Blank, Jason  

This professor spends the entire lecture explaining concepts which have no relevance to any exams or homework. Some graded hw questions are vague and unsolvable because he doesn't give you the neccessary info to solve them.

Blank made lecture pretty boring and his homework and test questions were hard and unreasonable. He didn't simplify anything or really test us on broad understanding, mostly only very applied and specific knowledge. I'd say his half of the lectures for this course brought me down a letter grade or two.

He clearly knows the material but he is not fit to be a 100 level teacher. He tests and lectures as though he teaching third/fourth years who are in "mitochondria are the membrane-bound organelle found in the cytoplasm of eukaryotes" phase when in reality most of the class are first years who are still at "mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell" phase. His lectures are harder to understand than a Jackson Pollock, and he has a tendency to assume the anatomical rat position on stage while reciting the nernst-potential equation. Do not take this professor unless you are Jackson Pollock.

Dr. Blank has got to be the worst professor I have had at Cal Poly. I went into 162 excited for the class with Himelblau but was disappointed when Dr. Blank popped up to teach the animal material. I don't think Dr. Blank ever made it through all the material he had allotted for in his lecture. He would lecture and say "talk to your neighbor" every 2 minutes asking us about processes none of us know anything about. He would skip through important concepts and say it is in the textbook. I would leave the 1.5 hour lecture with barely enough notes to be useful. His objectives do not prepare you for the exam. The majority of them need to be found from the textbook, since his lectures proved to be insufficient for answering more than a few of them. His polylearn homework would consist of ridiculous calculations that we would never encounter on the exam or a mass amount of matching vocabulary that also would never appear on the exams. Regarding the exams for this class, this is the fist class I have been in where EVERY midterm and the final did not have a passing average and needed to be adjusted upwards to bring the average to at least a C- His exam questions were very complex with every question having A,B,C,D,E answers with slight minuscule differences. He would ask questions that are to the highest most detailed level which as his students we were simply not prepared for. In comparison to Himelblau, Blank could not sufficiently teach his portion of the class. I'm leaving this class proficient in the plant material and beyond clueless regarding the animal material. Also in office hours he is a strange awkward dude.

Dr. Blank was a really sweet professor but he didn't always connect well with college students. People say a lot of bad things about him because his exam questions were VERY difficult and he's a kind of awkward guy, but he was honestly a pretty good professor. He taught us a lot of information and lectures weren't always super exciting, but he was usually clear in what he was trying to explain and was always so nice in office hours if you needed help. The information about animal A&P was also a lot more difficult than plant A&P, which definitely led people to think that he was a bad professor. That being said, he had a lot of hard exam questions that were not things that appeared on the objectives and were small, minute details that honestly didn't test whether students learned everything. However, he realized that his exams were hard so they were all curved, as well as several grade adjustments being added and the end of the class being curved too. Dr. Blank is really sweet and means well, I would recommend taking him but be prepared to work really hard.

Dr. Blank's exams were very difficult in that he would put material on the test that he probably said ONCE at the beginning of lecture and it wouldn't be in the textbook reading like "How fast does an action potential move along the neuron?" LIKE WHO IS SUPPOSED KNOW THAT?! He spends lots of time explaining one topic that he NEVER EVER finished a lecture the entire quarter. The last slides of the animal topics which are taught by him are all empty, because he would never finish the lecture. I felt that his lectures would never go into any depth like he expected us to know on the exam.

Probably wont do to bad in this class grade-wise (B+ maybe?) so not "ripping on a professor for failing". This guy simply should not be a professor. HE CANNOT TEACH. HE CANNOT RELAY INFORMATION. He never finished the lecture so consequently tells you to just learn the material from the book instead. His portion of the tests have like D/F averages while the other professor co-teaching the class have A/B averages on their section. Hold out and take it with someone else if you can. Easily one of my least favorite classes I have taken at poly. THIS IS A 100 LEVEL BIO COURSE!! it should have been taught like one, not like a 400 level bio course that Blank would rather be teaching like his others. Does not answer student questions well. Not understanding of student concerns or in the best interests of the students. JUST BEWARE!

