Western Kentucky University / S / Nilesh C. Sharma
Averages:
Overall Rating
Poorv
Grade Received
Bv
Course Difficulty
Moderatev
Quantity of Notes
Overkillv
Tag Summary:
True/False: 19
Multiple Choice: 30
Matching: 5
Fill in the Blank: 2
Essays: 1
Mandatory Final: 28
Cumulative Final: 22
Textbook Required: 13
Extra Credit: 11
Attendance Required: 8
31 Total Evaluations
BIOL-207 : Gen Microbiology - Posted 1/16/2013
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
This class consists of clicker questions every day and three exams and one final exam, cumulative final. He posts powerpoints which helps with the clicker questions each day and really help with the exams. Each exam is online and you get two attempts.
BIOL-100 : - Posted 5/17/2012
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
Not Specified
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
You can't understand a word he's saying. If u like online tests take him, the only in class test u have is the final and its hard. You never have to go to class. But u learn nothing in class. I recommend u take other bio 100 teacher
BIOL- : Microbiology - Posted 3/22/2012
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Few/None
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
Dr. Sharma is a horrible teacher. He will not help you at all. If you ask him specific questions he won't answer them and then make you feel stupid. He also yells at people during lab. If you need to take Microbiology I recommend you find another teacher.
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 2/25/2012
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
C
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
This teacher is very hard to understand. He has power points for every class and posts them online. Every test is online except the final. On the days of tests you won't have class.
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 2/13/2012
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
This guy is an idiot! He can barely speak english. If you ask a question then be prepared to get a completly out of conext answer due to his failure to understand english. Extra credit consist of getting up in front of the class and talk for 5 to 10 minutes about what you learned. The notes are unbarable and the slides that he uses are not put together well (run on sentences are 3 bulleted items). He does make the class easier by allowing you to take the exams online at home with a 24 hour window.
BIOL-207 : Microbiology - Posted 1/27/2012
Overall Rating:
Good
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Few/None
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
I liked Dr. Sharma. i heard some bad and some good about him. he was really a good teacher though. he's from india so he does have an accent but you get used to it. you take his exams online and have one retake a piece. i got an A because i printed my results then looked up the answers and took it again. take sharma, easy A
BIOL-112 : General Biology - Posted 1/19/2012
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
This class is too easy, he takes all the questions on the tests from the powerpoints from class, also he puts all the powerpoints online. Attendance isnt mandatory but we have "clicker" questions everyday that you have to be present for to receive points that impact your grade. Plus his accent is terribly thick and almost impossible to understand. Overall its an easy class but not the most effective teacher.
BIOL-499 : Plants As Alt. Therapuetics - Posted 8/1/2011
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
Not Specified
Quantity of Notes:
Few/None
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Web course with very specific final and a required paper 10-15 page research paper. Two tests before are open for mult. takes.
BIOL-113 : Biology - Posted 1/14/2011
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
C
Quantity of Notes:
Few/None
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
Sharma is hard to understand. His exams are all online except the final. The final is cumulative, you will have to study all of your notes again, just to pass the final. take someone else
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 12/18/2010
Overall Rating:
Good
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
This class is a little tricky. Make sure you pay attention to wording on the in class questions and that your clicker is actually working; the clicker questions count for a decent portion of your grade. You can take the test up to 3 times and they're online. Make sure you study for the final
BIOL-207 : Microbiology For The Health Science - Posted 5/12/2010
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
Not Specified
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Dr.Sharma is not a good teacher at all. He is very hard to understand, and he does not explain things clearly. He basically just reads off the power point. His test are multiple choice which were extremely confusing at times. He also takes attendance by doing clickers. he is a really mean about clickers by not giving people enough time or by insulting the class if they don't get 100 %. He is also the biggest D -bags that I have ever met on this campus. I asked him one question nicely by email and he just showed me his true colors by being a smart ass. a professors job is to instruct students on certain material and make sure they under stand it, not belittle them. take someone else if you have the opportunity.
