I LOVE JAY PHELAN!!!! I took this class because I was told it was an "easy A" and I wouldn't necessarily say that's the case as you have to put in the effort to do problem sets, go to class/discussion, and do at least some of the reading but if you do you'll be totally fine. Every week there is a problem set and one of the questions from the problem set is the question on the quiz. In discussion, you participate in 1 group debate and 1 group problem set presentation. There is 1 mid-term and a final, and an opportunity for extra credit by making a music video parody about concepts for the class. Overall, I highly recommend!

Professor Phelan is definitely one of the better LS series professors. After 7A, I did not think the LS series was meant for me and I was not engaged during lectures. However, Professor Phelan not only made lectures engaging, but he taught and reviewed the material in depth. He even held useful review sessions before the midterms unlike the relatively unhelpful Q&A sessions the other LS professors hold. I thoroughly enjoyed learning the material in this class and Professor Phelan is very knowledgeable about 7B. He was extremely accommodating during this online quarter and did his best to make sure students learn. I would choose Phelan over other LS professors by far.

Professor Phelan was probably the best professor to have for this class. If you're able to take 7B with him, do it . He's super passionate about the subjects you learn about, and it shows in his lectures . He's a really funny guy and keeps his students in mind with a lot of things, and he really wants you to succeed and enjoy what he's teaching so he's really good at it .

Note for anyone considering to take this class online: the 7B classes this quarter were not allowed to review their online midterms after taking them, so you can't see where you went wrong. Prof Phelan helped us out a little bit by having a review session after the second midterm and walked us through some of the commonly missed questions. The final was made optional in Spring 2020 (full points awarded to everyone), and we had the Week 10 lab become extra credit. LS7B with Phelan was ran pretty typically of LS classes. Launchpad work was the same as in-person lectures, but lab sections were a lot more tedious, essentially busy work. We had some weeks that were asynchronous lab sections when you just turn it in on your own, but I will say that the lab section were pretty unaccommodating for more time. Some of the online labs were super long (carrying on beyond lab time), but we always had a strict deadline of turning in by the end of lab. I had some tech issues in the first week with not being able to run Zoom/fill turn things in at the same time, but didn't even get the deadline budged by 15 minutes.

For professor Phelan, he was super nice and a great lecturer. He does take a little while longer to respond to emails and can carry on tangents when talking about course concepts, but he really cares and advocates for the students.

I am not a big fan of the 7 series, but Professor Phelan definitely made going to lecture enjoyable. He was very accommodating and kind about the situation in spring and made sure to make himself available. He is very funny during office hours as well. I highly recommend taking him for this class.

I am not a big fan of the LS series, but Professor Phelan made LS7B enjoyable. He is an awesome professor and genuinely cares about his students. Although I took his class online, I found him to be very engaging and his passion for education and the course material was very evident. I loved how he had "take home messages" for every lecture. He also held review sessions before each midterm which helped immensely. Overall, if you have the option to have Professor Phelan for LS7B TAKE IT!

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Took this class my first quarter at UCLA and it was my favorite class. The content is super interesting. Phelan is great, he actually made the lectures enjoyable. My TA was a tough grader but I ended up with a B. Just go to all the lectures, read, and you should be fine!
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Prof Phelan has the most professional pre-recorded videos I've seen for a UCLA course. Super nice guy, topics were very broad - the midterm and final weren't easy as a result, imo. Still recommend it though!

I took LS15 when everything was online so I never went to section or lecture in person, but rather on Zoom. A lot of people on Bruinwalk rave about LS15 and say that it changed their perspective on bio/science. I have to disagree and felt like LS15 was just a regular biology class. The content itself is pretty manageable and gets more interesting after the midterm in my opinion. I have prior IB Biology knowledge which I think definitely helped me out in this class and the pre-midterm content felt like more of a review. I scored within the average range on both my midterm and final but got the extra credit points from the assignment Professor Phelan offers which boosted by grade to an A. Section is pretty long and usually doesn't teach extra content, it's more like a review of the lectures. I didn't read the textbook at all but before the midterm and final I would answer the multiple choice questions at the end of each chapter to prepare for the tests and a couple of those questions came out, so I would recommend that study method. Best of luck!