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This class was hard by Dr. Blank managed to maintain a pretty relaxed atmosphere in lecture and lab. He is an average lecturer, but a really good guy if you visit during office hours or talk to him during lab. He is fair and willing to work things out if a problem comes up. The one thing that I didn\'t like about him is that his tests were WAY too hard. It turned out ok because he curved the class, but taking a test in his class was always a very stressful experience. Overall, I would recommend Dr. Blank.

Dr. Blank is a good (maybe a little awkward) professor, who loves physiology and doing lab experiments. Very approachable and helpful in office hours or in lab, learns everyone's names. The midterms contain questions for lecture and lab, so no separate lab exams. Exams are definitely challenging, but as far as the previous comment, i think that he has made them more appropriate to a bio 361 level (he also teaches 432 and 433)since then. still super hard, but not like burst into tears hard. take him!

Dr. Blank may seem like a cool and likeable person but he really is just a huge jerk. His tests are extremely difficult and he does not specify what you did wrong for questions that were marked off. Thank goodness for his practice tests online or else everyone would have been completely lost for the midterms. Blank is terrible for lab also. He wants you to learn everything for yourself so he does not explain a thing till a week later after the lab reports are turned in. Be prepared to read the crap out of the book because Blank will not teach you a thing in lecture. I was excited for this course since it is part of my concentration but Blank ruined that for me. I used to enjoy physiological topics but now I am deathly afraid of them.

Blank isn't a bad or mean guy he is just a very unfair professor. I had him for winter quarter BIO 361 and came out of it with a C despite feeling like I knew everything he taught like the back of my hand. I am trying to get into PA school so I am extremely motivated to get A's and in his class anything close was literally impossible. His test questions deliberately try to trick you. On the first test I did pretty crappy so I studied a lot more for the second test and still got around the same grade because his questions are so unfair. He will also basically ask you for a strait procedure from lab. No idea why that is even worth learning. This past spring quarter I took Anat/Phys with Stand and she is an INFINITELY better teacher, and much more fair. Still very difficult but wasn't trying to trick us. I was suppose to take 433 in the fall but blank is teaching it and I would rather graduate 2 years late than take another class with him and subject myself to the frustration of his tests and grading.

After sitting through the first few lectures of this class, I thought Dr. Blank seemed like a cool guy. However, I was wrong! He is one of those teachers that thinks his class is the only class you're taking and you should dedicate ALL of your time to it. His tests were impossible (averages were in the 60s) and they weren't a fair test of your knowledge in the class. He is absolutely TERRIBLE at writing tests. Everything was worded confusingly and the tests were way harder than the practice tests from previous years that he put online. And he would be a total dick if you asked him to clarify the wording of a question during the test. Also, he put a bunch of video lectures on polylearn that we had to watch on out own time, which I thought was stupid cause we couldn't ask questions and that was like an extra hour or 2 or lecture every week in addition to the 3 hours spent in class and 3 hours in lab every week. He also put a couple papers online that we had to read and he never covered them in class. I went to every single lecture, watched/read everything extra he put online, did all his homework and practice tests, went to office hours every week, and got a fucking B in the class. I have never worked so hard in my life for a B. And I've already taken drugs and poisons (an upper division chem class) that was extremely similar to this class so I knew a lot of the material going into it. Lastly, the thing that really pissed me off about dr blank is that he blended the lecture and lab together. We never once had a test in lab but the lecture midterms covered lab material. And a different teacher taught the lab!!!! And she was new this year so obviously she didn't know as much about the material as dr blank did. So we were tested on stuff that we didn't really know because he never covered the lab material himself. Also, he didn't have a lab final, but instead chose to have a HUGE lab report due DURING FINALS WEEK! So after we took his final, we still had a lab report to worry about. And I had other fucking finals to worry about. Also on his final, there was a 10 point question (out of 100) about the lab we hadn't even turned in yet! And I hadn't done the lab yet cause I was studying for his goddamn final so that was some bullshit. Bottom line, avoid him if you can unless you want to work your fucking ass off and not even get an A. There's another teacher that teaches this class so rearrange your schedule if you can so you can take it a quarter that dr blank isn't teaching it. Seriously he was the fucking worst!!!!

