If you have ever taken AP/IB Biology before, this class is a review (and an expansion) of that. I would say that the homework isn't hard - but time consuming. The lectures are honestly a bit boring, with only the clicker questions (everyone answers on a mobile device in class) to keep students engaged. Pires takes attendance through clicker questions, so make sure to answer those. I liked the whole "come to class having prior knowledge" concept they use - but it also makes me feel as if the class is self-taught; I don't think the lectures really teach much. Exams are application-based rather than testing you on the information you learned. Make sure to go to your discussion sections because those go over how to answer application-based questions. The exams compared to the content/homework is SO much harder - you will never study enough for this class.

Professor Pires is a super nice lady, she’s funny and definitely engages with the students despite such a large class size. But I will say that the content of this course is very dense and I was kinda lost during the lectures. Basically you have to teach yourself all the information because the lectures kinda lightly touch on what you need to actually know for the exams.
All that aside, I think I can speak for most of my peers when I say that the way many aspects of this class were handled by the 7A professors ever since the TA strike began was not efficient at all. At the moment none of them are responding to Campuswire posts, and there’s even a petition for a class curve that already had over 1000 signatures. A lot of students are freaking out because there were mistakes on many of the questions on the final exam, causing us to lose points. From what I’ve heard, there were adjustments made to this course’s grading scale during Covid, so I hope that given the lack of discussion sections and TA assistance this quarter, we’ll receive a similar kind of accommodation.

I really disliked this class. It was online during the fall and it followed a sort of "flipped classroom" style of learning. I disliked this a lot because we were essentially expected to teach ourselves and then go over some of it during the lecture. Also, we had to have iclicker which I was unfamiliar with, so even though the lecture was online attendance was mandatory. I never took AP bio but I know people have said that this class closely resembles that. Anyways this class made me realize that I am in fact not a stem baddie.

The class wasn't too much to handle but the exams were. Easy points when it comes to weekly quizzes, labs, and clicker questions but the exams will be difficult. Make sure to review clicker questions and attend review sessions if you want to succeed.

Took this class and everything was easy but the exams. There is weekly reading, quizzes, discussion section, and clicker questions all of which are easy points. I received good scores in all of these sections but the exams. The reading doesn't really prepare you for the exams so make sure to attend office hours and review sessions.

I had a late enrollment appointment and ended up going with Pires because her lectures was one of the last to still be open. I was a little nervous seeing the reviews on here, but after taking the class I don't understand the bad reviews. My class was online, and it ran very smoothly. She is an engaging lecturer and explained the clicker questions well. I liked that she would go over why the incorrect answers were wrong for each clicker, and this was really helpful for preparing for exams. She is good at explaining the concepts during lecture (so you can understand even if you didn't read the launchpad) and would draw diagrams to help visualize. Pires is accommodating and a really genuine person.

Always had a crab or spider video for us while we entered, lol. Clickers necessary. Tests were hard (as usual). Really sweet lady. Pretended to be our "study buddy" to help us work through examples. Would occasionally get frustrated with students but it's because they would ask something that was just explained. She really tried her best to be patient though, you could tell, I honestly don't blame her cuz I would feel the same. That's probably why you see some negative reviews about her being rude but honestly it's like 3% as extreme as they make it out to be.

Pires is a super nice lady -- really seems to enjoy the subject and truly tried to help us out and be as accommodating as possible during the pandemic, but my god, is this class boring. Maybe it's just me, but I switched my major from regular bio to MIMG so that I wouldn't have to take any more ecology and evolution after this class. I'm sure you all know about Launchpad and how tedious and overwhelming it is (USE QUIZLET), but the one part that really frustrated me about Launchpad this quarter was that there was an entire week of ridiculously long readings about different species and classes of species that didn't show up on any sort of quiz or test. I spent hours on these readings and ended up with probably over ten pages of notes just for it to be completely useless. Really frustrating.

Do not know why Deb has such low reviews but other than the class itself I really enjoyed Deb as a lecturer.

I enjoyed a lot of the content of the class, but I cannot say that I liked all of it. However, one thing that I liked throughout the class is Deb. She is one of the most well-spoken individuals and is a very clear and good lecturer. I got to know her during office hours and this is where I suggest you attend office hours because they can be very helpful. I mainly went to listen in at first but started to attend very regularly and the questions that she would work through would help out a lot.

To do well in this class is simple. Go through the learning objectives and go through the practice material that is released. Launchpad is not very helpful.

Other than that good luck!

She is horrible, for the love of god, DO NOT take her. Her exams are so hard, i swear they make you wanna cry. I studied my ass off and still didnt do good in the class. Avoid her if you dont want a C or worse. I had the hardest time with her