Take this class!!

There are a lot of reviews about this class being tough, and maybe that was true before, but Professor Maloy was EXTREMELY accommodating during the remote learning transition.

His lectures were reasonably engaging, especially since the clicker questions (graded for participation, not correctness) forced you to pay attention. The online textbook and activities were a bit tedious, but they are very easy. You read through the textbook, do some brief quizzes (many of which have multiple attempts available) and you get participation points. It tracks your progress, and a lot of people lost points here for no reason.

Aside from the easy participation and clicker points, discussion worksheets were fairly simple and our TA went over everything in depth at the end of each session.

Exams were designed for our success. You completed the exam individually and then worked as a group to compare answers. If the group decided to change an answer, you simply filled out an answer change reasoning form to show that you actually understood the concept and learned. Then you'd be graded on your corrected collaborative exam (as well as your participation with the group.)

Even if this class were in person and more difficult, I'd take it again because Professor Maloy is a great instructor who genuinely cares about his students.

Overall pretty generic class. Nice prof. This starts off a bit like AP Bio, but don't get caught off guard or else you'll do bad (same with LS7B).

I took the lecture that was taught by both Professor Maloy and Professor Braybrook. Honestly the professors are both gems, but the course is difficult. You have weekly Launchpad readings that take a long time, but they post reading guides on CCLE. If you just take notes on what is on the reading guides and skim through the rest of the Launchpad readings, you should be fine. Since it's a flipped classroom, you are expected the learn the material before class and come to the lectures ready to apply the concepts you learned. You can miss a few clicker questions, but they do count for participation and are extremely helpful for the midterm and final. For all the midterms and finals, we had an individual and a group portion, and our final score was the average between the two scores. Maloy and Braybrook hosted problem solving sessions before the midterm and final, where they gave us practice problems and we could work on them individually or in a breakout room. Maloy and Braybrook are great lecturers and explain concepts very clearly. They are very approachable and patient, and they will answer any questions you have at the end of lecture or during office hours. If you need to take this class, take it with either of them

THIS MAN IS A KING. 100% RECOMMEND. Professor Maloy and Professor Braybrook (he co-taught with her this quarter) were honestly the perfect professors for my first quarter and I will very much miss them while taking 7B. Both professors were very engaging and knowledgable about the subject; I think their lectures were the only ones that I didn't mind going to because they taught very well and answered every question thoroughly. Maloy and Braybrook's chemistry is so amazing, so if you're lucky enough to get a class with them, you are set.
TAKEAWAYS (this was written while classes were online due to COVID, so anything may change when going back to in-person classes):
LAUNCHPAD READING: Ok this is the only downside of the class. Every week you have to do about 2-4 hours worth of reading/video lectures/video animations/review questions (if you are taking notes at least). I personally took notes, but this could be a waste of time. The minimum you have to do is skim the reading, skip the video lectures and animations, and pray that some angel posted the review question answers on Quizlet. Most of the reading is not worth studying in depth but can provide a good overview of what is going to happen in the lectures for the week.
LAUNCHPAD EXAM QUESTIONS: These were pretty helpful, so I recommend taking these more seriously than the assigned readings. The midterms and final were kinda framed like these questions. What's kinda scary is that some questions on the midterms and final had questions that had content that were on these questions but not in the lectures, so its useful to use these to study.
LECTURES/CLICKER QUESTIONS: These are probably the most important resources you get in the class. Due to COVID, lectures were on Zoom, recorded, and posted on CCLE (the slides were as well). You gotta attend lectures so you can do clickers, but considering these are Maloy and Braybrook lectures, you shouldn't dread attending. To study for the midterms and final, you HAVE to go over the lecture slides (all the content you need to know are on these slides) and clicker questions (very similar to questions on the tests). The clicker questions emphasize what you need to know for the midterms and final.
DISCUSSION: I had a great TA (shoutout to Maddie) as did everyone else. What matters, however, are the worksheets you have to submit. I actually forgot these weren't graded on completion so I got a few 50% on some of them (oops). But these can be very usefully when studying for the exams.
MIDTERMS/FINAL: I heard a lot of people struggled with these tests, but if you study smart you can do very well. What I did: reviewed Launchpad Exam Questions (NOT THE READINGS), reviewed lecture slides and clicker questions, reviewed discussion worksheets, and attend the problem solving sessions that Maloy and Braybrook organized. The saving grace: individual and group phases. I wish every STEM class adopted this method of test taking. There are two phases: an individual phase (where it is "closed-book" and you take the test on your own) and a group phase (you have two days to discuss the test with a designated group of students and you are allowed to change your answers on the test); each phase is worth 50% of your overall exam grade. This relieved a lot of stress and actually helps you learn the topics through collaboration and discussion. Piece of advice: please don't memorize every detail about cellular processes (they will provide diagrams of the genetic code, cellular respiration, etc.); the exams are very application based.
Overall, this class was pretty great and the professors were amazing. I would honestly take this again. So far the LS7 series hasn't ruined my love for bio. Lastly, please read the syllabus because everything is on there (it was kinda annoying when someone asked a question that could be answered by the syllabus).