BIOL-208 : Micorbiology Lab - Posted 5/4/2010
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
Dr. Sharma is not a good teacher at all. He is very hard to understand, and he does not explain things clearly. Even after I asked him questions, I still didn't understand many of the concepts. The tests are incredibly difficult for a 200-level lab course. Even if you study in depth, the exam questions are tricky. Many times the questions require you to look at pictures that are very small (2"x2") and very poor quality. Even when I understood concepts, the poor quality of the pictures caused me to miss several questions. Furthermore, Dr. Sharma did not tell us that practice exams were available for the exams. I was only able to get a practice exam for 1 test because I did not know about them. I would recommend taking someone else for this lab if at all possible.
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 4/26/2010
Overall Rating:
Good
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
This was an extremely easy Biology class. I do not like Biology at all, but Dr. Sharma made it interesting. Half of the people never showed up for class. He puts all the powerpoints on Blackboard which is very helpful. Kind of difficult to understand, but overall I would totally take Dr. Sharma again. He's GREAT!
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 1/12/2010
Overall Rating:
Good
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
This class was easy. He doesnt take attendance and he puts all the notes on blackboard. The syllabus you have to buy the required book, but I didnt use it once. The notes are powerpoints and made me fall asleep when I did attend class. He posts the quizes on blackboard and u can take it as many times as needed. He announces when the tests are on blackboard and you have to buy the scantrons for that. He is funny and I would take him again!
BIOL-113 : - Posted 1/4/2010
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Few/None
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
This class is crazy easy. I would have had an A if I would have remembered to take the last quiz. There are about 10'ish quizes that are on blackboard. There are 4 or so test... if you look over the powerpoints he posts on blackboard and actually understand what the words mean then you will do great. I literally went to less than 75% of the classes... he does not take attendance and everything goes to blackboard but the tests. Study hard the night before and you'll be fine. Oh, his accent is HORRIBLE!
(P.S. If you are no good at Biology at all, as in you don't know what ATP or Evolution is then I suggest that YOU go to class. If you are not ignorant then you'll do fine.)
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 12/22/2009
Overall Rating:
Good
Grade:
Not Specified
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
I have heard a lot of different accents and Dr. Sharma's is one of the ones I can understand pretty well. This teacher is one you need to take if you need BIO and hate science because his questions on the tests are pretty easy, if you study. Plus, you get 10 quizzes on blackboard you can take multiple times.
BIOL-113 : Biology - Posted 12/18/2009
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Dr. Sharma has a very thick accent making him difficult to understand when he lectures. He reads off of power points and posts them on blackboard so you can download them and read them later. Attendance is not mandatory and it doesn't affect your grade. His tests are 50 questions all multiple choice and they are manageable. Dr. Sharma is a decent teacher but he is too difficult and dry to understand.
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 12/17/2009
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
I will make the note that Dr. Sharma is from India and does have an accent but you can understand him just fine. His class was relatively easy. He puts all of his notes on blackboard and i actually understood the material more from the notes then when i attended class. You really dont need the book. You have 10 quizzes in which you can take multiple times, and 4 exams (including the final) and he drops the lowest of those. I would recommend Dr. Sharma to anyone trying to get Bio out of the way.
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 12/13/2009
Overall Rating:
Good
Grade:
A
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
I've taken a lot of Biology classes in my life, especially in high school, and I've had quite a few teachers. Having said that, Nilesh Sharma is one of the best, most passionate biology teachers I've ever had. He is democratically open to any comments or questions and efficiently answers them completely. He teaches the material better than you can imagine and he is always open to work with his students. He's understanding and irrefutably intelligent. I will be taking any class he offers!
BIOL- : - Posted 12/13/2009
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
Not Specified
Quantity of Notes:
Not Specified
Difficulty:
Not Specified
Comments
This class is the worse class that I have ever took at Western. He is a really nice guy but very hard to understand. He has a heavy heavy indian accent, which means you have to take most of class trying to figure out what he is saying and not focusing on what he is talking about for the test. His test arent to bad if you study, but they arent over his notes at all. Just DONT take this class!
