MIMG 101
Introductory Microbiology
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: Life Sciences 3 and 4, or 7A, 7B, and 23L. Historical foundations of microbiology; introduction to bacterial structure, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, and ecology. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - Avoid this professor at all costs. Ali pour is nice but she cannot lecture. She just reads off of all the slides, adds absolutely nothing. Sometimes she would barely go over a topic and say we didn't need to know details for the exam, then the exams would feature the same topic in great detail. This class had two professors, Dr. Hill and Ali Pour, Dr. Hill was great but if you want to take MIMG 101 and see Ali Pour as one of the professors I would not recommend taking it. It is very hard to learn from her and she is not understanding about honest mistakes like missing last-minute announcements/deadlines.
Fall 2021 - Avoid this professor at all costs. Ali pour is nice but she cannot lecture. She just reads off of all the slides, adds absolutely nothing. Sometimes she would barely go over a topic and say we didn't need to know details for the exam, then the exams would feature the same topic in great detail. This class had two professors, Dr. Hill and Ali Pour, Dr. Hill was great but if you want to take MIMG 101 and see Ali Pour as one of the professors I would not recommend taking it. It is very hard to learn from her and she is not understanding about honest mistakes like missing last-minute announcements/deadlines.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Professor Bradley was amazing! One of the best professors I've taken, the course is hard but he made it much more manageable and understandable. I am not a MIMG major and took the course for PA prereqs, but he made his lectures clear and assigned reflection assignments each week as our hmw. Discussions were optional and were used for clarification, there were 3 tests all of the equal weight for % and were non-cumulative, he allowed one-sided notes on an 8x11 paper for every test. they offered regrades for the first two exams but not for the final. There was some extra credit associated with campuswire. Overall this class will take up ALOT of time and require maximal effort to get a good grade. He does curve the overall grade but our class did pretty well on tests (averages were C's) so he may not have curved this time.
Winter 2023 - Professor Bradley was amazing! One of the best professors I've taken, the course is hard but he made it much more manageable and understandable. I am not a MIMG major and took the course for PA prereqs, but he made his lectures clear and assigned reflection assignments each week as our hmw. Discussions were optional and were used for clarification, there were 3 tests all of the equal weight for % and were non-cumulative, he allowed one-sided notes on an 8x11 paper for every test. they offered regrades for the first two exams but not for the final. There was some extra credit associated with campuswire. Overall this class will take up ALOT of time and require maximal effort to get a good grade. He does curve the overall grade but our class did pretty well on tests (averages were C's) so he may not have curved this time.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - Reading the reviews posted on here before I expected a hellish professor but I have to say the people that wrote about him are crazy. Is the class hard? Yes. Is there a lot of material? Yes. But I liked him a as a lecturer. I found him funny. I even liked learning about the sewage cycle. I don't know why people are berating him about the things he seems to enjoy teaching because his enthusiasm made the potentially dry material actually interesting to me. And I couldn't disagree more with those saying he doesn't seem to care about his students. He even brought in food one day for us to eat and chill out while he discussed fermentation. He may not be the vivacious lecturer, but give him a break, he's old and he's trying his best. I enjoyed this class and him teaching it, and even developed an interest in MIMG because of this class.
Winter 2017 - Reading the reviews posted on here before I expected a hellish professor but I have to say the people that wrote about him are crazy. Is the class hard? Yes. Is there a lot of material? Yes. But I liked him a as a lecturer. I found him funny. I even liked learning about the sewage cycle. I don't know why people are berating him about the things he seems to enjoy teaching because his enthusiasm made the potentially dry material actually interesting to me. And I couldn't disagree more with those saying he doesn't seem to care about his students. He even brought in food one day for us to eat and chill out while he discussed fermentation. He may not be the vivacious lecturer, but give him a break, he's old and he's trying his best. I enjoyed this class and him teaching it, and even developed an interest in MIMG because of this class.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - This was overall the worst class I have ever taken at UCLA. Dr. Hill was condescending and frankly did not care about students learning. Office hours were unhelpful. When the TA strike was occurring, Hill and Bouklas did absolutely nothing to help us and basically told us to learn on our own. Lectures did not tie together well and were all over the place. The only thing that was really helpful was the discussions and when the TAs left, I literally did not learn anything. The homework was not helpful whatsoever. The tests were extremely challenging, which would have been fine if we were given any sort of guidance, however, we were not. I genuinely cannot say one good thing about this class.
