I really enjoyed this class the content was engaging and I really enjoyed professor Maloy's teaching he was engaging and clear. I didn't enjoy professor Chen as much she taught the second half of the quarter I found her to be not as clear and moved too quickly through content. There is an extremely heavy workload and the textbook platform was definitely pricy.

This is going to be my in-depth review of LS7A Maloy and Chen. If it's too long, just know that this class was a good amount of work, but not too difficult!

I actually took this class with Dr. Maloy and Dr. Chen (Maloy taught the first 5 weeks and Chen taught the last 5 weeks). As a Bio major this class was needed and pretty interesting - both professors were really nice, approachable, and helpful. It was a large class (~400 kids) but both professors made themselves available to us as much as they could.

I personally preferred Dr. Chen's lectures but it was a small margin because both were great lecturers - even though I was often super tired or not paying attention during class oops, the lectures were recorded so I could go back and rewatch them. My TA was not great, to be honest, but during discussion, we would just finish the worksheet and hang out, so we didn't need her to teach us much.

The grading rubric of this class was really nice, as you can probably see from the grade distribution. There is a lot of extra credit and between the homework, launchpad, reading guides, discussion worksheets, and more, these really helped to cushion the overall grade. Just turn in everything on time and do it, and by the last week you won't even have to do your assignments for full credit (5 points per week out of 45 not 50, so you can miss a week). Plus extra credit is just easy grade cushioning - if you can I would definitely do it.

As far as the midterms I didn't do that well on the individual portion but with the group portion (each worth 50% of the midterm), that helped a lot to bring both of my grades up. I also didn't do that well on the final but by that point I had a high enough grade and with the group portion that I was still able to pull an A. That's the nice part about this class - dedicated professors and grade cushioning.

It is challenging at times, though, especially if you have not taken AP Bio in high school - I took it senior year so I was okay, but some of my friends who had never seen the material before struggled. It is a fast-paced class, going over major concepts like cellular respiration in two lectures or photosynthesis in one lecture. There is a lot of memorization, and although that may be expected for a bio class, it is a good amount of content in a short amount of time (thank you, quarter system).

However, like I stated, it wasn't too hard to get an A - the Launchpad and reading guides were tedious at times but overall I liked this class and I felt the exam structure specifically was helpful to actually learning something - why it was right or wrong and the concepts, as well as helping in the grade sense.

Take Maloy! I took his class my freshman year and it was great! He is super kind and helpful. This class is also the easiest one of the LS series. There are a ton of extra credit opportunities, and you also have a chance to increase your exam scores. It's almost harder to get an F than it is to get an A on exams. The tests are mostly straightforward and similar to practice problems. But after each exam (2 midterms and a final) you take it a second time with a group, and the 2 scores are averaged together. Super nice!

I definitely would recommend this class because it is very well structured if you are into flipped classroom style of learning. The material is very much a review of AP Biology. I took it with Dr.Maloy and Dr.B which was really cool because they would switch off lecturing and pick topics that they were passionate about. It is easy class if you are into Biology.

Honestly, I have no clue why people like this professor. I took this class twice because I failed it the first time. The lectures are absolutely useless, I cannot for the life of me understand why people like them. It is very easy to get lost during lectures and the professor wastes a lot of time. Launchpad is also completely worthless. The first time I took this class I studied the launchpad obsessively and could barely learn anything. The professor issues an absurd amount of homework at seemingly random times, with short due dates. Assignments' weightings are unfair. The extra credit sucks and is not related to the class at all. I went to PLF sessions for this class; they were extremely helpful. They taught me much more than the actual class and lecturer did, shout out to Allison Wang. The discussion sections are pretty good. As far as I can tell, nobody else could grasp much from the class either from either of my learning pods (two total, one per quarter). The exams are extremely difficult with confusingly worded questions, and as far as I can tell there's no way to know whether you got a question right or wrong except for going to office hours afterward.

