I took this class as an MCDB elective. It was such an easy class. The topics for this course are soo interesting- such as learning about how acne is caused, how antibiotic resistance happens, comparing gut microbiome of obese and lean people, etc. The professor wants everyone to get an A!! He made that clear on day one, when he gave us an extra credit assignment that same day. He has two midterms: one week 5 and one week 6. They cover the same material, and the higher grade will be kept. This helps greatly especially when you don't know how the exams are. The exams are about experiments he talked about in class and about the papers we read in class. If someone does poorly on both midterms, then they have another opportunity to do well, by writing a mock grant proposal on how you would ask the NIH for a grant about a microbiome research project. The final is on the second half of the course and covers week 6-10. Then, there are homework questions, which you write a question and an answer to the paper of that day and of the past lecture. It is meant to get you thinking about the material. Discussion is going through the past lecture and papers. This class is really an easy A. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants an easy elective. Only thing that sucks is you have to take mimg 101 before taking this.

Dr. Miller, who's also the MIMG dept honors advisor, is a pretty cool dude. He spent a good amount of time talking to us about his grad school days, his work in the lab, etc.

Regarding the actual class, it's basically going through a bunch of papers he sees as seminal in microbial genomics. The exams are based completely on knowing the general concepts of all the papers. You have to know what the authors aimed to do, how they did it (not super specifically, but you have to know experimental methods), and what their conclusions were.

It was pretty easy; I spent 2-3 days studying for each exam. Making a little sheet of all the important papers is helpful. Overall, I felt like I learned some really cool stuff. He talks about how the anthrax letters case was (probably) solved, the microbiome, and the era of sequencing. 10/10 recommended.

This class is one of the best in the department. I cannot recommend it enough. You read papers every week, write some questions about them for homework, and then go over them in lecture. There were extra credit questions on the midterm and final and an extra credit homework assignment. The exams were not hard at all. This class did not require much studying, but I still feel like I learned a lot. Discussion was mandatory and part of your grade. Definitely take this class, it'll be one of your favorite upper division science classes.

Hands down one of my favorite classes at UCLA. Professor Miller really is not concerned as much with grades as he is with giving you a meaningful experience. MIMG 158 was structured so that before each class (Tues and Thurs) he would provide you with 2-3 scientific papers on very cool topics involving microbial genomics regarding everything from the Pan-Genome to biological weapons to antibiotic resistance and so on. A few times, he'll even give you papers from UCLA professors and have them come in as guest lecturers to talk about their work.
The tests are not difficult at all if you do the reading (which really isn't much) and go to lecture. The average on our midterm was a 375/400. He also gives "quizzes" on the readings that are really just questions to be turned in at the beginning of each class. Easy points. He really just wants to give you a meaningful experience, and I have learned so much from this class. If you are an MIMG major, take this class.
I havn't received my final grade, so I feel like I'm unbiased in that regard.