Professor Pham was an incredible professor. He was super patient with everyone and would spend hours helping students outside of class. The class itself has some busy work, but I could not recommend taking LS7B with Professor Pham more.

GOAT as usually. Cares a lot about whether students can learn well, and he also does the work into making information clear. He may either do lecture recordings of more content or do faster lectures and have you all ask questions during OHs. Either way, he is very helpful and clear. Exams are the same for all and can be quite hard. Regardless, passing is easy since relatively no brainer homework and labs should earn you a significant portion of points guaranteed.

SUCH A FUN CLASS AND AN AMAZING PROFESSOR! Pham was the absolute sweetest and one of the best professors I've had here. He really cares about his students and answers every question we have. His exams are very easy if you do the past exams that he posts on CCLE, because the question types are very similar. The class gets harder in the second half of the quarter, but still doable if you don't get behind. The only negative thing I have to say about this class was that we were a little behind, so we weren't able to get through all the material which I was looking forward to. But this might have just been for this quarter! Definitely recommend taking with Pham!

The professor had a strong accent, so it was hard for me to understand him. I hated this class sm. I'm not very strong in bio, but my pod helped sm!!! Have a good relationship with your pod, as you will need them during the group phases of the midterms! Also, if you bomb the AOLs, you will still pass. Don't stress about it. I got a 10/60 on the first AOL, and I still passed :) One more thing, for the individual phase of the midterms and final, STUDY THE GROUP AOL!!!! It's the same types of questions, just worded differently. Hope this helps!

Dr.Pham deeply cares for his students who take his course. He makes sure to answer your questions thoroughly and is open to feedback on the structure of his class. I loved going to his class as he made genetics so much more engaging, and he oftentimes stays late during his OHs to make sure every student is cared for. I highly recommend taking his course when he is teaching 7B. An absolutely wonderful professor!

I really enjoyed this class! Definitely not an easy A like this class seemed to have been known for when it was online, but also not an impossible A. Professor Pham is a funny, sweet guy and posts his old midterms for practice, so definitely take advantage of those (stick to midterms from like 2022-present) as they are VERY similar to what you'll see on tests! Basically, just do as many practice problems as you can as if this was a math class because you can't really bs your way to an answer. Discussion is required, attendance is required, and a few quiz grades and missed discussions get dropped from your total grade.

To be frankly honest, this course was extremely hard. Dr. Pham is an incredible professor who is willing to provide support. However, I still was not able to build a strong base of conceptual skills. I believe this is due to the fast paced nature of this class. I spend most of my time understanding and memorizing biological processes instead of focusing on the application part. I would advise anyone taking that class to facilitate their learning by watching a bunch of youtube videos. At some point in this course, you are your own teacher. So it felt like I constantly had to teach myself everything, especially because notes were assigned before lecture.

Also, please keep up with the material. Skipping a day without doing any review can really hinder your learning process. You must stay consistent because that is the key for success. One method that worked for me is using a whiteboard and explaining a lesson as if I am a teacher--that really reinforces the information in your brain. The most effective way that worked out for me was going over the group phases of AOL 1, 2, & 3. In other words, I articulated and demystified the group tests (aka group AOL) so I can grasp a sense of the actual individual phases of midterm 1, midterm 2, and the final exam. The only way to truly feel ready for a test is by doing a bunch of practice, practice, practice.

Moreover, please do not waste your time with trying to understand things beyond the learning goals. Purely focus on the learning goals that the professor sets. I found myself meticulous about every single detail and information. That's absolutely not the best way to approach this class. You don't have to know EVERYTHING. That's just working harder and wasting energy on something you are not even being tested on. Work smarter by checking off every single learning goal!

Dr. Pham is the sweetest professor ever. Me personally, I didn't attend any office hour because I was nervous and scared. I regret not doing so because towards the end of the quarter I got a chance to speak with the professor and he definitely displayed geniune care about the success of his students. So please, reach out for help! Other helpful resources are PLF sessions (under AAP) and Problem Solving Sessions. More information can be found online.

Good luck!

ap bio 2.0 nothing different, however if you struggled in ap bio you will struggle here too. lifesci 7 series is indeed very standardized but explanation and lecture engagement are what vary from professor to professor. pham isn't the most engaging or best at teaching imo, i've heard better explanations of the same concepts from other professors teaching the course. i lwk thought how bad could it be after reading reviews about pham's accent before going into the class, but if i'm being real honest, it would be pretty difficult to understand what he's saying at times. you have to physically sit with your discussion pod group during lecture and complete a pod assignment at each lecture which i thought wasn't very helpful, and i kinda disagree with the flipped class structure for teaching gen bio that requires both conceptual understanding and memorization of biological processes. the course is definitely structured for you to easily get that A; attend all lectures, do all your hw assignments, reading guides, discussion work, + extra credit, etc. sooo many easy points up for grabs all you need to do is lock in for aoLs. each aoL (midterm/final) had a group phase and an individual phase, which were weighted differently for each exam. make sure to get the 100 for group phase, easy points again, and review clicker questions and the group phase question format for the individual phase held during the usual lecture. also would say this is a course where you can get a lot of help from the LAs in your discussion section or at PSS workshops bc they know exactly how you will be tested on the material you learn in class basically. (not that i went to those but lmao)

I thought coming into LS7A that it would be a breeze since I took AP Bio but it wasn't quite a breeze, though I definitely had an advantage. All of the professors, TAs, and LAs definitely want you to succeed and that is evident through the accessible help on Campuswire (which I highly recommend having open throughout the quarter). Also, the class is structured to set students up for success. There is work to be done before the class (reading guides + review questions), during the class (iClicker), after the class (pod assignments), and it really helps ensure that you never fall behind. Of course there are also weekly quizzes (PALs), reflection assignments, and more, all of which contributed to a very easy time studying. Which brings me to my final compliment about the tests themselves: every exam (AoL) has a group phase and individual phase, and we were the first year where they had us take the group phase on the Monday before the individual phase (Thursday). We received our grades back for the group phase before taking the individual phase, and they were essentially identical so if you knew how to solve the group phase and understood any mistakes you made, you were basically guaranteed 100% on the individual phase.

My main criticism regarding the class and Dr. Pham is simply that sometimes lectures moved too quickly in hopes of playing catch up so that our reading guides would still be aligned with the in-class content, but this made it hard sometimes to take notes. I don't agree that Dr. Pham's accent is a problem but I do think when he speaks fast it can sometimes be difficult to decipher what is going on.

Still, I really enjoyed this class and Dr. Pham is definitely one of the best professors to take the class with. He really cares about us and is a funny guy.

P.S. Side note for people who got a 5 on AP bio in high school...apparently you can petition for it to count towards ls7a and thus skip this course. I wish I knew this before taking the class but still I met really awesome people so do with that as you will!

He was a lovely teacher!! Easy to understand and was very considerate when it came to student's difficulty in understanding the content. One time, I made a mistake on my AOL 1 of not saving my answers and my grade was really bad because of it, and he offered me a proposition that if my grade, by the end of the quarter looked really bad, he'd drop it. Very considerate teacher, I miss him lots. The coursework itself is pretty hard though, so I recommend not skipping lecture (if you can) and really pay attention and ask questions in lecture.