I have quite mixed feelings about this class. Before I begin, let me mention that Professor Pham in an amazing teacher and is very educated on the topics he discusses. However, his flaw is that he stop class too often to answer questions, which causes us to stay later online or have to watch the recordings after class. Who knows, maybe in person class will be different. I believe that the grading system is quite fair, they give you room to miss a couple of points in each category, similar to LS7A. The textbook and launchpads are absolutely useless. The only thing that is worthy of your time is the PEQs and the quizzes in the launchpad. The tests are pretty difficult and wordy, however if you enjoy the subject that might make it slightly easier. The labs are long and mindlessly boring. Overall Pham makes the subject interesting, but it does take a little time and effort. I believe the lectures and clicker questions are most helpful in preparing for the exams.

Professor Pham is GREAT! Throughout the quarter, he was extremely helpful and did a good job explaining clicker questions, concepts etc. He’s an extremely passionate professor and if you have to take this class, I would definitely suggest taking it with him!

My main critique isn’t about Professor Pham, but just the class as a whole. The material (barring genetics) is absolutely uninteresting and launchpad is not helpful and will put you straight to sleep. I stopped reading launchpad about midway through the quarter and didn’t feel like I was missing out whatsoever. Labs are not helpful either, although TA Jalyssa made them a lot more enjoyable (BIG shoutout to her!!). They consist of filling out tedious worksheets that, in some cases, are legitimately at a 7th grade level. The exams were alright in terms of difficulty, but the wording (particularly on the 2nd midterm) was unclear for many questions and made it difficult to demonstrate my understanding of class material.

If you have to take this class, I’d highly suggest taking it with Professor Pham, as his enthusiasm makes this class more bearable.

Professor Pham is a stellar professor, the class itself... not so much. Supposedly this class is the "easiest" of the LS7 series but the tests didn't feel like it was. Even one of the LA's during lab stated that they had no idea why the tests were hard compared to previous years; the wording was often very vague and tedious to comprehend. They (the instructional team) did give back points for questions they deemed unfair however. There was a fair bit of extra credit in the form of reflections and mini-midterms. I would take this class again with Pham (and any other classes he may teach) and highly recommend him. DO NOT underestimate this class just because it's called the "easiest".

Pham is an extremely nice guy and knowledgeable. Very accommodating and always answers people's questions. However, classes were sometimes a bit slow or he stops to answer too many people's questions. We fell behind and had to watch extra recorded lectures.

General course comments:
Lab worksheets are boring, long, and don't really help that much. Exams were hard to understand, wording is so vague sometimes. Launchpad's aren't very useful in terms of exams and spending extra time on them is a waste of time.

Dr. Pham is funny and an extremely engaging lecturer. He breaks everything down in a way that is understandable and answers questions during lectures. One of the best professors at UCLA hands down. I think 7B is the easiest of the 7 series. Make sure to show up to class and do the clickers; they are good practice for the tests!

I loved Pham, he has to be one of my favorite professors in the LS7B series!! The LS 7 series itself is very rough in general but Pham is such an amazing professor and is SOOO sweet and understanding! If you have the chance, talk to him during office hours or try to interact with him after class! He made me really love ecology which was a topic I wasn't interested in before. The exams are somewhat tough, but as long as you take your time and don't over think, you will definitely be okay. I would definitely take another class with Pham again <3

LS7B was an interesting course, but I have to say, I truly had an extremely bad and difficult experience not with the course itself, but the structure. The structure is not the best. The organization of what we needed to learn was not the most clear, and I truly have to say that if not for my peers helping me organize study guides and sessions to apply our learning, I would not have done as well in this class as I would have liked. It was HARD. Then again, one main issue I have with a lot of these stem courses is the failure of these professors to realize that this is not the ONLY course students are taking. When they are assigning assignments and homework, they fail to take into consideration that some students have jobs, families, and OTHER extremely difficult courses that we have to worry about. Not all students can sit there for hours reading 30 pages of readings, doing PAGES of assignments and expect them to somehow magically memorize it all in time for the exams. There HAS to be a better way of structuring these courses in a way that makes students continue to be passionate about the subject and not overwhelmed.

