As someone who had no choice but to retake this course with her and only her 3 times, I feel it is time for this review. She is the worst professor I have had here at UCLA in MIMG. I am an average A-B student but just be prepared to be a machine and memorize everything. There is no point of trying to learn or understand as she does not care about that at all. She is not approachable, she does not consider any feedback given in mid-quarter or end of quarter since I have taken this course with her unfortunately multiple times. Participation is mandatory but to be honest you could get everything you need by just reading the slides. The key is flashcards and memorization and if that is not your strong suit like myself, GOOD LUCK!! Please take this class with anyone else and I know she does not teach in summer. She also goes ridiculously fast and you will not be able to have an engaging question with her in lecture because she is too busy counting how many slides to get through. She gets annoyed if you have a question in lecture and states to come to office hours. I have never had a professor say that to me in lecture. Discussions are useless, the TA's just repeat the material if that is what is helpful for you. There is one group work project in discussion that is so easy and you will not need for any of the exams. Her exams are 40% MC and 60% short answer. Be very specific when answering questions and expect to know the most random detail like a protein that was discussed once ever. MEMORIZE. There are no cheat sheets and if you get a few questions wrong on the multiple choice which can make confusing but not necessarily difficult, expect to be down a letter grade. You will not learn from the homeworks since she just asks you to answer any question from the textbook and she does not use the textbook. So assume you need to do it for the points and don't spend to much time or effort on it. Honestly, I still can't believe she hasn't changed a single thing since I took with her the first time. As you can see by the reviews, someone needs to tell her that her method is not working.

Dr. Berthet is THE WORST professor I've ever had at UCLA. She goes through material really quick, and her lectures are basically her reading off of her slides. The class itself is very content heavy and requires mostly memorization. The first midterm was very easy, since the TAs wrote the test. However, the second midterm was suddenly way harder, and was testing material that was not taught in class (mostly from the textbook), which was not the case for the first midterm. Apparently this was because Dr. Berthet did not like how well we did in the first midterm?? and decided to make the second midterm harder so that the average is more like a C minus. The worst part about this situation was that none of this was communicated to us beforehand, so most of us went into the second midterm thinking it will be similar to the first. She also does not curve at all.
Overall, Dr. Berthet is one of those professors that almost feels like they don't want their students to succeed and is not a great teacher. I do not recommend taking this class with her, it literally broke my 4.0:(

I like Professor Berthet as a person, but unfortunately not as a professor. There is a lot of information to cover, which is the nature of the class, but I am still wondering as to why MT2 and the final were written to much harder to lower the test averages. There's not really any telling of what information is more important in the lecture slides, so there's a lot of cramming information into your head. Not an impossible class, but I do hope Professor Berthet makes her tests more fair or lectures more helpful in the future.

As an MCDB major taking this class as an elective, it's a very easy class because like 70% of the material is a repeat of stuff I've already learned in my MCDB and LS classes. However, the way Dr Berthet teaches the class kinda just sucks. She goes so so sooooo fast during lectures, so you're just focused on writing down what's on the slides that you get no time to actually process what you're learning. The slides themselves are extremely dense. She says to read the textbook, but this is definitely not necessary (I stopped reading after week 1) as her slides basically are a rewritten version of it, even including info from the book that she doesn't want us to have to know for the class. Also for some reason we only had in-person lecture MW and the Friday lecture was a pre-recorded video. The worst parts of this class were the tests. For the first midterm, the TAs wrote the MCQs and she wrote the FRQs, but I guess she wasn't happy with an 84% average so for the second midterm and the final she wrote all the MCQs too. The problem with this was that you could tell she wrote them in a rush and definitely did not proofread them, because so many did not make sense (e.g. I had to ask a TA what half a question meant and the TA had no clue so she went back to look at the answer key, then I watched her pull out her phone and look it up, and then she told me something that definitely did not match up with what the question said but at least she led me to what was supposed to be the correct answer), and there was even a question that is biologically impossible (asking about what happens with missense/nonsense/silent mutations in a promoter...). I'm fairly certain some of the questions were asking things she never taught us, and the only reason I could answer them was because I learned them in other classes. She did get what she wanted though, averaged of 75% on the second midterm and 78% on the final. But all this to say, I very much disliked how Dr Berthet ran this class; it was doable for me but I can't say fs that would be the case for others.
Grading breakdown:
20% Homework (canvas discussion posts answering an easy prompt each week)
5% Discussion presentations (group presentation in week 6, very easy but ofc you do need to coordinate with your group outside of class)
5% iClicker lecture participation (can miss one day, but we didn't even use iClicker that much so theoretically you could miss more days if you check which slides have an iClicker)
40% Midterms (20% each; 20 MCQs, 4 FRQs with parts)
30% Final (technically cumulative, but very very much centered on post-MT2 material)

