Dr. Phelan is the best and most engaging professor I’ve had at UCLA. He genuinely cares about his students and is passionate about the topics addressed in LS15. Overall the material in the class is super relevant to life, which makes it easy to stay engaged. Workload and readings were very manageable. I recommend this class to anyone who has space to take it!

best professor and one of the most interesting classes at ucla. take him and take this class !!!

Professor Phelan is amazing!! His lectures are super engaging and are always packed. His tests are super hard but the curve is very nice (i.e. I got below 70 on both midterm and final and still got a B+ in the course). He is a world-class professor who is very invested in the topic of biology as is obvious in his very engaging lectures. He has written lots of books all of which you will struggle to stop reading because they are written so well. He taught me new studying techniques which has helped me get better grades at UCLA. He is unbelievably helpful during office hours and cares deeply about the success of his students. As others have said, he is a life-changing professor. The extra credit was a lot of fun and as long as you follow the directions in the syllabus you should be able to get at least 20 points. The quizzes weren't too bad as long as you did the problem set beforehand. It is really important to go to the discussion as it accounts for a large portion of your grade, and the points are pretty easy to get in the discussion section. The course may be one of the hardest GEs out there but it is very rewarding and I would recommend it to anyone.

I love Professor Phelan so much. The midterm and final are very easy to pass if you study exactly what he tells you to and there are plenty of extra credit opportunities if you don't feel too confident about your test/quiz scores. If you think you're bad at science, take this class and it'll change your mind :)!

Best Professor! Take this class he's the goat for real! Don't miss out, course is pretty hard but overall he wants you to pass the class with an A.

hes king tbh I might fail the final but he slays

definitely not an easy class; however, a class i would 100% take again. the work load is very manageable + your TAs are there to support you, so section was always fun :) partcipation matters here, but they're just going over the content + an assigned debate, but it's not bad as long as you prepare. there's a lottt of content (IMO), so you definitely should study, but professor phelan goes through it in great detail with care, so you have nothing to worry about

This class was very engaging and I enjoyed lectures. As for the assignments I think they were pretty manageable. I recommend always completing the problem sets and looking into the textbook for answers or examples. This will help on the quizzes because they are always one of the questions from the problem set, so it is always something you have seen before. The lowest quiz score will be dropped. The discussion post assignments were easy. As long as you answer completely and thoroughly you should be fine. For both the midterm and final the professor had optional review sessions where he gave out similar questions to the ones on the exam. I recommend answering every single one of those questions in paragraph form and maybe with peers to practice. If you can answer any of those from memory and think of examples then you will be prepared for the exams. Overall, I like how the class related to everyday life. I have learned some things that I will always remember and take into consideration now. This is a great GE and you are given all the resources to succeed.

This class is AMAZING! Phelan is an incredible professor. I went into this class with little enthusiasm because I never previously considered myself a science person. Now, I LOVE science and am often telling my friends all the cool facts I learned in this class. It is definitely not an easy A but if you put in the work, you’ll be happy with your grade. The midterm and final are pretty difficult tests, but Phelan writes prep questions before each test and if you really study them and understand the concepts, you’ll do well on the exams. I learned so much in this class, I highly recommend!

I can't say enough about how much I loved LS15. It really was the perfect class to take my 1st quarter here. Professor Phelan is the absolute GOAT. The class was dense and challenging at times, yes, but I learned so many things relevant to my everyday life. This is literally the most useful and interesting class I've ever taken. And take it with Tanner D. if you can - best TA ever.

Tips:
- Go to office hours for both Professor Phelan and your TA. But especially Phelan's. His office hours are in his office in a circle setting, where he talks about his personal life and is equally curious about yours. He's such a genuine and knowledgeable person, and attending his office hours was one of my favorite parts of the class.
- Make your notes really, really good, and add pictures from lectures (pictures of slides that he doesn't post) and/or the textbook. Some topics can be complex and confusing, and the more notes you have to work with, the better.
- If you can afford it/are willing to spend the money only: buy the textbook. I know this might sound crazy, but the textbook reading was VITAL to my success in this class. There's a few chapters each week to read, and though it does go way more in depth than what's covered in class, reading it builds your foundation/background knowledge substantially. It really helped me understand the class concepts better and let them sink in. But I wish I had a physical textbook to do this.

I definitely want to take more of Phelan's classes in the future. This is an excellent GE choice, though not the easiest - I think it's worth it because it's so valuable.