Dr. Blank got me into med school. He makes sure that you do not memorize a bunch of facts like a high school AP student; instead he makes you deconstruct a situation, analyze the parts, and reconstruct a knowledgeable explanation for his problems. Anyone who says that his tests are poorly written is simply blind... his tests are hard not bad... there is a difference. Also, anyone who dislikes his videos he posts can blame his past students because most of us put on his evaluations to post more of them. If you want to learn and understand the material, take Dr. Blank. If you want your easy A while daddy pays for you to have a useless education, continue to surf for an easy class that will just let you memorize your little facts.

Dr. Blank is extremely helpful in office hours and really wants students to succeed. He's so passionate about the material in lecture and makes really funny metaphors that are pretty helpful. People say his tests are hard, and they are, but he posts all his old exams so nothing on the test is a surprise. If you can ace the old tests, you can ace the new tests. Everyone who says he's a horrible teacher and writes awful tests just didn't study them or try hard enough in the class. Really nice professor overall.

Dr. Blank is really nice and wants his students to succeed. He always starts off his class making jokes and asks us how are weekends were. The lecture class itself is pretty good. He goes off of powerpoint slides that he posts the day before he lectures on the material, so I would just print those out to take notes. Sometimes he will draw biochemical pathways or anatomy on the board. Make sure you write those down because without out a doubt they will show up on the midterm. His lecture was super helpful because he goes through it like he is just having a conversation with you, and he stops a lot to ask the class review questions to make sure you get it. The labs were also super interesting, but you are definitely there the full 3 hours. Your grade is made up of 2 midterms, a final, weekly group lab homeworks (not a full report), lab quizzes, some homework assignments (not every week), one full lab report, and a final. The midterms were difficult. It's half multiple choice and half short answer. After the first midterm I figured out that studying the notes is not enough, but studying his practice exams are your best chance to do well. There is a surprising amount of calculations that he never goes over in lecture and you have to figure out how to do them from the practice exams. I recommend starting those as early as possible to study. That being said, most of class got C's and D's on the midterms, but Dr. Blank does let you do test corrections for a percentage of the points back. Dr. Blank is never really clear with you what your grade is, but he does curve A TON at the end. I averaged Bs on the midterm and ended up with an A in the class. Good luck!

I'm currently a medical student studying for my finals, and I'm using the slides that I have saved from Dr. Blank's class instead of the ones my current medical school physiology professor provided us with. People complain about Dr. Blank way too much, and in reality his information is so clear that the "experts" teaching future doctors how the body works aren't nearly as clear about how the systems work. The practice questions he provided to study from are exactly what he tests, so I don't know why people are saying they're so difficult. Just study the questions! Overall, Dr. Blank is an amazing, fair professor and really helpful in office hours. Don't take him for granted.

