I loved this class. This semester Dr.Maloy taught this class with Dr.Chen and the two were a power pair. Super engaging, the lectures consisted of slides and clicker questions. Dr.Maloy does have a "reversed classroom" setup where you read the textbook and complete a worksheet before each class. Honestly it is ABSOLUTELY useless and a waste of time so do it quickly and get it over with. Do not waste your time studying on Launchpad. Also the writing in the textbook is wordy and full of useless fluff. The iClicker subscription is definitely expensive. I suggest you buy it through Macmillan because it is the cheapest and the textbook comes with an iClicker subscription.

I really appreciate how the class is graded by how well you do and completion of the assignments. If the class average is below 75% they will bump up your grades a little but they will never curve your grade down. The lowest grades of each type of graded assignment is dropped which is really nice.

The tests are definitely in the more difficult side, you have to know the basics and apply them to more complex situations. The most useful studying tools are the LA workshops, practice exam questions, Lab worksheets, and iClicker questions. There is a lot of group work, we have a set group of 3-4 people you will work with the entire quarter. I was lucky enough to be set with an amazing group but group participation is necessary.

Overall, I loved this class. Other than the textbook , I think this class is really well structured and taught. Professor Maloy is the nicest person and he chooses an amazing group of TAs and LAs that are very helpful whenever you need. Utilize them! It is very easy to get in touch with any of the faculty. Hope this helps.

It was fine, I wasn't a huge fan but I remembered enough about bio and chem from high school to do well. We have access to everything we need to do well on the exams so it's a matter of how hard you study to do well in the class.

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.

this was my first college class and dr. maloy has made it an incredible experience! coming in, i was a bit behind as i had neither taken ap bio like pretty much everyone else, nor was i a science major. but this didn't really matter because the class was taught from the basics of the basics and i quickly caught up with everyone else.

the material itself isn't very difficult in my opinion, but it is very content heavy, especially in the launchpad assignments. dr. maloy's lectures are very engaging and you get participation points for answering questions every lecture, which ends up being a lot of free points, since it's not based on accuracy. as for studying for the tests, i suggest ditching the heavy launchpad textbooks completely and just go over the slides he posts, the ta and la worksheets, and also, i cannot stress this enough, go to office hours.

One thing I have to say to anyone taking this class is to take it with Dr. Maloy. His lectures are incredibly engaging, he's very clear, and you can tell he really cares about his students and their understanding of the topics. Overall, the course is graded out of 717 total points and not weighted percentages, so it's easy to get an A or an A- if you're smart about it. There are point caps for certain parts of the course, like iClicker questions and discussion sections, so you can miss a few classes without losing points. One thing I will suggest is to do all of the 'easy' assignments and maximize the points you get, because the midterms and final are definitely tough, but not impossible. Rely on your pod group, check your group AoLs thoroughly, review the slides and iClicker questions, and don't skip lectures.