I took this class with Professor Gorlitsky and Professor Lipman. Professor Gorlitsky taught the first five weeks and I really enjoyed it. The material was super interesting (animals do the WEIRDEST things!) and she included tons of interesting videos that I loved watching. The way her class was structured was she gave narrated powerpoint on each week's material, and then had live not-recorded sessions where she just went into more detail and had us to activities together. But you weren't required to go to live sessions, and she said for exams all the material you needed to know should be in the powerpoint videos. They were pretty long and you can't watch them sped up which was slightly irritating. The midterm took an insanely long time to grade, we took it Week 4 didn't get it til Week 9, so that was a bit stressful. But the workload isn't too bad, there's a weekly quiz, a midterm, and final, and a few short paragraphs due each week in discussion, plus one group presentation.

I took this class is session A of summer 2021 as an asynchronous class, and she taught the animal behavior section. She uploaded narrated lectures that we listened to. Her office hours were EXTREMELY helpful and if there was a lull in the OH session she would give you more information to study!! We had weekly quizzes and when the animal behavior section ended we had a cumulative quiz, then the ecology section started which had the same. The ecology section was taught by Dr. Rachel Chock who also uploaded narrated powerpoints. She was also extremely helpful and also works with San Diego Zoo and Wildlife Alliance. Overall really great and if you can take this course with them I 100% recommend it!

The lecture component of this class wasn't bad. Online, we just had to show up to a lecture once a week (the other lecture was designated office hours). The exams are just three 1-2 page papers that can pretty much be on a topic of your choice, you just have to use peer reviewed sources. So the workload for the lecture part wasn't bad. The labs however, you dont really need to even show up (if you plan to get pictures from other people), but in the labs you're basically just taking pictures of specimens to memorize for the lab practical. The lab practicals (two of them) require multiple days of studying hard to get an A. This was the worst part of the class. You have to memorize a TON of random info for like 100 species. Definitely stressful, but it's doable. I would take this class again just because the weekly workload is so light, and the only bad part about the course are the 2 practicals.

I enrolled in this course because I had the professor before for other EEB classes, and she was awesome (still is!). However, even having a good professor was not enough to make up for how difficult/stressful this class was. There were 2 lab practicals that required an unrealistic amount of memorization, and then 3 research essays that were not as bad in comparison (but still a lot of work). This class burned me out more than any other class had at UCLA, and I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you really love animals.

Professor Gorlitsky is a great professor but the quality of the course strongly depends on whether you get a good TA or not. Mine was meh, so lab sections were meh, and lab practicals were pretty tough.

The lectures were asynchronous and we had meetings once a week that you would either attend and get credit for attending, or submit a summary instead of attending. Labs were in person. You basically handle/study either taxidermied animals or animals preserved in isopropyl alcohol; these would be fair game for lab practicals. There were also some animals not in the lab that we were expected to know. It was kind of a mess.

There are 3 essays, 1-2 pages each on one of 3ish prompts they release. It sounds super easy but my TA graded it pretty ridiculously sometimes making it hard to figure out what they were looking for. It's not not doable, I got over 90% on all three, but it can feel like a lot.

There is an extra credit field trip to the Natural History Museum of LA. This is probably the most pandemic-dependant aspect, since in October/November 2021 there was no particular variant to freak out about, and people felt relatively safe. It's super easy if you're local and totally worth it just because that museum is awesome. If you went with the class on the field trip (again, covid related), all you had to do was show up. If you went on your own, you had to draw a specimen or do paleoart. It's nothing unreasonable. It's actually pretty fun.

Overall, amazing class if you love vertebrates. If you're pre-med idk why you would take this if you didn't absolutely have to.

I really like Dr. Gorlitsky and her lectures are pretty interesting but my TA was a mess this quarter. We didn’t have grades for anything until the last few weeks of the quarter and she would dock off tons of points with very little explanation. Since pretty much your entire grade is based off the TA, just make sure you have a decent one. There is extra credit available and a majority of your grade comes from this one group project. I still have the plant Dr. Gorlitsky gave out on the last day of the quarter, it was a really nice gift

This course is TA-taught. The only interaction my group had with Dr. Gorlitsky and Dr. Lipman was through an hour-long office hour they held, in which we received optional feedback for our initial research project idea. Because the class is TA-taught, your grade will heavily depend on your TA, and the professors will only be accessible if you request extra meetings with them (the professors seem to often be busy, as my group emailed a meeting request and did not receive a response). The course revolves around a group research project in which you write a prospectus (proposal) for, present on twice, and write a final paper for. This class was more work than I expected as several of my group members did not pull their weight, and the only consequence for this is a lower group participation grade, which is a small portion of the grade.