This was by far the most frustrating class of my college experience. This class does not, in any way, correspond to how smart you are or how well you can understand material, it's all about how much you think like Dr. Blank. The only way to survive Dr. Blank's tests are to do ALL of the practice tests he supplies. I talked to a number of people who did not even attempt to read the chapters of the book and solely did all of the supplied practice tests in order to learn Dr. Blank's testing style. WE ARE NOT IN SCHOOL TO LEARN HOW TO TAKE TESTS. WE ARE IN SCHOOL TO LEARN INFORMATION. This teacher was good at conveying information to his students in class, but when it came time to taking tests, he was so ineffectual and disappointing as an instructor. Half of doing well in this class is based off of how well you can decipher Dr. Blank's arbitrary and misleading sentence structure and manner of asking questions. Our class averages on our tests were a 51% and a 64%. THESE ARE NOT AVERAGES, THESE ARE FAILING GRADES. Then Dr. Blank had the nerve to decrease the amount of points we could get back in test corrections because the 64% average was "higher than expected". Dr. Blank also gave us problems from past tests that not one student got correct because HE thought it was a good problem. If 60+ bio majors cannot decipher your question, IT IS NOT A GOOD QUESTION.This class was basically an algebra/multivariable math class with bio concepts thrown in for context. I will leave this class with ZERO knowledge about the circulatory, excretory, and reproductive systems. What is the point of a physiology class that doesn't teach physiology? But don't worry, I know tons of arbitrary math and random equations to support me through my college career. In lab, Dr. Blank would spend half of the time explaining what we should have learned the week before, as soon as we turned in our lab reports. It was such a waste of time and so ineffectual to learn this information after we had put in 8-10 hours into a lab report, only to be slapped in the face with incorrect answers seconds after submitting our work. I would NOT recommend this instructor to anyone, under any circumstances. I feel so grateful to get to attend Cal Poly, but having Dr. Blank on your biology staff is an insult to other instructors that only have lecturer positions. This man does not deserve tenure or any heightened positions until he learns what it means to be an effective teacher, not some number-churning robot. His background is undoubtably impressive, having degrees from both Stanford and Duke, but that does not mean he is a successful professor. This man should run a research lab for the rest of his life, not teach and interact with students.

Dr blank is highly intelligent and I am sure he does excellent research, however, he is extremely unsuited to be a teacher. He is malicious, he lies, has favorites and will put people down to make himself seem smart, all with an annoying smirk on his face. His testing is unreasonable [expect to be able to go beyond the material he teaches and put different concepts together in obscure situations requiring outside knowledge and POORLY DEFINED instructions and requirements making it almost impossible to get all points no matter how well you know the material]. Again, he will lie and he will be mean for his own pleasure. Good luck.

Dr. Blank is, by far, the greatest teacher that I have ever had at poly. I took him for 361 and 432, and he has easily changed how I approach college material. His tests are incredibly difficult, but that's because he really challenges you to think about material. He is very fair with grading, and lab will help your grade out a ton. I honestly feel that Dr. Blank is an incredibly inspiring teacher with a solid drive for learning. This man is my hero. He is incredibly intelligent, and never once will he make you feel like an idiot for asking a question. His lectures involve actual research papers and graphs, his in class questions make you engage in the lecture, and he doesn't read from the slides, which is a godsend. Take Dr. Blank if you can, I have developed an immense man crush on him and his social awkwardness.

Blank by-far will make you WORK for your grade. This being said, he's a very respectable teacher with very high standards. He is extremely helpful in office hours and you can tell he is very interested teaching students. Granted, he is extremely awkward but its almost cute how he will wait in awkward silence until someone answers his question. His exams sucked. There is no way you will be able to cram the night before and get a B on his midterms, so study early. His instructions for lab reports are extremely vague and you will never know what he was expecting and will probably get shitty grades on every lab. In the end, it seems like Blank cares about his students so there is a curve at the end of the class to please all his whiny pre-med students. Overall his class is doable but I'm not sure if it is worth the trouble.

I took Dr. Blank for BIO 432 and 433, and I learned more from him than any other prof at Cal Poly. Pay no attention to the comments below calling him names and whatnot. That's just rude. He is one of the nicest guys out there and really does care about his students. Yeah, his tests are insanely difficult but what the hell do you expect from upper division BIO classes? If you're a pre-med you should welcome difficult exams. He throws a curve on the class anyway. If you go to class, take GOOD notes and study your notes using the text as a supplement, you should be fine. He also lets you record lectures, so go back and listen to them again. Everything on his tests was straight out of lecture. Take Blank, learn a lot, become a doctor. Cheers.