Professor Pham was so amazing!! I would highly recommend taking this class with him, because he cares so much about his students and genuinely wants everyone to succeed. I don't think I've ever heard someone ask a question to which he didn't respond "Excellent question!" He will never be condescending in any way or make you feel bad about being confused. He encourages people to ask questions about deeper understanding and if you have super basic questions because you don't have a strong bio background, he's more than happy to go over those with you as well. His lectures are all slides and iClicker questions, and you get to talk over clicker questions with the people around you before answering. Professor Pham does a great job explaining the clicker questions, and even though he talks fast sometimes, you can totally follow along as long as you stay engaged. The tests in this class were pretty challenging, but very doable as long as you studied hard and went to office hours to clarify any confusions. I gained so much from office hours and Professor Pham really helped a ton when we had questions. Going to all the office hours was a huge reason I did so well in this class, because instead of letting topics that confused me pile up, I got them clarified right away and Pham was always excited to answer questions. Also, Pham is so funny and he cracks jokes throughout lecture that keeps the environment super light. He's such a great professor; I looked forward to this class every week and I would take another class with him again- no question. If you've taken AP Bio in high school, then this class is mostly review for the first half, and the test questions have similar style to AP questions, where it's testing your ability to analyze experiments and hypothetical situations, rather than being memorization based. In fact, you don't need to memorize much for this class because all the diagrams are given on the test. And if you haven't taken AP Bio- don't sweat it! It teaches you all the intro stuff you need to know and as I said, Pham is happy to go over basic questions with anyone who asks. I have many friends who haven't taken gen bio in years and still did fine. Just be prepared to do a ton of work! Launchpad took me about 6-8 hours every weekend to finish. The good thing though is once you get Launchpad over with in the weekend, you have no hwk the rest of the week. Trust me, it's manageable and for me it was a very enjoyable class.

TBH, I feel like the way the LS7 classes are structured makes it so how you do in the class is more dependent on you than your professor. That being said, I sincerely enjoyed being in Pham's lecture this year. He's a nice and laidback teacher who seems to honestly enjoy teaching the subject.

However, in my opinion, doing well in this class is more dependent on you and how you study. I have many friends who tried to memorize everything in preparation for the exams, and I'm telling you now THIS IS NOT THE BEST WAY TO STUDY. Instead, make your studying interactive. Create your own diagrams, questions, go through past exams with other students, make sure you really understand the concepts and how one concept connects to the other. I didn't spend any time making study guides of all the material we learned. Instead, I went through the learning/class objectives and answered those questions instead.

Additionally, a large portion of the grade isn't dependent on exams. Attend lecture and discussion, finish your launchpad questions (some of them can be found on quizlet if you don't have the time to read through all the launchpad–which is lowkey useless in my opinion), and do the unrelated mindset surveys and questions that they make us do for points, SIMPLY BECAUSE THOSE ARE EASY POINTS THAT CAN MAKE UP FOR A QUESTION OR TWO LOST ON EXAMS. Don't get lazy and decide to not go to class or do a five minute mindset exercise, a good grade in this class is easily attainable.

The homework consists of readings followed by quizzes about the reading. If done in totality it's quite a bit of work, but if you skip the readings and do the quizzes it's hardly any. Doing the readings are helpful in understanding the information, but it's way too detailed with a ton of unnecessary information. Both midterms and the final were challenging because it's a big transition from high school. On top of memorizing the content you really need to understand the connections between concepts because the exams are all about analysis. His lectures aren't super useful in teaching but they do guide you in what to study. For the exams I recommend going over the concepts listed at the beginning of each lecture and watching youtube videos on the ones you don't understand. After going over lecture slides, go over all the clicker questions he posts.

I like him and I think he's both a good guy and a good professor. But I don't like the time consuming redundant stuffs in LS7A like those reflection videos and mindset control videos.

The thing with the LS7 series is that the curriculum is standardized so it really doesn't matter who you have as a professor and all you do in class is clicker questions; however, I did notice that Maloy's class got to take both midterms a full week after Pham's classes did, despite being at the same pace as we were. Professor Pham was a little hard to understand at times during lecture but when you rewatch the lecture, you can figure out what he was saying. He also doesn't really offer much extra credit and is not the most lenient with Launchpad mishaps. There was an instance where the date some review questions were due was different from the date it said in the title and at least half the class missed those points but he didn't really do anything about it and told us to be more careful and to not miss anymore. Overall, he was an alright professor. I didn't really like his office hours and he didn't really do much to prepare us for the exams but that's the same with most of the LS7A professors this quarter. The discussions for this class were completely useless, all we did were random worksheets that really didn't help much and we finished them a lot in advance but couldn't leave early. The pre-class worksheets helped a lot more in preparation for the exams in comparison. My TA Sean didn't really know what he was doing a good most of the time and therefore, couldn't answer most of our questions without consulting the internet. He also would not let us take notes over what we missed on the exams like the other TAs allowed so I remembered none of what I missed and there was no point in going over my exams when I couldn't even take note of what I did wrong or need to focus on. Our LA was great, on the other hand. Onto the exams, they were definitely not easy. If you did not take AP Biology in high school, prepare to have a bit of a tough time with this class. The exam questions were worded very weirdly most of the time and you have to be really careful while reading the questions. You need to get comfortable with the "if you change this, what happens to this?" type of questions because that is definitely the majority of the exams. I got a C- on the first midterm (this was because my text anxiety was through the roof and I didn't read the questions properly, it was not nearly as hard as the other two) and a C on the second midterm (this one was definitely harder). I studied crazy hard for the final like I legitimately ignored the fact that I had two other finals to study for. I put in almost 100 hours of work into studying for it and got a C+ (almost a B-) on the final, which was above the average. I felt this was easier than the midterms but most people told me it was the same, if not harder, so I feel like the small changes I made in my studying for this class made a huge difference. honestly, i really hated this class so i'm just glad it's over. good luck for anyone taking this class in the future.