Loved Professor Berthet, she's passionate and is pretty understanding. I never read the textbook because all information is on the slides but it is purely memorization and studying should come from daily review not any cramming. I think the downfall is the second midterm because it's hard every year apparently and the average was very low despite no curve given whatsoever. The TAs write the FRQs which often have mistakes and are misleading but I think the exams are generally fair if you can interpret what they're asking for. Loved the content and professor.

If you want a better grade please take it with another professor. Exams very bad; a lot of things I don't think she covered during class.

Berthet doesn't seem to realize that she is teaching a class of college students. She talks like her audience is high school freshman, which is a problem when the topics that need to be covered are at an upper-div level. Her lectures are basically useless, as the tests are not based off of them. Read the textbook, check into iclicker every day at 11:20ish. It's not an impossible class, but the way it's set up makes it frustrating. It's easy to see how someone could fall out of love with the subject by taking this class. If you can take it with someone else, then do. If you must take it with Berthet, don't fret too much, just be prepared to shell out for the textbook.

Not too difficult but VERY memorization heavy. If you are good at memorizing definitions, pathways, etc. this shouldn't be too bad, try to review daily as each lecture covers a chapter. Almost everything on the slide which is highlighted can appear on the test. Knowing how, when, and why microscopes, plates, etc. are used is also very important. Do the study guides at the end of each chapter slide as there is few study materials. There are also past quizlets with the exact same questions which I wish I knew earlier. Discussion is optional until the group presentation around week 5. It wasn't very helpful as the discussion worksheets weren't difficult and I was able to do them on my own so sometimes I would skip. Professor is very passionate and kind but lecture was not very helpful or worth going to as everything is on the slides.

Professor Berthet brought an extrordinary passion to microbiology but the class had so many flaws that made me despise the class. She will blaze through lectures and will try to finish as quick as possible if she realizes she is running out of time. Though she emphasizes that you must read the textbook, it isn't necessary as all the content on exams are on the slides. She hosted office hours directly after her class. You can only receive your SAQ for exams back and you will need to put an unnecessary amount of effort to just find out what you got incorrect on your MCQ portion. The exams are 30 MCQ with 4 SAQ while the final is 50 MCQ with 5 SAQ w/ a notes sheet. This class is doable, but receiving feedback on exams was my biggest frustration in this course similar to lower division courses. I would pre-read the slides before lecture, to account for her speed and reference the learning objectives as a resource to have a cumulative representation of exam content.
I did not enjoy this class.

Professor Berthet is honestly one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. She is extremely engaging, approachable, and understanding of her students. She does her best to explain concepts and answer questions during class so that everyone understands, and after our first midterm feedback, she was also clear about what she does and doesn't want us to know. I think the class agreed as a whole that her exams were generally fair. She tests on information from her slides and not the textbook, though I would definitely recommend reading the textbook chapters for a thorough understanding of the concepts, especially to prepare for exam questions that ask you to apply knowledge. Exams consisted of majority multiple choice questions with ~3 free response questions. There were two weekly homework assignments, one from the textbook (you will need to buy/borrow the textbook for these questions) and one on Canvas. I would say the workload is definitely manageable as long as you are consistently going to class and not playing catch up. The homework is graded based on effort instead of correctness so I would highly recommend doing all of them since they're basically free points. Discussion attendance is mandatory and around week 5 we were required to do a group presentation in discussion. Professor Berthet may offer extra credit based on how the class does as a whole, but it wasn't guaranteed. She generally wants an average of 70-75% for every exam. Overall, I would say as long as you do the bare minimum of going to class + turning in all assignments, you will be able to understand all the concepts. If you understand the concepts and can spend a week or so memorizing them before the exams, an A is doable. Professor Berthet wants the best for us and always offers extra office hours or one-on-one meetings if you need more help, so don't be afraid to ask!