Grading scheme:
Homework - 20%
iClicker - 1% (you can miss up to 4 lectures and still get full credit)
In-lab practice questions: 1%
Labs: 13%
Midterm: 27.5% or 0%
Final: 37.5% or 65%
The grading scheme depends on if you did better on the midterm or on the final.

Dr. Shevtsov herself is actually a really funny and enjoyable person to be around. However, as an instructor, the lectures aren't great and it may be difficult to understand her due to her lisp + Eastern European accent. Oftentimes students may rudely talk over her leading to an exponential increase (pun intended) in more disruption, causing lectures to be even harder to understand. Slides are posted, but I also recommend following along/focusing as much as you can during lectures and iClicker questions. I also recommend going to problem-solving sessions to help with practice from past midterms/finals.

Overall the course takes calculus and applies it to biology. For example, you would use differential equations to figure out how a population might look like in the long run. If you took AP Calculus, a lot of familiar concepts will pop up and definitely be helpful for the course. Unfortunately, some concepts may get introduced too quickly or suddenly (out of nowhere, limits popped up on slides when it wasn't mentioned before) which may make the course a bigger struggle for students new to calculus. Many claim that LS30 teaches "fake math", but I personally believe that what they teach is applicable to a lot of real life aspects and research (I once attended a research workshop with a different professor held by a club where the professor talked about what LS30 concepts helped him in his work).

The midterm is also infamous for having such a spike in difficulty. Apparently, it was fully written by the other LS30A instructor, Dr. Bennoun, who teaches differently and on a higher difficulty. This caused many Shevtsov students to be thrown off and tank the midterm as practice tests given were a cakewalk in comparison to the actual midterm. Such fears were definitely there during finals, but it was now written half by Shevtsov and half by Bennoun. Luckily, the final was much better.

Labs do involve coding with Python (and you'll need to purchase a CoCalc premium subscription for around $20), but it's not too difficult. You may need to refer to past labs to figure out how to code certain problems. Shoutout to TA Ryan for being such a helpful TA and a bundle of joy in general!

Jane is an inspirational and amazing person. Living with cerebral palsy presents many challenges, making daily tasks difficult for anyone with it. Despite these hurdles, she has achieved a great deal and often makes jokes and engages with her students. Unfortunately, she does not excel in her role as a professor. To be blunt, I had a difficult experience in this class. For context, the highest math level I have completed is Honors Trig/Pre-Calc, so I knew I had to rely heavily on Jane, the TAs, the PSSs, the homework, and anything given from Jane. But these resources weren’t as helpful as I had hoped.

Jane was difficult to understand, and many students shared this sentiment. Whenever I asked my peers if they knew what was happening, almost all of them would reply, “I honestly do not know.” Therefore, I always sat at the front just so I could hear her better. Jane would go through her slides, which I thought I understood because I got the iClicker questions correct. However, once I tackled the homework problems, it became clear that she had left us hanging. Most of the homework problems were not similar to what we were learning in class and seemed unnecessary. For instance, some assignments required us to code in SageMath, which we never covered in class. Consequently, we had to use Python instead of SageMath, part of our lab, even though Python wasn’t going to be on any of the exams. Additionally, there were problems in the textbook that she never discussed in lecture, yet we were expected to know how to solve them by relying solely on the textbook. She briefly went over things and sometimes never showed us how to use it like sigmoids and drawing bifurcation graphs. Surprise surprise, we were encouraged to know that for our final.

Because of this, many of her students including me were left confused and reliant on the TAs for further explanation. I recall a day when I attended 3-4 different TA sessions, trying to understand the material. Yes, I was that desperate. It was frustrating though because some TAs provided different information, which only added to the confusion. I couldn’t attend Jane’s regular office hours because I had a class during that time. I managed to attend one of her rescheduled office hours that day though. It turned out that all the TAs had been incorrect, highlighting the extent of the misunderstanding present. The PSSs were somewhat helpful as they provided additional practice problems. However, the sessions were often crowded, making it difficult for each student to get adequate individual help.

Regarding the exams, it turns out that Bennoun writes them while Jane only reviews them. From what I heard, she did not review the midterm, and the questions were absolutely bewildering. Traumatic, I tell you. Literally all her students can vouch for me on how question 1 left everyone speechless. Typically, some students would finish early and leave with 10-20 minutes remaining. However, during this exam, only one person left early, while everyone else stayed sat until the very end. That’s a clear sign the professor isn’t the best.

The questions were nothing like what we had seen in her provided practice midterms, lectures, homework, or the PSSs. While some content was somewhat similar to the PSSs, it didn’t prepare us for the kind of questions on the exam. The same goes for the practice midterm; there were some similarities, but the practice midterms she handed out were much easier than the actual one we got. It honestly felt like I was misled. I also discovered that Jane’s and Bennoun’s classes were progressing at different paces, which explains why the midterm questions were so challenging and caught everyone off guard.

Fortunately, the LAs were kind enough to hold a 3- or 4-hour final study guide session. That was the first in history for LAs to do that, and I greatly appreciate their support and dedication to our academic success. However, this session ended up increasing my stress levels. The reason is the LAs had to tell us that Jane did not want us to know this specific concept. However, that concept was needed for Bennoun’s class. It was frustrating because both classes are called LS30A, yet they differ significantly. Additionally, there was not much time for questions, and the presentations for each unit were fast paced, leaving me unable to process the information effectively.

