Plan ahead for courses where students have earned lower grades.
Lowest historical GPA first. At least 100 letter grades over the five years through the selected term. Grades reflect past outcomes, not workload or a guaranteed result.
1,566 courses
Ranked courses have at least 100 recorded letter grades.
Covers vector analysis (rotations, Euler angles, Green/Gauss/Stokes) and complex analysis (conformal mapping, residues).
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Ronald Dickey
Homework assignments were not particularly hard but were given with only one day to complete, making them difficult to balance with other classes.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026College Algebra covering properties of elementary functions, equations, inequalities, and graphs. Focuses on formulating, analyzing, solving, and interpreting mathematical and real-world problems to provide algebra skills for calculus.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Josh Blatz, Billy Jackson
The class featured hard tests, long online homework assignments, and content some students found overly complicated for a first-semester algebra class.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Animal Biology covers general biological principles including evolution, ecology, cell structure, genetics, and human physiology.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Sharon Thoma, Lauren Riters
Exams were described as challenging, with one student noting Lauren Riters' test was the hardest of the semester. Sharon Thoma's exams required significant study time, and students were advised to use the Learning Center and office hours to prepare.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026A systems-based investigation of soil structure, biology, water, fertility, and taxonomy, including human impacts on the soil environment.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Nick Balster
Lectures required close attention, and complacent learners risked falling behind, though support was available.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Calculus and Analytic Geometry 2 covers integration techniques, improper integrals, first-order ODEs, sequences, series, Taylor series, and vector geometry.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Travis Olson
The course was described as heavily exam-focused, requiring students to complete numerous practice tests, with some noting that self-study and extensive problem practice were essential for success.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Biology of Viruses covers animal virology at the molecular level, focusing on virus structure, replication/lifecycle, pathogenesis, and prevention.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Andrew Mehle
The course was described as tough, with detailed lecture slides that could feel overwhelming, though students advised focusing on general concepts rather than every tiny detail.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Preparatory Algebra covers fundamental math skills like real numbers, polynomials, and linear equations. Students must pass a basic skills assessment; it does not count for degree credit.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Chaojie Yuan
One student mentioned that Yuan’s accent sometimes made it hard to follow his teaching, though they noted they eventually got used to it.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Calculus and Analytic Geometry 1 introduces differential and integral calculus, plane analytic geometry, applications, and transcendental functions.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Rajula Srivastava
One student with a pre-calculus background had to reteach themselves majority of concepts after lectures. Another found that discussions were the most helpful resource for learning material and studying for quizzes and tests.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Comparative Animal Nutrition covers nutrient assimilation, function, and interactions affecting mammalian metabolism, using species differences to emphasize digestive and physiological roles.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Thomas Crenshaw
Information comes fast, making the course tough. Homework and quiz questions are written oddly, which can make it difficult to determine exactly what is being asked.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Mechanics of Materials covers stress, strain, torsion, beam bending, compound stresses, deflections, indeterminate members, and columns for civil engineers.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Corinne Henak
The course was rated as moderately difficult, with a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduces quantitative genetics concepts and tools for improving livestock and companion animals, focusing on veterinary medicine, animal health, and breeding program design.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Brian Kirkpatrick
The course jumped straight into advanced material without background review, making it especially difficult for transfer students or those rusty in biology.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026An introductory course covering distributions, measures of central tendency, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, regression, correlation, and experimental design.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Alexander Covington
Alexander Covington assigned long weekly homework sets that carried heavy weight in the final grade, while expecting deeper knowledge of content barely covered in lectures.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduction to food science covering chemical, physical, and microbiological properties of food and their manipulation in product manufacture.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Arnoldo Lopez-Hernandez
Students reported weekly lab assignments and exams that were thorough but fair. One reviewer noted that exam questions could be very specific, sometimes based on offhand mentions in lecture.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Survey of Calculus 1 covers differential and integral calculus, exponential/logarithmic functions, and functions of several variables for prebusiness and social science students.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Chanwoo Kim
The course was described as especially hard for students without prior calculus experience, as the instructor taught as if the material was already known.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Organic Chemistry II covers molecular structure and bonding to predict reactivity in aromatic, benzylic, allylic, and carbonyl systems, emphasizing stereochemistry, regiochemistry, and spectroscopic analysis.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Ryan Stowe