took this class when both maloy and braybrook were teaching. it was an easy quarter because they changed the grading system for just this class this one time, where it would serve as P/NP but with the letter grades so A/F. you would just have to receive a total of at least 900 out of 1300 available points to receive an A. it took the stress off of scoring really well on exams (still mandatory to take and pass), and emphasized self-learning as there were questions and reading guides to turn in for points.
this class was hard to remain engaged in over zoom so the switch to in-person for lectures and discussion sections was so much more worth it.
professors cared so much about student learning, held office hours about 4x a week and also brought in 2 grad students for "student support times" as well as offered LA Problem Solving Sessions for extra practice on the material.

107 was by far the easiest science class I've taken at UCLA. Material is incredibly straightforward even without remote learning, and exams had this group phase portion which made grading really chill. This class should not be 5 units. Maybe they do that to standardize LS 107 with the 7 series, but it's more of a 3 or 4 unit class at most. Minus three or so concepts in the middle of the quarter, I didn't really learn anything new. The only thing that took up time was pre-class videos, and you can play them at 2x speed.

Dr. Maloy is a very engaging professor which can really makes a class that much better. That being said, this class is super standardized--so many people take it--so all of my friends with other professors were doing the exact same assignments and activities. Dr. Maloy is great for an engaging lecture, but don't fret if you get someone else.
The speed at which we had to learn new content was a little overwhelming at first, but it was one of my first classes here, so that was just before I had adjusted to the quarter system. If you've taken AP Bio, I've heard its a little easier, but I had not and I was completely fine. Honestly, if you just go to the problem solving sessions every week (you can go almost every day and just study if you really wanted to) its a GREAT way to do practice problems, ask questions, and connect with other students. Office hours were also helpful, and if you put in the work, the midterms and final can turn out to be very doable-- even easy.

This class felt very much like a high school class, where there is a lot of groupwork and collaboration involved. The midterms are group exams and are online.

I thought the final was difficult but since there are a lot of other things in the gradebook (like section participation, homework, extra credit) it isn't hard to get a good grade in the class.

I thought Dr. Maloy did a great job teaching. He goes at a good speed and explains concepts clearly, and also uses fun + easy to learn analogies to help us.

The class goes a bit fast though, so for those who didn't take AP bio/other biology classes in the past this class might be hard.

Points for Fall 2024:
Pre-class reading guides - 68
Pre-class review questions (PCRQs) - 48
Clicker questions - 64
Learning pod assignments - 30
Discussion section assignments - 72
Practice Assessments of Learning (PALs) - 45
Assessment of Learning 1 - 90
Assessment of Learning 2 - 120
Assessment of Learning 3 - 200
Reflection assignments - 10
Total Points 747

Note that the entire LS7 series is standardized, so all students taking LS7 will have the same assignments and AOLs (basically midterms/finals) even with different lecturers. LS7A is also structured in a reverse-classroom format, so you're to do preclass reading guides around the textbook before lecture where it will be more so iClicker questions. While it may help prepare you for the material, I found that the lectures may go into topics other than what the preclass reading guides ask of, and sometimes for Maloy/Braybrook lectures fall a little behind and have to be made up next class lecture.

The AOLs are also known for being very tricky, not because of the content involved, but because of the wording of the questions. You first do an individual phase on Canvas, but you can then change your answers with reasoning provided during the group phase anytime during the allocated days the test is open. Even with the ability to change answers and work with your group, the wording of questions caused a lot of debates and discussions between groupmates and beyond.

Stirring away from the general class, however, Dr. Maloy is an extremely knowledgeable and approachable instructor. I really appreciate how clear he is during lecture, and he'll give very concise answers for questions while also having us think about it considerably. I highly recommend going to office hours to clarify any tricky topics/practice with him, and problem-solving sessions held by TAs and LAs to get more practice questions in. Overall, while content may be similar to AP Biology (and having that experience will definitely help), you'll still learn to think critically about the subject and see even more applications for molecular biology.