Zamudio was not as good as Maloy will say. That being said 7A is a very generous class because my final grade ended up being graciously bumped up to a higher grade. With Zamudio, some of his explanations simply do not make sense but he is very kind in terms of asking questions. I never went to his office hours but I would say the CLC sessions are honestly the most helpful part of the class. The AOLs are lowkey weirdly worded and oftentimes you can have the right rationale but not completely understand how to get to the right answer. That being said, the extra credit is very gracious. Make sure to turn in every discussion assignment. A good learning pod is essential for this class. You can take the class with Zamudio but make sure Maloy is teaching alongside him.

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

I took LS 7A with Maloy and Zamudio; however, my LS 7A class felt like it was Maloy that was teaching and Zamudio was a TA that taught for 2 lectures. I feel like the class was intended to be a 50/50 split between Maloy and Zamudio teaching, but Maloy ended up teaching for around 90% of the lectures. I think this is because my lecture wasn't that receptive to Zamudio's teaching style, while we were more engaged with Maloy. He's a nice man, but I preferred being taught by Maloy than Zamudio. Zamudio spoke monotone and was sometimes a little hard to understand because he spoke fast. I can tell that he's passionate about his field of study, but it just didn't come across well to me when he was teaching. I bet he would be good if it was a smaller class, but I don't think that LS 7A fits him well.

I took this class with Professors Zamudio and Khankan. They're both honestly really cool professors and are great at lecturing. Professor Zamudio seems intimidating but he's really helpful and very passionate about the material. I'd definitely recommend taking the class with them

Dr. Zamudio is really cool! He did pre-recorded lectures for this class in Spring 2020. The exams were pretty difficult and they included short answers. He was very understanding of his students. He could be a little unclear, but he tries his best.

Prof. Zamudio taught the second half of my LS7C class. Unlike Prof. Khankan, Prof. Zamudio pre-recorded lectures that could be watched asynchronously and instead of clickers, we had short CCLE participation quizzes due 24 hrs after lecture. Prof. Zamudio was a clear professor and pretty decent overall. The last 3 weeks review and build directly on 7A material, so it's helpful to review topics like DNA beforehand. Discussions were synchronous and mandatory for the whole quarter. The Launchpad assignments were similar in length to 7A. One big difference for online vs in-person classes was that the midterms were a combination of multiple choice and free response (throwback to AP Bio) instead of all multiple choice. The first midterm was broken down into 60 pts MC and 30 pts FRQ, but after receiving feedback the second midterm was 70 pts MC and 20 pts FRQ to reduce the time crunch. Exams were open from 4pm to 8pm, and we had an hour to do each portion of the exam. We were given full credit for the final due to protests.

Grading breakdown:
Midterm 1 - 90 pts
Midterm 2 - 90 pts
Final - 180 pts
Discussion - 72 pts
Lecture Participation - 54 pts
Launchpad Activities - 45 pts
PCRQs - 45 pts
PEQs - 45 pts
Total - 621 pts