BSL- : Microbiology - Posted 6/29/2009
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Not Specified
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Dr. Sharma is a very smart man that knows his subject area thoroughly, however he is not a good teacher. He has a thick accent that is hard to understand at times. He is also very impatient when students have questions about the subject matter. I struggled in his lecture class, yet I got an "A" in the lab portion of microbiology. I feel that I could have done much better in the coarse under the instruction of a better teacher.
BIOL- : Micro Biology - Posted 6/29/2009
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
D
Quantity of Notes:
Not Specified
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Dr. Sharma is a very smart man that knows his subject area thoroughly, however he is not a good teacher. He has a thick accent that is hard to understand at times. He is also very impatient when students have questions about the subject matter. I struggled in his lecture class, yet I got an "A" in the lab portion of microbiology. I feel that I could have done much better in the coarse under the instruction of a better teacher.
BIOL-207 : Microbiology - Posted 5/14/2009
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
C
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
This is the worst class ever, despite the fact that I can't understand him. Going to class is pointless. Read the book on the chapter he covers, thats the only way i passed because his powerpoints are pretty much useless! He has tricky questions on all the tests. He is a totally smartass when you ask him a question because he says he just covered it. So don't ask, cause you will feel stupid. Take someone else besides him!
BIOL-207 : Microbiology - Posted 1/22/2008
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Before I took this class, I heard a lot of people say that Dr. Sharma is hard to understand. That part of the class really isn't that bad, if you pay attention, you can understand him. The part that I found hard was that there were always 5 or 6 questions on the test that I didn't know where the heck they came from. There was nothing about them in our notes and nothing mentioned in lecture. It was almost like you were guaranteed to miss at least 3 unless you guess right. Also, he gets frustrated and defensive fairly easily if you ask him a question more than once. I'd say definitely take him over Doerner, but don't take the class at all if you don't have to.
BIOL-113 : Biology - Posted 12/16/2007
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
C
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
All right, unless you can stand accents and can understand them very well, I really suggest you do not take this guy. It was just so hard to understand him and I even sat towards the front. He puts his power points on blackboard and it's where most of the questions on tests come from. I didn't even open the book once, so I wouldn't bother buying it. You don't really even have to come to class, just print off the notes. You have 10 quizzes (one every week), and a total of 4 tests. He gives you opportunities for extra credit, but you can only take advantage of one.
BIOL-113 : Bio 113 - Posted 12/14/2007
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
D
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
as easy as the class is i found it really hard to understand him. he has a very thick indian accent . sometimes i found him hard to understand. whenever you ask a question he does get a bit mad when he answer. he is a very nice guy but is really confusing. for tha final he first said it was cumulative. but it wasnt . just pay attention to what he says. all of the notes he has in class can be found on blackboard. attendance is only mandatory on the days he has a test. he doesnt take attendance. hes a real nice guy but is real hard to understand.
BIOL-208 : Microbiology Lab - Posted 12/6/2007
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
Professor Sharma is obviously an intelligent man who "knows his stuff," but learning from him is difficult due to the fact that he is foreign. While he knows English very well but he is difficult to understand. Prof. Sharma gets impatient and agitated due to the fact that he constantly has to repeat everything. His students will often ask him the same thing over and over again because we can't understand what he's trying to tell us. I wish I had switched out of this class in the beginning so I could've been properly taught.
If you are willing to try and decipher Sharma as he dictates the lab manual, and if you are willing to teach yourself what to do during the lab rather than being instructed, then this class is for you. Clauson is the best teacher to take though.
BIOL-113 : General Biology - Posted 12/3/2007
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
Not Specified
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Easy
Comments
This is class is horrible...it's boring. His lectures you can't even understand. His tests are easy and come off the notes that he posts on balckboard but some questions can be tricky. He also posts weekly quizzes on balckboard that raises your grade. Final is the last chapter plus 10-15 cumalitive questions.
