Professor
Alvaro Sagasti
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - Tbh this class wasn't at all what I expected based on the course description on MyUCLA. Instead of focusing on cell bio concepts in detail, we had weekly background videos that went over the general concepts of a specific thing (e.g. cytoskeleton, vesicles, etc) and in class we had methods lectures that went over different experimental techniques/methods, and paper lectures where we discussed the 6 papers throughout the quarter. While I didn't learn as much of the cell bio concepts as I was expecting/hoping, I am definitely grateful for the methods lectures because it helped me understand the papers/experiments for this class and other classes. Tests and quizzes could be a bit tricky, especially the first midterm (which has more "design an experiment" questions on it than the other exams; they would grade looking for one specific answer, even though that type of question is very open-ended and in my view could have multiple options that work), and in grading they look for veryyy specific things that could get a bit annoying (like on the final, I lost half a point for saying we should use a mutated gene instead of specifying I meant a loss-of-function mutation even though my answer definitely indicated I meant that and it wasn't the focus of the question but whatevssss). Losing just a few points on quizzes/tests meant a lot because they're not out of a lot to begin with, which sucked and made me very scared about my overall grade in the class. Dr Sagasti himself was a good lecturer and pretty clear and organized with them. Grading: Five quizzes - 25% total (lowest score dropped) Midterm 1 - 20% Midterm 2 - 25% Final exam - 30%
Spring 2025 - Tbh this class wasn't at all what I expected based on the course description on MyUCLA. Instead of focusing on cell bio concepts in detail, we had weekly background videos that went over the general concepts of a specific thing (e.g. cytoskeleton, vesicles, etc) and in class we had methods lectures that went over different experimental techniques/methods, and paper lectures where we discussed the 6 papers throughout the quarter. While I didn't learn as much of the cell bio concepts as I was expecting/hoping, I am definitely grateful for the methods lectures because it helped me understand the papers/experiments for this class and other classes. Tests and quizzes could be a bit tricky, especially the first midterm (which has more "design an experiment" questions on it than the other exams; they would grade looking for one specific answer, even though that type of question is very open-ended and in my view could have multiple options that work), and in grading they look for veryyy specific things that could get a bit annoying (like on the final, I lost half a point for saying we should use a mutated gene instead of specifying I meant a loss-of-function mutation even though my answer definitely indicated I meant that and it wasn't the focus of the question but whatevssss). Losing just a few points on quizzes/tests meant a lot because they're not out of a lot to begin with, which sucked and made me very scared about my overall grade in the class. Dr Sagasti himself was a good lecturer and pretty clear and organized with them. Grading: Five quizzes - 25% total (lowest score dropped) Midterm 1 - 20% Midterm 2 - 25% Final exam - 30%
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