This was an amazing class. Many PhySci majors take this class expecting for it to be very easy, and are surprised when the topics are mildly difficult and require work. While this was not an easy class on an absolute scale, relative to other upper division PHYSCI/MIMG/CaSB courses, it was very easy. It was by far one of the most rewarding I have taken at UCLA.

There is a precedent set that you can learn nothing, and still come out with an A, but if you're willing to put in the work, then this class will be incredibly rewarding and helpful for your research. The problem sets are very manageable as long as you don't wait until the night before to start them, and the lowest grade is dropped. The final project can be as easy or as difficult as you want to make it. This class is very easy to end with an A on. As long as you have a baseline knowledge of python (in other words, if you took LS 30A/B), then you will have all of the coding knowledge that you'll ever need.

I recommend every person with even a partial interest in computational biology to take this course.

everyone says this class is easy but I strongly disagree. The homework assignments are too much to do each week (we had an assignment due right before and after thanksgiving) and I felt like the lecture material did not adequately prepare us to do the homework. The grading is harsh so even though our final grade is almost made entirely of the homework, it's not "easy". I took way harder physci classes and managed to get a high A+, and I barely scraped by to get an A in this class. Also the final project literally sucks. The groups are randomly assigned and my group did not communicate or start working on the project until like 2 days before it was due. If your group is good it's prob better but since it's random you don't know what it's going to be like. The timeline for the project was also terrible, they should have introduced it way sooner and allowed us to meet our groups more than once during the quarter since there are no discussions, which makes it hard to actually find time to work. Also they say there's no coding skills required to do well in the class but we literally had to code for our final project...overall I wouldn't recommend this class. It's easy to get through each week but at the end of the quarter, it's not easy to get an A.