BIOL- : Botany - Posted 4/10/2007
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
B
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
I have had several biology courses and many were a higher level than botany and this is by far the worst biology course I have taken at Western. It is not only hard to understand Dr. Sharma (poor english) but impossible to prepare for his test as you don't really know whats going to be on them. He is a nice man, but that doesn't make him a good teacher. It is a boring class, but if you have to take it wait until Alice teaches it again!
BIOL- : Microbiology - Posted 1/25/2007
Overall Rating:
OK
Grade:
C
Quantity of Notes:
Moderate
Difficulty:
Moderate
Comments
OK, he is hard to understand because he isn't from here, but I thought he was nice and tried his best. He let us copy all the notes from the powerpoint slides. As long as you have those, you can pass the tests. I got a c but thats my own fault, I hardly studied or went to class and I still passed. He is not as bad as some people think.
BIOL-222 : Plant Biol & Diversity - Posted 12/8/2006
Overall Rating:
Poor
Grade:
F
Quantity of Notes:
Overkill
Difficulty:
Difficult
Comments
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!
I'm not paying Western for this quality of teaching!
Your grade consists of 4 tests and the cumulative final, all worth the same amount. No homework, no extra credit, nothing else.
Each class period consists of Mr. Sharma lecturing while quickly clicking through a powerpoint presentation. The students must furiously copy these notes as fast as they can, and often ask him to "go back" so they can actually get all the notes. But while this is going on, he is still lecturing, but he's from India and he's difficult to understand in the first place. I often didn't catch what he was saying. He wouldn't take the feedback from the class a a cue either. When he would ask us a question about what he was talking about, no one could begin to answer. We would just look at each other blankly, until he would answer the question himself and go on. We weren't getting it - he didn't care. It also drove me crazy how he would say "and now you all understand that," after the end of a slide. We didn't "understand it" after 2 minutes of furiously copying notes, sorry!
The tests do NOT reflect the amount of time spent on each topic in class. In a few seconds he would breeze by a topic, and on the test he might expect a full diagram drawn with all the parts labeled and explained, or a detailed description in essay form. There were often 10 or more diagrams in a chapter, so you'd either have to memorize them all, or just hope for the best. And there were so many topics you'd might to know in "detail" to adequately answer on the test, it was luck if you studied the right ones.
Several of us practically begged him to post his powerpoint notes on Blackboard, or email them to us, or anything of the like, but he repeatedly refused, without giving us a reason. I suspect he felt that we wouldn't show up for class if we already had the notes, since there were only ten of us in the class. Either that, or he doesn't know how to use Blackboard to start with. But even if both of those were true, he could've still emailed us the notes and *kept attendance* if he wanted us to show up.
He also refused to give us any kind of review, or review sheet. He said that the information he presented was too broad to break it down into manageable segments, and basically that we were just to know everything in the chapter. We finally did convince him to give us a "review," which he promised to give the the day before the test. Low and behold, on that day he gave us a normal lecture, piling more information onto the stuff that would be on the test, and at the end of class he said "Oh, sorry, no time for review," and we had to leave.
On the day OF the test, in a fifty-five minute class period, he decided he would give us a "review" right before the test. He said he'd give us the "summary of the summary" of the information we were to know for the test, to make it short. So he ran slide after slide by us, so fast that it was impossible to get anything from it... but it still took FORTY minutes to go through it all and by the time he was through with his "summary of the summary," there were only 15 minutes left for us to take the test...
And he gave it to us anyway! I failed it, miserably.
As you can see, I failed the class. I've NEVER failed a class before. I know some of my classmates did better than me, and that's fine, because I know they probably worked their butts off and deserve better than an F. But unless you want to deal with this horrible situation yourself, AVOID this teacher.
And Western, I'm disappointed that you would hire someone who can't teach any better than this.