LIFESCI 107
Genetics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, 75 minutes. Requisites: courses 7C, 23L, Chemistry 14A (or 20A), 14C (or 30A). Not open for credit to students with credit for course 4. Advanced Mendelian genetics, recombination, biochemical genetics, mutation, DNA, genetic code, gene regulation, genes in populations. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Professor Chen was a very dedicated and professor. Her lectures were engaging and well-paced, and she listened to what her students needed to focus on to help optimize the lectures to what most people were struggling with. She also provides ample opportunities for extra credit (which you should take, they just involve taking a small survey to help her optimize the lectures). The class is structured so that you watch pre-class lectures (20-50 minutes depending on the week, 2x speed is helpful), attend lectures 2x a week (live, required with clickers), attend discussion 1x a week. Before the first lecture of each week, you take a pre-class quiz based on the pre-class lectures, and at the end of each week you take a quiz created by your discussion section TA. The exams and quizzes are all quite straightforward (1 or 2 controversial questions here and there on long exams), but the TA's and Dr. Chen are very fair and listen to student concerns and will consider regrades. The best part, you get to do corrections on your exams (midterms AND final), which will allow you to get about 20 points back per exam (depends on # of questions you missed), which could bring your exam score up 20%.
Winter 2021 - Professor Chen was a very dedicated and professor. Her lectures were engaging and well-paced, and she listened to what her students needed to focus on to help optimize the lectures to what most people were struggling with. She also provides ample opportunities for extra credit (which you should take, they just involve taking a small survey to help her optimize the lectures). The class is structured so that you watch pre-class lectures (20-50 minutes depending on the week, 2x speed is helpful), attend lectures 2x a week (live, required with clickers), attend discussion 1x a week. Before the first lecture of each week, you take a pre-class quiz based on the pre-class lectures, and at the end of each week you take a quiz created by your discussion section TA. The exams and quizzes are all quite straightforward (1 or 2 controversial questions here and there on long exams), but the TA's and Dr. Chen are very fair and listen to student concerns and will consider regrades. The best part, you get to do corrections on your exams (midterms AND final), which will allow you to get about 20 points back per exam (depends on # of questions you missed), which could bring your exam score up 20%.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - This class was co-taught by Laski and Cohn, but since Laski has retired, Cohn gets the review. The structure is as such: Midterm 1 100 points Midterm 2 100 points Final (6/6/22) 200 points Pre-lecture Quiz (16 quizzes x 2 pts) 32 points (lowest dropped) Clicker Questions (18 lectures x 2 pts) 36 points (two lowest dropped) Discussion Section (8 attendances x 4 pts) 32 points (two lowest dropped) Up until the first midterm, everything is pretty much a review of LS7B - lot of Punnett squares and pedigrees and the questions are straightforward probabilities/multiplying fractions. After the second midterm, bacterial genetics is introduced and it's still pretty interesting and easy to do well. The averages for both midterms with 90+. After the second midterm, however, it becomes super difficult to understand Cohn's lectures and people starting flunking the pre-lecture quizzes en masse. The final predominantly covers this latter portion of the class, so many people did poorly and their grades pre-final and post-final were significantly different. There are 4 points of EC on each exam that can help you, but overall, this class started off easy and then the final kicked out butts.
Spring 2022 - This class was co-taught by Laski and Cohn, but since Laski has retired, Cohn gets the review. The structure is as such: Midterm 1 100 points Midterm 2 100 points Final (6/6/22) 200 points Pre-lecture Quiz (16 quizzes x 2 pts) 32 points (lowest dropped) Clicker Questions (18 lectures x 2 pts) 36 points (two lowest dropped) Discussion Section (8 attendances x 4 pts) 32 points (two lowest dropped) Up until the first midterm, everything is pretty much a review of LS7B - lot of Punnett squares and pedigrees and the questions are straightforward probabilities/multiplying fractions. After the second midterm, bacterial genetics is introduced and it's still pretty interesting and easy to do well. The averages for both midterms with 90+. After the second midterm, however, it becomes super difficult to understand Cohn's lectures and people starting flunking the pre-lecture quizzes en masse. The final predominantly covers this latter portion of the class, so many people did poorly and their grades pre-final and post-final were significantly different. There are 4 points of EC on each exam that can help you, but overall, this class started off easy and then the final kicked out butts.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - Originally, I was not going to write this review because I felt like the only one who experienced these problems. But, after seeing another student share similar concerns, I'd like to also share my opinion. It was almost impossible to contact this professor. He originally said he would not give his email out because he checked CampusWire more often, which is completely acceptable, except there were multiple occasions where he did not log onto CampusWire for 4+ days straight in a 6 week Summer Session (you can check when someone last logged on via DMs). When he did log on to CampusWire, he often only upvoted student responses instead of actually answering the questions themselves, even when some questions were left unanswered for 3+ days. Additionally, he made multiple mistakes on his first midterm and instead of acknowledging them, he just wrote on the answer key that one answer was "more correct" than his incorrect answer (even though there was only one actually correct answer). Students won't bother checking answers they already got right when reviewing the answer key, so many students were left making the same mistake on the Midterm II and Final Exam (I could tell because one of the review questions another student made for future exams was similar in concept and I had to explain it to fellow confused students). Despite this, as long as you take this class with a friend so you can ask questions to them, this class is an easy A.
Summer 2020 - Originally, I was not going to write this review because I felt like the only one who experienced these problems. But, after seeing another student share similar concerns, I'd like to also share my opinion. It was almost impossible to contact this professor. He originally said he would not give his email out because he checked CampusWire more often, which is completely acceptable, except there were multiple occasions where he did not log onto CampusWire for 4+ days straight in a 6 week Summer Session (you can check when someone last logged on via DMs). When he did log on to CampusWire, he often only upvoted student responses instead of actually answering the questions themselves, even when some questions were left unanswered for 3+ days. Additionally, he made multiple mistakes on his first midterm and instead of acknowledging them, he just wrote on the answer key that one answer was "more correct" than his incorrect answer (even though there was only one actually correct answer). Students won't bother checking answers they already got right when reviewing the answer key, so many students were left making the same mistake on the Midterm II and Final Exam (I could tell because one of the review questions another student made for future exams was similar in concept and I had to explain it to fellow confused students). Despite this, as long as you take this class with a friend so you can ask questions to them, this class is an easy A.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Dr Pham is an angel given to us by UCLA. Never have I ever had a professor who cared about students this much as well as ensured that each lecture is very engaging and fun for the students. You can tell that he is very passionate about teaching and always wants to make sure that the students' mental health and circumstances are considered during grading and tests. The tests are not that difficult and the content is not that heavy. However, you still need to do the past papers and understand the material well in order to do well in the tests. There is no reason for anybody to not get an A in this class as long as you put in the effort and attention to the class. He is beyond fair in grading and is very understanding if you have any personal issues which may impede your ability to take the test. 100% would reccomend taking him for LS107. If I had a choice, I would take him for any other class he teaches as well.
Winter 2020 - Dr Pham is an angel given to us by UCLA. Never have I ever had a professor who cared about students this much as well as ensured that each lecture is very engaging and fun for the students. You can tell that he is very passionate about teaching and always wants to make sure that the students' mental health and circumstances are considered during grading and tests. The tests are not that difficult and the content is not that heavy. However, you still need to do the past papers and understand the material well in order to do well in the tests. There is no reason for anybody to not get an A in this class as long as you put in the effort and attention to the class. He is beyond fair in grading and is very understanding if you have any personal issues which may impede your ability to take the test. 100% would reccomend taking him for LS107. If I had a choice, I would take him for any other class he teaches as well.
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