It is so unfortunate to hear how these classes are "weeders" in that they make it intentionally so difficult to discourage people from going into stem related careers. There has to be a better way of going about this. Limit the assignments, assign MORE THAN ONE TA per discussion course/problem solving session. Hire more help!! I can even begin to explain how frustrating it was having to forcibly fit a limited number of resource sections into my already PACKED schedule only for them not to be as helpful as I would have appreciated. Then it feels like I wasted my time, then I stop going, and the loop continues. If you did not have ANY experience in AP Biology, 7A and 7B are courses that are nearly impossible for you to get an A in. It is possible, but I'm telling you, you need to sacrifice a lot of your time or seek other means. There has to be a better way.

I did really appreciate the discussion sections. They were helpful for a small portion of the exam. I remember when the LA gave us an acronym for helping to remember the mechanisms/rules of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, and how much that really helped for the exam. Though 7B was hard in terms of the immense amount of work we needed to do, the discussion was fundamental to really understanding some topics in detail. If the workload for some of the assignments (especially the ones with ten pages) could have been modified down, then the discussion really wouldn't be that overwhelming. Also, the fact that discussions and lectures were mandatory, had DEVASTATING consequences for me winter quarter. Winter Quarter already is so very overwhelming because you might be dealing with sickness, or even mental health issues from the horrible weather and just life in general, so mandatory attendance sucked. If there's anything I could say, it would be to please consider making attendance optional and allowing for people to manage their time better and independently. We are college students, we are capable of doing so. Not every single lecture and discussion section was helpful for preparing for exams and conceptual understanding. Sometimes I wish I could skip a discussion or lecture to catch up on the CRAZY AMOUNT OF READINGS! Had I been given that option, I probably would have been less stressed.

Overall, if you are a stem kid, you don't have a choice and must take this class. My most beneficial advice would be to buddy up and find a solid, non-toxic study group. These groups you form will carry you throughout the entirety of the ridiculous series.

Poor Pham. He is so sweet and tries to help everyone so much, but people kinda just disregard him and talk over him during lectures because his accent makes it a bit hard to concentrate/follow. If you take this class please don't talk over him. That aside, this class is just another one of the LS 7 hellhole series. What else is there to say. The material is literally middle school level stuff, and the only reason I got an A- is because I didn't study for the final and bombed it. The only way to study really is to look at past tests because nothing they give in class is useful

7B is just a really boring class. Pham tries a lot to make this class engaging or trying his best to explain all the clicker question. But every class just feels like a load of clicker questions and no real lecturing. My TA also tries her best to engage us and explains the concept to us. It's just the structure of the 7 series that make this class boring to go to.

I was really unmotivated during winter quarter, so my experience in this class reflects that. The only reason that I showed up to lectures was because of the iClicker points. Otherwise, I definitely would not have gone. However, Dr. Pham is incredibly nice and encouraging and you can really tell that he cares about student learning. He does have an accent which some people might find hard to understand (I understood him perfectly fine though), but it does help to sit closer to the front if that’s the case for you. The assignments (Achieve, PEQs, lab worksheets) were really easy and basically free points as long as you did them. The first midterm was the easiest for me and tested the content that was the most interesting (genetics, Punnett squares, pedigrees). You could do pretty well with a very basic understanding of the topics and a good sense of logic. The second midterm was a bit more difficult in my opinion since you actually had to know the definitions to answer the questions which were mostly T/F. The final was roughly the same difficulty as the second midterm. There were a couple extra credit points throughout the quarter. You can definitely get an A in this class with minimal effort, but the content is pretty boring so it is a bit of a struggle to stay engaged.