Alright, it's LS7A so it's gonna be hard, but Maloy definitely made it a lot more reasonable especially in online learning. Maloy did a lot of stuff that the other profs did not which is why I would definitely try to take him. He offered review sessions before every midterm and the final that were recorded so you did not even have to go. He also gave us learning pods which were small groups that we would we do extra problems with. My TA was really great but I heard mixed reviews about some of the others. My TA was really helpful because Maloy's OH usually had like 100 people in them so I could actually get my questions answered with the TA. The only thing that really bothered me was the disc section points. The syllabus really implied that the worksheets we did in disc would be graded by participation but that was not the case. One of the TAs wrote on campus wire that they told us this early on in the quarter, but my TA never did this and none of my other classmates who weren't in my section were aware of this either. So just make sure that you have everything right on your disc worksheets because those are some easy points you can lose. Otherwise, Maloy is a joy and was super understanding in covid. Midterm 2 is definitely the trickest for whatever reason. My advice for the exams is to do the launchpads but once you relatively understand them never look at them again the test will be nothing like it. For practice, retake PEQs go to review sessions and do the clicker questions. When you're taking the test make sure you don't make any silly mistakes. The midterms are 2 hrs for 60 questions which can be a time crunch. The final was 3 hrs for 80 questions which was really hard to sit through. Retaking the exams with a group was really helpful though and this score made up 50% of that exam's final score. This was a pretty good class all and all!

Maloy is a very kind, helpful, and welcoming professor. As long as you know that the studying also falls on you, and if you know the right questions to ask, you can and will be very successful in this class. Furthermore, Maloy incorporates a group phase for the exams that are not only wonderful grade boosters but also wonderful opportunities for students to review and correct the mistakes they made on their midterms/final.

IMPORTANT: The content in lecture slides is far more important than LaunchPad material, so focus on that. It is far likelier that you will encounter a problem or a concept that was reviewed during lecture slides rather than a trivial fact or question in the LaunchPad textbook. Hopefully, this helps you prioritize what you plan on studying, so that you can study efficiently and save lots of time.

Professor Maloy is god's gift to UCLA. He is an amazing lecturer who makes the more difficult concepts covered quite simple. One thing I recommend is to focus more on his lectures than the Launchpad, as the tests in the class are the concepts covered on the lectures. The Launchpad seems kind of excessive with the information it contains. Other than that, I really appreciate the individual/group testing and the various LA learning sessions that were provided. Just make sure to understand the concepts in lectures through clicker questions and you'll do fine!

I think Maloy does a pretty good job explaining topics and content. He also provided a ton of resources and opportunities to get help in the class, and he is easily approachable. I didn't like the flipped classroom set-up too much because personally I didn't have enough motivation to learn all the material thoroughly before the lecture and the LaunchPad was a decent amount of work, but his lectures are engaging and very helpful in learning the material. He held review sessions before the midterms, and gave useful assignments too. He cares about his students, and was very understanding/accommodating of the various issues that came up during these past few months.

I took this class online during COVID, so it was hard to really learn the material. Maloy is great and tried his best to help everyone as much as he could. Launchpad is worthless, don't spend too much time on it. If you finish all your assignments and study for the midterms and final you should do well, and Maloy is a great professor. I definitely recommend.