This class is very difficult, but it doesn’t help that the “MCDB 138 Team,” which is composed of 2 professors and 3 TAs, give inconsistent answers. When I ask questions, the professors give contradictory statements regarding class material (for example, if something is true or false). The questions on the assessments are often very poorly worded and it’s never easy to understand what’s exactly being asked.

This is the second MCDB class I have taken with Dr. Rigueur after 165A. Dr. Rigueur is truly a fun, responsible, and approachable professor. And this class is incredibly fun and informative--it really helps me with a lot of the techniques and skills that I believe would be incredibly useful for my future research. Can't wait to take the class next quarter!

This is one of the hardest mcdb classes you need to take. Prof Rigeur wasn't that great tbh. She would read off the notes in her slides and she wouldn't upload her notes at all, so the slides were pretty much useless. Nikki was my TA and she was pretty terrible, vey disorganized. The weekly quizzes were okay, not too terrible. The class was mostly just a mess after the midterm exam. The midterm was hard to understand and we were in a timecrunch to finish it within the time limit. So, the TAs and prof rigeur had the brilliant idea to make the final open for 3 days. EXCEPT THE FINAL TOOK ALL 3 DAYS to complete. it was long, questions were worded terribly, and overall just unnecessarily long. It was so long that they didn't end up grading it properly and I think they gave everyone an A on it (not complaining abt that, but why make us do something if you won't even grade it????). The weekly homeworks sucked, and Nikki was such an uneccesarily harsh grader for all the small things.

Prof rigeur did give some generous extra credit, like adding 4-5% to your midterm grade as long as you fill out a survey. That was pretty much the only nice thing about this class.

Overall, this class sucks. You need to take it though for the major, so you might as well suck it up and prepare to get punched in the gut for 10 weeks straight if you are taking this class with rigeur.

Best professor at UCLA. You won’t regret taking her class she is so amazing

If you're reading this, you're doing great. Take it. Cheers 🥂