Some advice for this class:
- yes, you do have to buy the launchpad thing, you really can't get out of it
- go over the learning objectives on the slides and really make sure you KNOW each one
- understand every diagram/model given to you because i promise it will show up on your exam
- when you're studying, go over the clicker questions and launchpad practice exam questions and understand why the correct answer is correct and why the wrong answers are wrong. don't bother with the launchpad review questions unless you have time.
- videos help a lot with the concepts. you really want to have a good overview of each of the concepts and videos help a lot more than just reading your launchpad notes
- the biggest changes i made in my studying for the midterms vs the final was that i did the pre-class worksheets and i took advantage of campuswire. campuswire was my savior and i honestly wish i had used it much much earlier. it helped so so much and you could find more practice material on it.
- BIGGEST THING: do not lose points on launchpad, the discussion worksheets, or the other assignments we have to do. every point matters and you want to have some wiggle room for the exams. definitely do all the extra credit opportunities given, you think that two points won't make a difference but it can and it will.

You'll probably hear a lot of life science majors tell you that the 7 series isn't something you need to stress about, which is fair to some extent, but this is just about my personal experience. I didn't take AP Bio in high school and felt very behind and frustrated during the first few weeks of the course. I did poorly on the first midterm and was pretty discouraged, but I proceeded to work my butt off and I religiously attended professor and TA office hours, as well as the CLC problem-solving sessions (super helpful imo!). Don't be afraid to take advantage of all the resources you have, there's nothing wrong with struggling or needing help. That being said, I did pretty well on the second midterm, but the final was pretty hard. I didn't do great on the final (B-), but with all the launchpad, clicker, and extra credit points, I was able to get an A. Pham is a really sweet and genuine guy - very dadlike if you will - but I honestly didn't feel like he explained a lot of concepts and ideas well. I even went to Maloy office hours with friends because he tended to explain things better. It's all about what you make of it!

Lifescience 7a was harder than I thought it would be in weird ways. After the first test I felt extremely confident about my grade and understanding of the material however I was really surprised with the grade I got. Pham is a nice professor and he was willing to answer questions in office hours but there were very very limited resources for studying in that class and all he would recommend is studying clicker questions and handouts which again were extremely limited resources. Also there was an extremely heavy amount of homework online through launchpad which could take anywhere from 2-3 hours to finish on a given day. The midterms didn't feel hard but had tons of tricks and extremely questionable wording and the final exam was really challenging.

Yes, Pham has an accent. It's obvious. BUT this in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM HINDERS STUDENT LEARNING. Pham is so nice to his students and stays hours and hours during his office hours so that everyone can ask questions, even the dumb questions. Although, I felt that this course was easier than AP Bio and was less about actually knowing/memorizing information than it was about interpreting graphs and data of provided scenarios. The material in the online Launchpad 'textbook' that costs over $100 isn't really even the main focus of the class, and it's only used to complete weekly practice review questions or practice exam questions (which, may or may not be on Quizlet for your convenience). What you really should study are the clicker question slides and learning objectives that are found in the lecture powerpoints. The exams (2 midterms and a final) are all multiple choice and it's common to get a B or above. As always, the more studying you put into it, the better result you'll receive. Anyway, Pham is very passionate about molecular bio and I definitely recommend him as a professor.

Pham is hilarious! I loved being in class with him. He is a little slow paced with lectures, which makes preparing for exams difficult. I learned a lot and made a good grade in the class, but I made Bs on all the exams (two midterms and a final). Pham knows what he is talking about and is extremely helpful during office hours.

Professor Pham is the goat. His accent is a little strong but its easy to get used to. He truly cares about his students and just an overall nice guy.

For Launchpad I recommend taking handwritten notes on the material, it makes the class 10x easier although it may mean having to spend more time doing launchpad.

The tests for this class are kinda tricky but if you know the material well they're very straightforward. The only reason bio is hard is because of the vocab (and taking notes on launchpad will drill that vocab into your head).