I HIGHLY recommend taking LS30A with Professor Deeds. Never had taken a calculus class in high school, this class was surprisingly pretty manageable and Professor Deeds explained the concepts thoroughly during lecture. He held review sessions before the midterm and final, which were extremely helpful and I actually learned quite a lot in his class. Your lowest grades for each of the assignment groups are dropped, so its fairly easy to get a good grade at the end of the quarter if you try your best.

The perfect professor exists!! Deeds has genuinely been the most incredible professor to walk this planet. He's hilarious, helpful, and makes the material relevant and understandable. For his class specifically he really sticks to the format of his own tests. So really make sure you know how to do his tests and you should be set for the exams. This is PEAK professor material. Take Deeds for LS30A if you want to thrive in the LS3O series!!!

I highly recommend taking this class. It teaches fascinating ways of modeling real-life systems with mathematics and I really enjoyed learning about this. I would say that if you are familiar with basic calculus, this course should not be difficult for you at all. The professor is awesome at answering questions and his lectures are clear.

I have a mixed feeling toward this class. I like the simplicity of this course, meaning that I didn’t pay attention in almost every lectures and self-studied few days before exams and ended up fine, but at the same times I did not enjoy the amount of work we had to do for something this simple. I did not like the labs we had do, they were really confusing and sometimes even the LA did not know what they were asking for. I am just happy lab was not on our exams. Professor Deeds is definitely really helpful and supportive of his students’ learning. He always offer extra office hours or study sessions before exams or for people who were struggling. He is also really funny and caring with his students. I like the professor but not so much the contents. It is an easy GE for sure, especially for individual who likes STEM.

If you took calculus in high school you should take this class with Deeds for ur life science ge it is very easy and Deeds is super animated and good at explaining. Hes also super kind and approachable. The coding labs were occasionally a bit tricky but very much manageable and pretty simple for the most part. Unfortunately you do need to attend lectures bc of clickers. Tests are fair. Midterm was way too easy final was moderately easy

i had to retake this class after failing the quarter before and i could not put into words how great of a professor he is!! he was very thorough and made the material easy to learn and both the midterm and final contained topics that were taught in lecture, he held review sessions for both which helped a lot. he also puts in effort to remember and know each of his students which i really appreciated!

Deeds quotes:

“I wish I was Oprah. For a lot of reasons—Oprah is so cool.”

“You basically hit your head against the change equations for a long time until you get the trajectory.”

“We want this squiggly equals to become a real equals, like Pinocchio becoming a real boy.”

[We’re learning about drugs that decrease sensitivity]: “The idea is to get some dope that lowers the slope.”

“My office hours are right after class. They’ve been moved to Kaplan Hall. I don’t even know where Kaplan is. I hope someone’s going there so I can follow you.”

“I’m just like Steve Jobs, but less cool.”

[He’s explaining saddle points]: “I don’t do horse stuff, but I love Pringles. So this is a Pringle.”

“How many of you wanna mess with a moose?”

“And then Keanu Reeves might shoot you. Depending on the movie.”

[We’re doing really easy clicker questions]: “And I know some of you are bored, watching TikToks or whatever the hell, but just answer this one for me.”

[He’s talking about transcritical bifurcation points]: “You could think of them going to Starbucks and saying ‘You’re stable? I’m unstable. Let’s switch!’”

“I’m eating lobsters in Maine and I’m super excited.”

“For the second time this quarter I lost two of my tires to a pothole. That’s how my life is going.”

king fr

Love Deeds. 11/10 recommend. Super nice and understanding. Teaches LS30A very well. Lots of office hours and ways to get help. Holds many review sessions before the midterm and final. The midterm and final both reflect what was taught in class. There is no curveballs. No negative feedback :)

Prof Deeds is the best professor I've had so far at UCLA. I believe winter 2020 was his first time teaching at UCLA, so I came into this class not knowing how he would be, and I couldn't be happier with my decision to take it with him. Prof Deeds is so funny and entertaining during lecture, and I always looked forward to his class. During office hours, he took the time to learn everyone's name and sometimes even stayed after his office hours time to help us if we needed it. He's clearly passionate about what he does and loves what he teaches. Would highly recommend taking 30A with him if you get the opportunity!

LS 30A itself is a great class to take regardless of the professor. The calculus you learn is much more applied to life science careers and more helpful than normal calculus classes in my opinion. The class is not graded on a curve, and all the exams are pretty fair (and similar to the practice exams they give you). If you took calculus in high school, 30A shouldn't be too difficult.