This class at UCLA has been an extremely disappointing experience, ranking among the worst courses I have taken. Dr. Meyer and his head TA, Michael Bogumil, make for a disastrous combination. Firstly, Dr. Meyer's approach to teaching is lacking. Instead of lecturing, he relies on student presentations while only making class announcements. Inconsistencies arose, as attendance was initially disregarded but later enforced in week 8, without any mention in the syllabus. It felt as if Dr. Meyer was merely a placeholder, oblivious to the chaos unfolding in the lab sections due to the incompetence of his head TA. The lab sessions were consistently plagued with issues. Our cell cultures were never ready on time, resulting in incomplete experiments and confusion about the lab sequence. Michael's inability to seed the cells promptly meant our experiments suffered from inadequate cell densities. When I approached my TA about this, she acknowledged the negative impact but stated that it was expected at this point, leaving us to anticipate mistakes from our TAs, which is unacceptable. Changes to the protocols were frequently made without consulting us, leaving us feeling powerless. When I raised these concerns with Dr. Meyer, he seemed genuinely surprised by the last-minute changes. Furthermore, the grading of assignments and tests was abysmal. Reports lacked a clear rubric, and receiving feedback was a struggle, with minimal comments provided. Completing the reports was a time-consuming task, given the excessive number of questions and required observations. The exams were a nightmare, bearing little resemblance to the course material that was never properly taught by Dr. Meyer. The questions demanded specific answers that could only be known if one had seen the test beforehand. The grading process was the most frustrating aspect, as my initial score of 46/75 dramatically increased to 67/75 after pleading for a recount. Such discrepancies should not be tolerated. Dr. Meyer's lack of organization is evident, and it would benefit him to experience this class anonymously, gaining a firsthand understanding of the challenges we endure. Unfortunately, his head TA has yet to take responsibility, severely hindering the students' educational experience.

As with most labs, the whether you enjoy this class or not depends on the TA that you have. Dr. Meyer is very fair with fairly easy tests that are not cumulative, and cover lecture material. He holds review sessions and explains what to study. The class is a bit scattered and felt like we were just learning the surface level of many complex topics. Like, I felt like when we learned about linear regression and standard deviation, as well as stress-strain, the questions had the opportunity to be really hard, but they always ended up being fairly straightforward. Lecture is often boring and feels like it should only be an hour long, but the labs themselves are enjoyable and often get out early. Report guidelines are almost never clear, but graded generously so its ok. Also, be sure to start the lab reports early. There are only 3 over the span of 12 labs, so you think you can start it the night before but they often take around 8 hours or so, so I recommend starting it at least one day early, probably two.

Very, very disorganized class, where the workload is ostensibly reasonable...until you get stuck in the lab an extra hour because there were no supplies and so each project group had to wait their turn to use the singular available pipette / trypsin / vacuum. My entire lab group was delayed over an hour twice because of circumstances where some important experiment component was either not present or not available in sufficient quantities, which is not fun when it's already a 3 hour session to begin with. Guidelines on project reports were relatively vague and sometimes inconsistent depending on who you asked (Professor Meyer and the TAs did not seem to have the best communication).

Professor Meyer is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. The class format during COVID is much different than normal, so I don't think my review will be very applicable for future classes. In short though, this is a class where you truly can learn a lot about how to be a bioengineering researcher if you put the appropriate effort into it, and I am assuming that advice will translate over to this class being in-person again soon.