EEB 120 with Gorlitsky was very difficult because of the sheer amount of content and coursework, but I found myself liking the class because of the effort I put in + learning about the leading theories of how the world evolved and became to be today was pretty cool. With a group of friends, we would study 3-4 days in advance for the midterms (HEAVY emphasis on knowing the content of the slides and what the organisms are). There were 3 NON-cumulative exams, a group research paper, a group art project, a group final presentation skit, weekly homework (though I barely did the readings), and mandatory discussion ( and sometimes lecture exit tickets). Gorlitsky is a fast lecturer, so I found myself going to lecture and reviewing the slides to make sure I got it.

Objectively, the class is a lot, but I found it to be rewarding (I could say I had a similar level of enjoyment for the LS 7 series, so take that as you will). This review is to let you know what you are getting yourself into!! Good luck :)

When I was first thinking about taking this class, the reviews were a little offputting, but I had to take it anyway. I ended up really enjoying this class. Here is a breakdown:

Lectures: For this quarter the lectures were given as power point presentations with voice overs which are not very interactive. Some people complained that they were long, but if you played them in slide show they actually took the amount of time that they should have ( around an hour and fifteen minutes. She also held an in person class session on Thursday where she showed videos, answered questions, and clarified lecture material from the slides. There were times when the in class presentation was jsut going over the exact same material as the lecture slide, and that was not helpful. But I think watching the videos and talking about the behaviors was very helpful. The slide decks are about 80 slides long each and this might seem daunting. However, she gives you key terms at the beginning of the slides, and those are all you really need to know for the exam. Know the definition of the key terms and be able to apply it.

Exams: The exam we were given was about 36 questions and we had an hour and 15 minutes to take it. A lot of people complained about time constraints, but I honeslty finshed the entire exam in around 45 minutes. For in person exams they normally give 50 questions, so I thought the time was actually generous. It really was not that hard if you studied. If you were unprepared I can see how the timed exam would feel like a lot, but if you studied then the time was mroe than enough. I think studying for the exam was also pretty easy. I started a week before the exam and simply memorized definitions. You DO NOT have to memorize the behavior of every animal to do well in this class. All you have to do is understand definitions and be able to apply them to new examples. Some people complained about not being able to flip between questions, but it was to prevent cheating. If you know the material you should be able to answer confidently and move on.

Discussion: TAs take the homework seriously, and you will likley get points taken off if you can't show that you actually understand the article. If you can show that you read and understood the article and provide a thoughtful question then you will do just fine. We also had to do a presentation on a paper for this class. We weren't allowed to have note cards, and reading off the slides would also result in point loss. Basically just practice your presentation and you will be fine. Participation in discussion is worth points, so you will have to show up.

Weekly quizzes: This was another complaint that came up alot. In my opinion if you paid attention in class you would know the answer. There were quite a few times where the professor literally gave the answer to the quiz question in the power point slides. So pay attention and you will do well on the quizzes.

Extra credit: They offer 10 points of extra credit for doing an off campus volunteer program that is related to habitat restoration. You attend the event, and do a write up on it. It's pretty simple and easy to get the points for it.

The TLTR: The class has gotten way better since the previous reviews and I enjoyed it. If you pay attention and study for the exams you will do well on them. Pay attention in class and you will also do well on quizzes. Discussion Homework grading is harsh so don't BS it or you will pay for it. I thought that overall the exams were fair and so was the class.

The slides were very hard to follow because the pace was too fast while the information often didn’t follow a path and would jump around making it hard to review class notes. Lecture would cover such a wide range of time that it was confusing when we would start with (just a vague example) birds jump to bats go back to birds then to bugs. It was hard to follow the material when going out of order and jumping around then circling back especially when needing to keep in mind the geologic time scale to remember things in chronological order. Additionally, the pace of the material was so fast it was hard to take notes on all the material and it was even harder that lecture wasn’t recorded and there was no way to go back and review the parts I missed when taking notes. There were 3 midterms with each being 20% of your grade and a final where you put on a play for the class. The rest of your grade was class attendance checked by pop quizzes and homework worth a reallllly small portion of your grade and discussion attendance. While I enjoyed the material and the professor herself, the load was too high and too accelerated. Not an easy class by any means.