Professor Sagasti is one of the best professors i've had at UCLA. You really get what you put into this class. He's straight forward and his exams reflect his lectures and teaching style. He's not one for tricks or surprises. Master the material, read the papers and you're set. He's a fair grader and genuinely cares about his students. He can talk a bit too fast but I recommend him to anyone taking an MCDB upper div, especially if this is your first one.

I really liked Professor Sagasti and this class! The material was interesting and he provided lots of animations to make things more clear. He is a pretty good lecturer and he explains things in much more detail in office hours! He is kinda sassy (in a good way) and it made the class more enjoyable!
You have to read 6 papers and I struggled a little in the beginning but you have lots of resources to help you. By the end, I felt so comfortable reading scientific papers and I know that this skill will help me in other classes/my own lab!
His tests are very fair, the grading is not hard, but the understanding of concepts in lectures and in the papers is key! One reason why some people did poorly on his first midterm was because they explained their answers in too much detail that they didnt have time to finish the exam. He only wants simple, concise answers so don't overwrite or else you wont have enough time! Another highlight of this class is that he doesn't test you on wording like some other classes do. You won't get point off just because you didnt use a specific word!
I would definitely recommend taking 165A with Sagasti, especially if its your first MCDB upper div cause I think he did a good job of guiding us into MCDB classes.

Selling MCDB 165A brand new cheaper than bookstore prices. Also have all slides w/ complete lecture notes for 10 dollars additional. Hurry before it's gone **********

As a MCDB major, I think this guy is the most caring professor in the department. His exams are fair and short. If you attend the class and study his slides, you'll do fine in the class. Make sure to go to his office hours since he explains things clearer and in depths. He'll surely remember you if you are one of the students who go to his office hours often. He won't get annoyed by some questions that normally annoy professors.

I would definitely recommend Dr. Sagasti for MCDB 165A. If you're taking this class for the first upper div course, don't complain about how difficult this class is because all the classes coming up from now on are MUCH harder than this class.

I think professor Sagasti is a nice guy, but he has a problem on teaching. His lecture slides are very disorganized with tons of experiment data and results. It makes me confused all the time during lectures. His tests ask you several experiments that we have never covered during lecture. It is super hard to answer the questions without performing experiments and to apply these lab techniques that we learned during lectures on each question. Moreover, the TAs are not helpful at all. I just need to study by myself to understand the materials.

I took this class for my first upper division class and really disappointed about this class. I put all my effort to study this class and get horrible results. Don't recommend to take this class as your first upper division class. You will ruin your grade!

He's such a nice professor. You can really tell he's genuinely interested in cell biology by his expressions during lecture, and all the little interesting side notes he adds while going through the slides. This was the first time he taught 165A and I guess he was testing out how much material he could cover in a quarter/how fast/etc because he changed the syllabus quite a few times... he went really slow/in depth in the beginning but kind of sped up towards the end.
His exams are fair (and short!), and the curving for the overall grade was really nice (maybe not really curving since the class overall just did really well). I think about 1/3 of the class got A's and 1/2 got B's.
I took this class with Chem 153A, MCDB 138 and an econ course, and this class was the easiest, and the least time consuming. The papers you have to read for discussion can be a bit long, but the "quizzes" are relatively easy and the TA's grade generously, so these can be helpful for your grade. However, make sure you really understand the key figures for each paper since he tests you on specific figures on the midterms/final, asking about what the figure represents and what it means for the paper.
Overall, I strongly recommend taking this course with Sagasti. The topic was really enjoyable, and he was an extremely nice professor who really wanted his students to do well.

This was the first quarter that Sagasti taught 165A, so our class in a sense was experimental in that he had to get an idea of how much material he has time to cover and how difficult the exams have to be. Quite honestly, I thought Sagasti did a really good job teaching this class. You can really tell that he's passionate about cell biology, and I think that's a very important aspect of making a class enjoyable. He also loves cracking jokes in class so that definitely makes lectures more entertaining too. I think his lectures were very straightforward and easy to understand, and he's very nice, patient, and helpful while explaining things during office hours. The exams were also not too bad either--the averages were around mid-70s--and Sagasti said he's really happy with those averages because he wants everyone to do well in his class. The only complaint I really had about this class were the papers that we had to read during discussion--some of the papers covered very boring topics, but that's more of a personal preference than a flaw of the class. We had to read about one paper a week, and after we discuss them during discussion, we have a quiz assignment where we just answer the questions asked about the paper, and we just turn in the assignment in discussion next week. Overall, this class was not too difficult and did not require too much work as well--as long as you read the papers (a lot of the exams were about the experiments done in the papers) and pay attention in lecture, you'll be fine.