LS 7A with Maloy was an absolute pleasure. Dr. Malloy is an excellent lecturer and is 100% the best professor to get for this class. With that being said, his superiority comes from only the lectures. Because LS 7a uses the same assignments and even take the same tests, the advantage of having Maloy over another professor comes from his experience and ability to effectively teach and present the material during lecture. Maloy is an extremely relaxed and caring professor who I would recommend to anyone able to enroll.

As a freshman myself, I remember being quite unsure about this class when I applied so the text below will be a deeper synopsis into the course material, expectations, and tips I would recommend for new Bruins or people who are wondering about this class!

MATERIAL:
Ls7a does a thorough job at introducing and summarizing the field of molecular biology. Although introductory, this course contains a lot of information and can go into some very in depth concepts (compared to a high school biology class). If you have taken AP Biology and feel strong about the first 4 units you should be well prepared to take this course; if not, do not fear, all lectures and reading material assume you do not know any biology or chemistry! Here are some of the main sections which will be discussed in this course: biological chemical reactions, polarity/nonpolarity, enzymes[First 4 weeks] cell respiration, photosynthesis, transcription, translation[Week 4-8], DNA replication, gene expression, cell cycle [Week 8-10]

GRADING:
For grading I have some mild criticism of how grading is done, otherwise this class is very easy to obtain high letter grades in! This class uses a point based system meaning no specific type of assignment is weighted higher than others. For an example 15 points of a HW assignment is equal to 15 points on a Midterm. Because of this, the key is to maximize the amount of points you have, this means you should complete every assignment, quiz or extra credit they give you! A final note on general grading is about grade curves. There are NO grade curves for this class, this is beneficial and also harmful in my opinion as the tests can be difficult, but thankfully you will not have to compete with other students taking the class!
My only critiques for this grading scheme are three things listed below:

1. Finding what your grade is. You will find that many grades will not be inputted into Bruin learn until after the Finals. This can be stressful when you are trying to maintain an A for this class. You can manually calculate this grade but due to the small margins between some grades, this can be inaccurate.

2. This class is too forgiving with work. In this class, some assignments are worth more than the actual maximum amount of points possible to achieve (this is so up to 1 or 2 assignments can be forgiven). Upon reading this you may think, "Yay extra credit!" but you would be mildly disappointed to hear that this does not happen. Instead, if you are a good little lad and do all of your homework you will be punished because you did 15 points more than what is necessary to get a 100% in the Hw category. This kinda sucks.

3. The difference between an A and a A- is very slim. In my case, I did all of the homework and extra credit, but due to a somewhat low first midterm grade, I only had a 30 point difference between receiving a A- and an A.

TESTS:
In LS 7A, you will have 3 main Tests. For some reason they think calling them a different name will make them better but this is untrue. In class they will refer to these tests as Assessment of Learning or AOLs for short! These tests are taken every 3-4 weeks and the third AOL is technically the final. These tests are way different than any traditional test you may find at school. The AOLS start off with little material and about 45 questions and will then progressively increase in material and number of questions(45,65,82). All questions are multiple choice and you will technically have two chances to take each AOL. You will also be surprised to learn that all of these assessments are taken online via Bruinlearn. Additionally, in your discussion section you will be assigned to a group who will take the group phase of the test with you! The group test is identical to your individual test and can be seen as retaking your test. the average of your team test and individual test will be your net score for the AOL! In my experience the first midterm is the hardest, followed by the final, with the second midterm being the easiest(scored 100+%). The questions asked on these tests can be quite vague and reflect how LS department makes their tests. This class requires you to understand the material instead of memorizing it. This means that questions will ask you to apply your conceptual knowledge about a concept in order to solve and actual real life example. This will be difficult getting used to but you will be able to adapt after taking the first AOL and taking more pre assessments!

ASSIGNMENTS:
Each week you will have 3 things to do:
1. PALS - These are practice tests which are worth very little points but get you ready for the real tests!
2. Pre-reading- You will read several chapters from the book before each lecture and then take several small quizzes about each section of the chapter. You will then complete a study guide to bring to class!
3. DSA - Every week you will go to your discussion section and do a small worksheet in class under the supervision of the TA's. you should get 100% most of the time as long as you interact with your team and ask for help if you need it!

Extra credit:
Every three weeks there will be a small 3 credit assignment which involves drawing, writing or creating a piece of art which relates to a topic discussed in the previous three weeks and something which you can relate it to in your own experience!

Final Tips:
1. Do your reading and do your homework!!!!!! You will learn and understand the material way better down the road when you take the time initially to familiarize yourself with the concepts and learn to connect them!

2. Please participate and contribute your part to the team!- For God's sake nobody wants an unhelpful teammate on their team. Even if you feel unsure about the material, make an effort to reach out to team members, TAs or LAs for assistance, they have office hours and problem sessions for people who have questions.

3. Don't give up! Molecular biology is a small part of the enormous field of biology. Do not give up on your ambitions because of disliking this one class. Being able to understand when you need help and seeking it is important not only for yourself but also your team

4. Do all the small assignments. Trust me, they add up and help!

I took this class with Prof. Maloy teaching the first half of the class and Prof. Zamudio teaching the second half. Overall, the class was not too bad, but the tests are somewhat tough to crack. There is a lot of workload each week, with a bunch of pre-class review questions, reading guides, a discussion section assignment that is completed in section, and practice assessments of learning to complete. However, there is a decent amount of extra credit offered in this course, which makes it easy enough to get an A if you just do all the required work. The tests (AoL's) are split into two parts, with an individual and a group phase. At the beginning of the quarter, you are put into learning pods with a few other students and this is your team for the quarter. You take the first phase (by yourself) on Canvas and it opens up Wednesday of week 4, week 7, and finals week, and it is open for the entire day with 2 hours for the first two tests and 3 hours for the last two tests. Then, for the next two days, on Thursday and Friday, you can talk with your group about your answers and use your textbook and other class materials. You then submit an identical test on Canvas where you are allowed to change your answers, but you have to submit another document that details which answers you changed and why you changed them to get full credit. Each phase makes up 50% of your overall score for that test. Everyone complains about this class because the tests have a lot of ambiguous wording, which is true. The best way to practice for this would be to attend office hours and problem solving sessions in which you can expand your knowledge on how THEY want YOU to think (though I was able to do well without this). Additionally, you are able to drop a few assignments if you have to miss them, but, if you complete all your assignments, this works out to having a point buffer in case you lose points on a few assignments. You can miss three lectures (lecture participation and attendance is expected), two weeks of discussion (discussion participation is also expected), a week of pre-class review questions, one week of practice assessments of learning, and a week of reading guides. If you are able to master this format, you will be able to get an A in the course.

𝐏𝐌 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 (𝐰𝐞 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞) 𝐭𝐨 @𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐬@𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥.𝐜𝐨𝐦

Dr. Maloy is a super nice person and is incredibly enthusiastic about biology. You can tell he really cares about his students and wants them to do well. On top of that, he’s incredibly approachable, which was really helpful for me because I often had questions. He did the best he could with the setup of the 7 series. If I had to take this class, which hopefully you don’t, I would absolutely take it from him.

the tests in this class will genuinely ruin your grade. he's tough but fair. he's a nice professor but this is such a hard class and he knows it too.