The material was tough, and exams were described as test-heavy with difficult questions that required memorizing every detail of organic chemistry without cheat sheets.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introductory applied statistics for life sciences using R, covering probability, inference, ANOVA, linear regression, and experimental design.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Cecile Ane, Mitchell Paukner
Cecile Ane’s group project made the class feel like 4 credits, and her homework was not enough for preparation. Mitchell Paukner’s tests accurately reflected lecture content, though students found the lectures exhausting.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introductory Biology covers cell structure, metabolism, genetics, and animal physiology for engineering majors without a lab component.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Organic Chemistry I covers molecular structure and bonding to predict reactivity of alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, alkyl halides, alcohols, and thiols, emphasizing stereochemical and regiochemical outcomes.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Matt Bowman, Helen Blackwell
Students emphasized that completing practice exams and problem sets was essential for success. Helen Blackwell’s lectures were described as fast-paced, requiring note-taking and pre-class reading, while her homework was considered easier than the actual exams.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Process Synthesis introduces inventing processes for large-scale, low-cost processing of materials like water, chemicals, petroleum products, food, drugs, and wastes.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Sean Palecek
The course was described as extremely homework-heavy, with assignments sometimes taking up an entire day to complete.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Examines the origin and evolution of life using astronomy, biology, and geology, covering the search for extraterrestrial life and life's history in the solar system.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Eric Roden
The course was described as having too much material for a 2-credit load, requiring students to memorize lecture slides for exams. One student noted the workload felt more appropriate for a 3-credit class.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Evaluation techniques for research, development engineering projects. Covers the time value of money and other cash-flow concepts, capital budgeting, economic practices and techniques used to evaluate and optimize decisions, and research development project portfolio management techniques.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Calculus-based General Physics for engineering students covering electricity, magnetism, light, and sound.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Josh Weber
The course content was inherently difficult, though one student found the workload manageable. Another noted that Weber often rushed at the end of lectures and did not finish his notes, which affected the pace of instruction.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Explores marketing systems for U.S. agricultural commodities, covering vertical organization, forward contracts, futures, options, and price formation across supply chain levels.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Sheldon (Xiaodong) Du
A student found the exam unfair, noting it was largely the same as in previous years and disadvantageous for those without prior course notes from friends.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026General Physics is a calculus-based intro for engineering students covering mechanics, including kinematics, statics, dynamics, energy, and momentum.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Josh Weber
The course content is challenging, but exam questions closely resemble the practice problems and examples covered in lecture and discussion. Weber goes in depth to ensure concepts are clear before assessment.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026General Chemistry II covers chemical equilibrium, coordination chemistry, electrochemistry, kinetics, nuclear chemistry, introductory organic chemistry, and laboratory skills.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Jeremiah Duncan, Paula Piccoli
Exams were frequently cited as difficult, with some students noting they were poorly worded. Success often depended on doing practice problems and reviewing material before lectures.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Human Physiology and Health covers basic physiological concepts, organ systems, and their application to human health and disease. Students complete a project creating public informational materials.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026This course covers core algorithm-design paradigms and computational intractability.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Marc Renault
Grading relied heavily on participation and quizzes, which some students found to be busywork, while the final exam was described as stressful and difficult.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduction to chemical process modeling and using modern computational tools to analyze these models.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke
Past students noted that the course involved long homework assignments and projects, requiring significant time investment to complete.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Covers properties of ideal/non-ideal vapors and liquids, multicomponent VLE/LLE, reaction equilibria, electrolytic solutions, surface and solid phase thermodynamics.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Reid Van Lehn
Lectures were derivation-heavy with few practical examples, and homework problems required significant use of Excel or Matlab.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Chemistry in Our World covers selected inorganic and organic chemistry topics, emphasizing relevance to biological, environmental, and social issues.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Clark Landis
Students noted weekly problem sets and Friday quizzes that did not closely align with homework, while exams were considered easy.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026