Professor
Andrea Burton
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Andrea is a new professor here at UCLA, welcome 👏! She's a nice professor and cares about her students for sure. However, her teaching could be improved a little more; I am not even sure what exactly distinguishes a good professor and an excellent professor, but I'd say the "excellent" professors have more engaging lectures and explain things more clearly, and Andrea could work on that. It's only her first quarter though, and I'm sure she'll get better. I heard that her office hours are really helpful, but I haven't checked those out. Would recommend her 8/10.
Fall 2023 - Andrea is a new professor here at UCLA, welcome 👏! She's a nice professor and cares about her students for sure. However, her teaching could be improved a little more; I am not even sure what exactly distinguishes a good professor and an excellent professor, but I'd say the "excellent" professors have more engaging lectures and explain things more clearly, and Andrea could work on that. It's only her first quarter though, and I'm sure she'll get better. I heard that her office hours are really helpful, but I haven't checked those out. Would recommend her 8/10.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Burton gives me the vibes of a really down-to-earth, humble teacher who cares about what she teaches, which is why I chose to take LS7B after she acted as kind of like a professor assistant to Maloy in LS7A. And after taking a full class from her, I've discovered-- she is. I appreciate the random mating dance and animal videos that she includes in her presentations, they're a good break away from all the biology stuff. I think the biggest flaw with this class would be that she moves on too fast from tricky problems or slides sometimes, leaving the class in the dust in regard to how we should be understanding the topic. I mean, she'll ask "Any questions?" but nobody's gonna raise their hand because 1. Don't wanna look dumb and 2. Sometimes, we're so confused we have questions about the whole thing and then back to #1. However, it's not too big of a deal because you can easily get it resolved after class or in office hours. This class also unfortunately does not have a lot of practice problems to do in preparation for the test. Like in LS7A, the textbook does not matter much-- practicing problem sets from past exams (use your resources and connections) matters A LOT. We don't get to see what exactly we did wrong on tests, but since there are similar problem sets on the individual phase as in the group phase, we are at least told which problems in the individual correspond to what set in the group phase. I would also recommend going to problem-solving sessions, since they really test your knowledge on some of the core concepts.
Winter 2024 - Burton gives me the vibes of a really down-to-earth, humble teacher who cares about what she teaches, which is why I chose to take LS7B after she acted as kind of like a professor assistant to Maloy in LS7A. And after taking a full class from her, I've discovered-- she is. I appreciate the random mating dance and animal videos that she includes in her presentations, they're a good break away from all the biology stuff. I think the biggest flaw with this class would be that she moves on too fast from tricky problems or slides sometimes, leaving the class in the dust in regard to how we should be understanding the topic. I mean, she'll ask "Any questions?" but nobody's gonna raise their hand because 1. Don't wanna look dumb and 2. Sometimes, we're so confused we have questions about the whole thing and then back to #1. However, it's not too big of a deal because you can easily get it resolved after class or in office hours. This class also unfortunately does not have a lot of practice problems to do in preparation for the test. Like in LS7A, the textbook does not matter much-- practicing problem sets from past exams (use your resources and connections) matters A LOT. We don't get to see what exactly we did wrong on tests, but since there are similar problem sets on the individual phase as in the group phase, we are at least told which problems in the individual correspond to what set in the group phase. I would also recommend going to problem-solving sessions, since they really test your knowledge on some of the core concepts.