt like we were doing real science instead of planned experiments from a manual. Dr. Hardy comes off as a strict professor and she wont take any bullshit excuses from anyone. She values students who participate and work hard and if you do that you will be fine. I learned so much about the world around me during this course, 10/10 would recommend.

he sure does like his women, wet!!