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Completely and utterly disorganized and impossible to follow lectures. Impossible to tell whether he's rambling or if what he's saying is important. Constantly brags about his acheivements. Insufferable.

You will definitely learn alot from this class and both the professors are incredibly knowledgable. However, the lectures can sometimes be hard to follow and the tests are difficult simply because there's so much information.

Lectures with Zieman are horrible and impossible to understand. Luckily, the class is split between 2 professors and Professor Smith is awesome. His lectures are great and he's a really nice guy, very approachable and easy to ask questions. He's willing to help students in any way, while Zieman just likes to talk about his accomplishments. Exams are very hard because of the sheer amount of material, but there are only 2 midterms and a cumulative final and no other assignments. Enjoy lectures with Smith and try to bear it with Zieman.

Zieman is very unorganized and it is hard to keep good notes during his lectures. Team teaches with Dave Smith. Smith is better, but much harder. Very nitpicky with tests. Have to memorize a bajillion organisms. Mostly invertebrates and phytoplankton stuff. No cool things like whales or dolphins.

Class is interesting. Two instructors for the course: Zieman and Smith: Zieman is very unorganized (e.g. puts graphs and pictures on toolkit that he doesn't even use for the course) Smith is more organized and very interesting, but he grades really hard and expects you to know everything about a million different organisms. I liked the course, but the high demands of the class did not make it as enjoyable as it could of been. Also the GPA is kind of low for a bio/evsc class- its no evsc320. I dont think there is a curve.

Very difficult class. Lectures are very interesting and fun but the amount of information covered in the semester is unreal. Slides aren't posted online... you have to come meet w David Smith (co-teaches the class) in order to see them.

Zieman's the worst professor; talks about his own work and gets off topic all of the time. Smith was better, but his lectures required too much memorization for an upper-level course.

DO. NOT. EVER. TAKE. THIS. CLASS!

There aren't very many classes on marine science at UVA, so if you're interested in the subject area I'd take it. I loved the material, the exams just required lots of simple memorization (but if you think the stuff's interesting than the memorization is more fun than tedious) and while power point slides do get old, they're easy enough to follow and take notes on. Zieman and Smith are both very approachable and knowledgeable (Smith a little more so). The only caveat is that marine mammals aren't mentioned at all, and I do wish we had spent more time on fish.

This is probably one of the only Marine Biology classes offered at UVA, so if that is what you are into... TAKE IT. That being said, it is an extremely difficult class. You have to put a lot of effort into memorizing phylas and classes of many organisms. The readings help, but are not extremely necessary. Smith is extremely helpful and detailed, while Zieman is not. Be prepared for that. Taking notes when Zieman lectures can often be frustrating and difficult. The grade is based off of 3 tests and the class is slightly curved (but dont rely on it).