About the grading system, homework is graded based on completion and worth 20%. i-Clicker, In-lab Practice Problems, and Labs are all worth 1%. The lab is graded based on accuracy so hopefully you get a TA and LA that explains things well. Or have a group kind enough to send their labs to compare answers. There are extra credits which are worth 0.5%. This class does the Scheme 2 so it’ll use the best score out of your midterm or final for your grade.

I often wonder what it would have been like if I had taken Bennoun's class. I guess I'll never know, but I hope you have the chance to find out and not experience what I went through in Jane’s class. Unless you do choose Jane’s class, please make sure to look after your mental health.

This class was relatively easy for me but I have a strong background in calculus. Many concepts from calculus are used in the class but are never thoroughly taught so if you don’t have a background in calculus, this class may be difficult. Professor Shevtsov was horrible. She wrote the textbook and it literally makes no sense, the homework assignments were never helpful, and Bennoun wrote the midterm so all of Jane’s students did poorly as we did not learn the material. Jane’s speech impediment makes it extremely difficult to understand her during lecture and overall she’s not good at teaching. I went to her office hours once and she isn’t helpful, she’s actually rude. If not for the TA’s, I wouldn’t have done well in this class. If you’ve never coded before, don’t worry because they guide you through it during lab!

Dr. Shevtsov is amazing! She is HILARIOUS, very very intelligent (she created the LS30 course), and very approachable. She clearly cares about the success of students, moving around to check on different groups during lecture, creating review assignments and sessions, hosting extra office hours, and more.

This course is generally easy if you have taken a calculus class before; it revisits those concepts without being too focused on theory/proofs but specific biological applications. I also like the amount of support available to students in the form of LA, TAs, instructors, problem solving sessions and more and these resources were very helpful in my success.

Dr Shevtsov is an incredible teacher and does an amazing job of presenting concepts in a clear, easy to understand way without a focus on complicated definitions or theorems. I appreciate that she is very funny, down to earth, and constantly willing to interact with students and show a vested interest in our success. Thank you Dr. Shevtsov for your help this quarter!

Jane wrote the textbook so she provides a free pdf to students which is nice. You will need it because all of the homework is assigned directly from the textbook. As a professor, she is just okay, not the worst but I've definitely had way better math teachers. I learned better from watching the videos of the lecture rather than actually being in lecture. Our midterm was written by a different professor who focused on more conceptual subjects, so we were totally played. It definitely matters who writes the tests. Our final wasn't bad. Problem Solving Sessions really help, so do TA office hours. You have to study a lot to get an A in this course. The labs once a week weren't bad also, the TA and LA's are really helpful, and most of the time I got it done in class, you just have to pay attention to the small details.

Do not take this class. I wish I could go back in time and take another professor's/different math class. The lectures are fine until you get to the homework, which is nothing like what we learned in class. There have been multiple times when I've been getting homework help from a TA, and they said, "We didn't learn this in class, but you're supposed to know it." LIKE WTF. Then, the mid-term/ final exam was nothing like the actual test. Then there was a homework discrepancy where different lectures's homework was 1 was graded on completion then the other one was graded on accuracy.

My NSA told me to take this course and needless to say, I will never put trust into another person choosing my classes ever again. This class uses fake math and takes concepts from calculus but never uses actual calculus terms. Everything is conceptual. The homework load sometimes becomes too much and if you don’t go to office hours you will not understand how to do it. I think I attended at least 25 office hour sections and 5 pss for this class alone. The way they present the material in class does not reflect the homework assignments. The midterm was literal hell. I will say the final was way easier but I would still not take this class ever again.

I highly do not recommend taking this class if you are not into conceptual math. During my quarter, I found out from other peers that they were conducting a science experiment between lectures 1, 2 and 3, 4 to see how students retain information. Apparently the first two lectures were supposed to be "harder" with less homework, where it will be graded on accuracy. In contrast to lectures 3, 4 which is supposed to be easier with more homework that will be graded on effort/completion.
Although I had Shevtsov (lecture 4) and the grading scheme was easier, I did not learn much. Her slides are not very helpful in pertaining to the homework or exams. Her lectures are more of her just talking about concepts without really working through practice problems. Because of this, whenever I was presented with a problem on the homework, practice exams, or even the exams themselves, I was very of lost. By all means I am not saying that this class is impossible, I'm just saying that it is not very helpful. The midterm this year was absolutely horrendous. It was nothing like the practice and even included a concept or two not covered in class. Even though the class average was very low, her response was, "we expected the scores to be low [...] I hope you take this exam as a learning experience[...]"

Again, this class isn't entirely impossible, it just was not helpful. I found myself having to go above and beyond in order to teach myself mathematical strategies that are needed to solve certain problems (this is including going to her PSS hours, office hours, emailing TAs, and setting up meeting times with TAs).

Lectures are very slow so after the first few I pretty much stopped going and would just review slides (attendance only worth 1% of grade). The midterm prep led me to believe that the exam would be easy but it was wayyy harder than what we learned through homework and lab practice. I attended problem solving sessions (highly recommend) and that’s probably why I was okay even tho I didn’t go to lecture. I got a B on the midterm and I’m expecting a high B/low A on the final cause the final was much easier than the midterm. Also, form a study grp so that even if you don’t go to lecture you can find someone to explain the harder concepts to you (or go to office hrs). I did not find the homework helpful nor did I put 100% effort into it but I know many found the homework more helpful than the lectures so do what’s best for you.

Jane has very detailed and easy-to-follow slides that help students review the material. The extra notes written on the slides by an assistant are very helpful in getting across some of the more dense material of the course. Overall, the homework, lecture format, and more made the course easy to complete.