They were alright. Zoom lectures were a good review of the lab manual people were supposed to be reading. Pfluegl appeared distraught that half the students weren't paying attention, as indicated in people picking whatever they thought seemed decent in the Clickers, but otherwise questions should have been easy.

I did exceptionally bad on Clickers, but I still got an A due to generous grading. I also barely passed my individual exam threshold for a raw A, but all's right in the end.

I actually enjoyed the lab aspect of this class. Assuming you borrow a lab coat, a lot of the procedures taught, particularly the DNA stuff and structure of lab papers, are applicable to research settings and paired well when learning 7C material, though they don't have to be taken at the same time. My TA was wonderful and my LAs went around clarifying confusing concepts on the worksheets, which meant most of us painlessly earned all the points for our work. Good class, little work outside of it. Just don't forget to submit post-lab quizzes and do your paper according to the Perceptive guidelines and it's a breeze.

Pfluegl was okay, his lectures (on Zoom, but attendance was mandatory via iClicker) were pretty boring. Lectures just went over what the next week's lab was going to be, like the concepts and procedure. The labs were a nice intro to different lab techniques and they were overall pretty easy, especially if you read the lab manual ahead of time and understand what you're doing. There are 3 easy writing assignments throughout the quarter to get used to how to write a scientific paper; the first 2 are only half (first one is the first half of a typical scientific paper, second is the second half of a typical paper) to get used to each section, and then the 3rd puts them together. The final has a group phase and an individual phase, both of which were very easy.

Super easy yet boring class. Labs are kinda wasting time.

Clear learning opportunities.

Review:
Prof: What’s more to say about Pflugel? Everyone has always wondered whether this person actually exists. The lectures very very slow (and mandatory now), but everything is pretty much determined by your TA and what happens in your class is done in your lab. Just show up to lecture read the lab manual during the class preferably before the lecture to make sure you know what’s going on to a certain extent, but they explain most of it during the lab so don’t worry too much about it. I suggest reading the lab manual and trying to understand the concepts because then you’ll do less studying for the final. For the final, really try to understand the major concepts in each of the labs. A lot of the questions were in the lab manual or stated in lecture. So understand the reasoning behind why you are doing what you are doing.

Class: The class is an overall fun class. It’s really laid back with a lot of quizzes (prelab, inlab, postlab). Some of the labs are really fun some of them are very tedious. Most of the work you do will be in the lab. There will be scientific writing assignments you have during the duration of the quarter. They are a lot easier than you think so don’t be too intimidated by them. Just try your best to learn the content, not just for a grade, after all that’s why you are at university. Do that and you should get an A.

This class was the easiest class I have taken at UCLA. It is such a great class. The lectures are really boring, and sometimes the labs are too, but it's an easy grade. I found the writing assistants/TAs the most helpful. I thought that some of the directions are hard to understand, but there are online office hours that are helpful to go to.

Honestly, I have never been a fan of the lifescience department, especially with classes that go with the lifescience 7 series. There is always a ton of work, and a ton extra stuff you have to do that requires a lot of time commitment. However, compared to the last 3 quarters this class was extremely doable. Professor Pfluegl is so nice and his lectures are right to the point, with many centered around the writing assignments which is the bulk of the work in the class aside from the labs and the final exam. The final exam was probably the hardest part of this class, but because there are multiple parts and chances for revision it wasn't awful, just time consuming and sometimes tedious. The labs take a lot of time and you usually have to complete a lab worksheet as a group which I wasn't a fan of, but other than that the writing assignments are not as difficult or time consuming as I thought and are fairly easy to do well on if you follow the rubric exactly.

This class is really easy, and if you're taking it, you probably have to. Dr. Pfleugl is great, so I recommend taking it with him. He's very understanding and offers a lot of support. The class is structured in a way that makes it difficult for you to fail as long as you try. I highly recommend the writing center for the writing assignments. One thing I will say is that this class took me much more time every week than I thought it would, which sucks since it's only three units. The grading is a bit unpredictable since the writing assignments are entirely peer-reviewed, but I did not personally have any issues. Overall, a solid class with a good professor and material that isn't mind-numbing.

Overall, LS23L was a pretty easy class. All you really had to do was skim the lab manual before lab, do the pre lab, go to lab, take an in lab quiz, complete the lab, and complete the post lab after. However, all of these were only about 4 questions and very simple or straight from the lab manual. The only time-consuming part of the class was the 3 hour labs and the writing assignments which we had 3 of spread out through the quarter. For the writing assignments, as long as you follow the rubric exactly and complete all your peer reviews and finish the reflections, you are basically guaranteed full points even with a mediocre essay. You do have to do peer reviews after each writing assignments which can be time consuming. Other than that, everything you need is on BruinLearn and lecture attendance was not mandatory but I didn't find them very useful since they were recorded, were just reminders, and summaries from the lab manual. Everything you need is in the lab manual. The final was very doable and gives you a lot of room to make mistakes and make up points. He also structures the class where you can miss a certain amount of each assignment and not have your grade affected. Should be a guaranteed A!

Overall, this class was quite easy. We never got the opportunity to meet Dr. Pfluegl in person since he would do Zoom meetings every week for lecture, but he seemed extremely sweet and approachable. Everything is posted on Canvas, and although the format and amount of assignments can seem a little overwhelming, it's very manageable and easy to understand once the first two weeks are done. Labs were also pretty easy and very guided, and my TA was very helpful if my group and I were ever confused.

The writing assignments are the only time when I'd say the workload is a little heavy, but the rubric is very clear and there are also writing office hours offered the week before it is due. We did not have a midterm, but we did have a final which was quite doable. Grading is very lenient as well, and similar to the 7 series in that you can miss an assignment in pretty much each category and still get full credit.