Fall 2022 - This was overall the worst class I have ever taken at UCLA. Dr. Hill was condescending and frankly did not care about students learning. Office hours were unhelpful. When the TA strike was occurring, Hill and Bouklas did absolutely nothing to help us and basically told us to learn on our own. Lectures did not tie together well and were all over the place. The only thing that was really helpful was the discussions and when the TAs left, I literally did not learn anything. The homework was not helpful whatsoever. The tests were extremely challenging, which would have been fine if we were given any sort of guidance, however, we were not. I genuinely cannot say one good thing about this class.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I took this class virtually in Fall 2020 with Dr. Parker and Dr. Hill. The class switched professors Week 5, and the quality of the course immediately dropped, although I will be talking more about that on Dr. Hill's page. Dr. Parker was amazing. She emphasized in her introduction at the beginning of the quarter that she is interested in the process of teaching and learning, and this passion was obvious in the way she taught. She taught this class exactly like the LS 7 series (although the tests were extremely different which I'll get to.) The course breakdown: Concept Inventories and Course Evals 20 Smartworks Pre-Class Assignments 125 (a few dropped) Smartworks Post-Class Assignments 80 (a few dropped) Discussion Section Worksheets 40 (1 absence allowed) Discussion Section Participation 50 Exams 350 (2 midterms, 1 final) Total 665 A couple things of note here: - Like the LS 7 series, there are pre-class (every class) and post-class (weekly) assignments connected to a textbook which is very similar to Launchpad that I believe you have to purchase access to. - Also like LS 7 series, there is a mandatory discussion where we go over application of concepts, although I enjoyed it. I think as an adjustment for COVID, as long as you went to discussion you would get all 40 points and then at the end of the quarter, you would get the remaining 50 points by grading how involved your groupmates were (and they would grade you). - By the end of the quarter, you had the opportunity for around 30? points of extra credit from doing things like posting on the forum, doing evaluations, and going to the MIMG 101 poster conference and reviewing posters. Lectures were completely asynchronous and pre-recorded which I did not like, but was generally okay for Dr. Parker. Dr. Hill, in contrast, uploaded almost every lecture, reading list, pre-class assignment, and post-class assignment late. Dr. Parker's lectures were similar to LS 7 series lectures, where she put interactive questions (like asynchronous clicker questions) into the lecture that were not worth any points. Her slides were clear and effective. Tests were very different from the LS 7 series. They were open-notes and free-response with emphasis on being experimental, where, for example, you would be given something that scientists would want to figure out and you would write about the procedures, controls, results, etc that you would use/expect in performing that experiment. I thought that the tests were clear but a bit of a time crunch -- the professors were aware of this and responsive and as a result, gave 3.75 hours for the final. The midterms and finals all had some extra credit, although medians (averages not published) were low. The median of the first midterm was 76% and 23% of students scored below a 60 (36% scored a 70 or lower). The second midterm had a median of 80% where 13% of students scored below a 60 (25% scored a 70 or lower). While these are low grades, they were boosted by numerous extra credit opportunities and points from other categories like discussion. Probably the most intense part of the class was its workload. There was a lot of reading assigned every class and when you're taking this class, it is so easy to fall behind. The pre-class and post-class assignments rely on the reading but are not completely related to the class material (like Launchpad). I read and took notes on everything when Dr. Parker taught, which took maybe 2hr/night, but after switching to Dr. Hill, I decided to do much less reading and did not suffer, making me think that readings are not completely necessary. Dr. Parker also published learning objectives before each lecture, and that is how I guided my notes for the readings. Dr. Hill did not publish any, and when asked to, he told students to infer them from his slides. I felt like Dr. Parker was responsive and responsible and very committed to the success of her students. My experience in this course was definitely hindered by Dr. Hill, but I would recommend anyone to take this course with Dr. Parker.
Fall 2020 - I took this class virtually in Fall 2020 with Dr. Parker and Dr. Hill. The class switched professors Week 5, and the quality of the course immediately dropped, although I will be talking more about that on Dr. Hill's page. Dr. Parker was amazing. She emphasized in her introduction at the beginning of the quarter that she is interested in the process of teaching and learning, and this passion was obvious in the way she taught. She taught this class exactly like the LS 7 series (although the tests were extremely different which I'll get to.) The course breakdown: Concept Inventories and Course Evals 20 Smartworks Pre-Class Assignments 125 (a few dropped) Smartworks Post-Class Assignments 80 (a few dropped) Discussion Section Worksheets 40 (1 absence allowed) Discussion Section Participation 50 Exams 350 (2 midterms, 1 final) Total 665 A couple things of note here: - Like the LS 7 series, there are pre-class (every class) and post-class (weekly) assignments connected to a textbook which is very similar to Launchpad that I believe you have to purchase access to. - Also like LS 7 series, there is a mandatory discussion where we go over application of concepts, although I enjoyed it. I think as an adjustment for COVID, as long as you went to discussion you would get all 40 points and then at the end of the quarter, you would get the remaining 50 points by grading how involved your groupmates were (and they would grade you). - By the end of the quarter, you had the opportunity for around 30? points of extra credit from doing things like posting on the forum, doing evaluations, and going to the MIMG 101 poster conference and reviewing posters. Lectures were completely asynchronous and pre-recorded which I did not like, but was generally okay for Dr. Parker. Dr. Hill, in contrast, uploaded almost every lecture, reading list, pre-class assignment, and post-class assignment late. Dr. Parker's lectures were similar to LS 7 series lectures, where she put interactive questions (like asynchronous clicker questions) into the lecture that were not worth any points. Her slides were clear and effective. Tests were very different from the LS 7 series. They were open-notes and free-response with emphasis on being experimental, where, for example, you would be given something that scientists would want to figure out and you would write about the procedures, controls, results, etc that you would use/expect in performing that experiment. I thought that the tests were clear but a bit of a time crunch -- the professors were aware of this and responsive and as a result, gave 3.75 hours for the final. The midterms and finals all had some extra credit, although medians (averages not published) were low. The median of the first midterm was 76% and 23% of students scored below a 60 (36% scored a 70 or lower). The second midterm had a median of 80% where 13% of students scored below a 60 (25% scored a 70 or lower). While these are low grades, they were boosted by numerous extra credit opportunities and points from other categories like discussion. Probably the most intense part of the class was its workload. There was a lot of reading assigned every class and when you're taking this class, it is so easy to fall behind. The pre-class and post-class assignments rely on the reading but are not completely related to the class material (like Launchpad). I read and took notes on everything when Dr. Parker taught, which took maybe 2hr/night, but after switching to Dr. Hill, I decided to do much less reading and did not suffer, making me think that readings are not completely necessary. Dr. Parker also published learning objectives before each lecture, and that is how I guided my notes for the readings. Dr. Hill did not publish any, and when asked to, he told students to infer them from his slides. I felt like Dr. Parker was responsive and responsible and very committed to the success of her students. My experience in this course was definitely hindered by Dr. Hill, but I would recommend anyone to take this course with Dr. Parker.
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