DO NOT TAKE CANDACE AS YOUR TA!!!! She is a horrible person and TA that takes off dozens of points for no reason and is completely unfair in her grading compared to the other TAs. The professors have absolutely nothing to do with the course and is the biggest regret of my time here at ucla. DO NOT TAKE.

In general I don’t recommend taking this class. Your grade is heavily dependent on your team members and also your TA could affect your experience. If you’re lucky with your team members (you don’t choose them!) then it could be manageable but if you’re unlucky like me, you end up doing most of the work yourself to avoid having points deducted from every assignment. They could improve this by giving more weight to individual assignments. The workload is manageable but the TAs are really harsh on grading so make sure you put your best work into every assignment.

I have a lot to say about this class, but I'm going to try and keep it short. This class, in terms of workload, is not hard at all. However, take this class knowing that your grade is heavily dependent on your TA and your group members (mine were randomly selected by the TA). Taylor (my TA) was super nice and helpful, and she was a very fair grader. However, I was put in a difficult group, with one member hardly doing any work + doing poor work when they did contribute. It definitely upped my stress seeing how my work was cut out for me for the quarter, especially since there was such poor communication in our group. But, if you get helpful group members, you're pretty much guaranteed an A since the workload split amongst people is not bad at all.

Stupidest class here a UCLA if your TA is Candace. I am sorry, she is a very nice person but she graded so incredibly harsh. All my friends were chilling with the other TAs and when I told them the grades I've been getting back from Candace they were all shocked. Example: one of the first assignments was to come up with some ideas that you may want to center your final project around. It was out of 40 points and keep in mind you can only lose about 15 points to get an A in this class. Tell me why she gave some of us 30/40... for coming up with IDEAS???? Excuse me???? IT'S A BRAINSTORM HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE A C ON A BRAINSTORM?? And had the audacity to say it's because there weren't enough details and it wasn't thought out. YEAH BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN GIVEN THE DIRECTIONS WE ARE JUST COMING UP WITH IDEAS. Yeah avoid her as your TA like the plague. Other than that, you are good to go with any other TA.

This class is super TA dependent and honestly those grade distributions do not seem correct considering how harshly/badly our TA grades. The work itself is not the best either.

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.

Chillest EEB class ever, would recommend. I don't think I ever spent more than 2-3 hours per week working outside of class and virtually everyone gets an A.

There is no exams or quizzes, all you do is a few small weekly assignments and design/perform an ecology experiment then write a paper on it. I would recommend you don't choose animals or bugs, since they are difficult to study. Considering choosing something like soil or plants to study if you want an easier time.

This is a good class if you want a chill quarter or you are already in 3 other classes and need a simple one to balance it out.

***For the most helpful suggestion, please see point #2 at the end.*** I LOVED THIS CLASS. I'm honestly going to MISS IT. We haven't been issues grades yet, however, I am expecting an A because my group and I worked our asses off. It didn't feel like a ton of work because it was honestly fun and we learned SO MUCH. The class is basically taught by TAs, and ours (Eric) was amazing. Dr. Gorlitsky was totally available though and for our project, she was extremely helpful. MY ADVICE: 1. TAKE THIS CLASS! ***2. Go the extra mile in the beginning and think hard when choosing a research topic. Pick the one that is most interesting to you!!! This is VITAL for making it feel enjoyable. One way or another, you'll have to do quite a bit of work, so it may as well be a topic that you would pursue whether it was graded or not.

Highly recommend taking 100L for bio degree requirements. The a big chunk of your course grade is based on an experiment you perform with your group. Things like the prospectus of the project, the presentation of the project, and the final scientific paper of the project. There were also busy work items due in between such as individual journals or worksheets that you do in class. Overall, this course definitely balances a heavy course load because there is nothing to study for but only consistent progress in your project. My TA, Mairin, in particular was awesome. She was very chill and conducted the lab in a very casual way but at the same time induced great discussion on general lab techniques in biology. I learned very important skills, had great group members, and conducted a very cool experiment that I wouldn't have been able to do. Take this lab and don't regret it!