professor burton is an engaging professor and has more of a personality than most of the professors i've come across. for the 7 series, the professors don't individually write the exams, so picking the class based on professor isn't super important. although she is very engaging, i did find myself teaching myself all the content on my own. she is very knowledgable about biology, but that also means she teaches it as if we already understand the material. i didn't find the class very difficult, as there is a lot of grade cushion, but the tests are written very poorly. overall, this class wasn't too bad, despite what most people may think, and professor burton is one of the better professors i've come across here.

Fall 2024 - Pretty light/easy class overall, as the class is designed to ease life science majors into college coursework. Your LIFESCI 7A experience will pretty much be the same regardless of the professor, with all professors teaching from the same resources and slideshows.

337/747 (~45%) of the points available in this course come from "busy work," completion-based assignments (i.e. reading guides, post-reading quizzes with 1 retake, discussion assignments...). The Life Science Department also allows you to miss X number of assignments for each category, giving A LOT of leniency (i.e. skipping a couple lectures, reading guides will still give full points). A bit of extra credit is also offered throughout the course through LA surveys + "Biology and Me" Assignments, the latter asking students to make something creative in relation to the topics taught in class (etc. drawing, arts and crafts).

Participation in lecture is enforced by the use iClicker, an app that prompts students to respond to multiple-choice questions shown on the projector. These aren't graded on accuracy though, but I found them helpful to complete in class.

There are a lot of worksheets provided + TA-led learning sessions - I never used any of these resources and got an A very comfortably. If you have an AP Bio (or frankly any sort of bio) background, you should be more than fine by virtue of how the class is set-up. Good study habits/methods will probably also do.

For discussion sections, you are assigned to a "pod" (group) of ~4-5. The department makes you sit with your pod in lecture (due to in-class pod assignments - mini group worksheets). Also, you'll work with your pod on a discussion section assignment during discussion (more worksheets!). These tend to have similar charts/graphics as those that show up on the AoLs/tests, so make sure you understand them + do them with your group. The pod system is hit-or-miss overall, and team chemistry/each member's relative biology background can determine whether its chill or hell-on-Earth.

The first two "Assessments of Learning" (AoLs), 50 MCQs each - out of three total - have an individual and group phase. You first take the test yourself ONLINE on Canvas, and then the next day you can confer with your pod about the answers. This is where your pod comes into play. You are only graded by your group phase submission (after discussion with your pod and maybe others ;) ), so your pod could potentially be a good resource if needed (or you could be of big help to others). To change answers on the group phase (from what you originally put), you need to write a short explanation for the change. The third AoL is worth almost as much points as the first two, and taken IN PERSON (70 MCQs) - however, it was the same difficulty as the first two and didn't require that much in-depth knowledge (as long as you are familiar with most of the concepts taught in class, that should be fine - I actually did better on the final/AoL 3 than the first two).

A MAJOR CRITICISM of this class are how the AoLs are written - they are mostly straightforwards, but ~15% of the exam will have ambiguous wording, biological terminology that could refer to multiple distinct things, or have multiple "correct" answers. The department did give everyone full credit in response to some of these errors, but other times refused to compromise.

Andrea is honestly really nice and chill - she makes an effort to remember people's names, and tries her best to answer questions. However, her expertise is clearly not in the subject material being taught - she sometimes is unable to clarify or explain key questions/concepts and also has trouble pronouncing common biological terms (??). To reiterate though, the class is the same regardless of which professor you choose.

Dr Burton does the best that I think anyone possible could with this god-awful curriculum. To say that this class sucks would be a massive understatement. I was never confused on the material, yet was able to be confused by the tests - and so were the TA's, they ended up just giving many questions as free points on the tests because the questions were worded so badly. I didn't take AP Bio in high school, and I don't think that the overall material of the class is unfair, but the very framework that was created to create the 7 series needs to be investigated by the FBI for cruel and unusual punishment.

While I thought that the main issue of the class stemmed from the fact that it was flipped classroom (as such, I felt that I didn't learn as much as I would've if I were in AP Biology in high school), I appreciate how Professor Burton tried to make the environment as friendly and positive as it could be. For example, she tried her best to learn everyone's names (though not always successful) and was really helpful when one got stuck on the pod activities. She was also pretty chill and answered all questions during class, which I liked.

As for the class itself, this was the big kicker as it was lots of asynchronous busy work that I felt didn't help me learn as efficiently as if it was unflipped and regular. As an example of this, the reading guides, in combination with the class slides, seemed to dumb down the main content as compared to the textbook. Furthermore, the AoLs were unique in the sense that the wording of the questions was tricky to the point where it seemed like they wanted you to pick the wrong answers on purpose and have a laugh at it right after. While I think having an AP Biology background would be most helpful in this scenario, I would also add that if your podmates were amazing like mine were, you should be fine.

All in all, while the class is a lot of busy work, I would recommend staying on top of things and attending every lecture, even if it involves coming home for the holidays a little later as they didn't cancel that one lecture the day before Thanksgiving. I would also recommend studying as much as possible AND doing each preclass reading guide, quiz, and EC when it's out ASAP to not end up wallowing in misery and/or a borderline grade.

Andrea is a new professor here at UCLA, welcome 👏!
She's a nice professor and cares about her students for sure. However, her teaching could be improved a little more; I am not even sure what exactly distinguishes a good professor and an excellent professor, but I'd say the "excellent" professors have more engaging lectures and explain things more clearly, and Andrea could work on that. It's only her first quarter though, and I'm sure she'll get better. I heard that her office hours are really helpful, but I haven't checked those out. Would recommend her 8/10.