I had Dr. Johnson for LS3. Dr. Johnson is just an okay professor. I would not say she is about average. She does podcast all of her lectures which makes it very nice to be able to go back and listen to the podcasts. I do, however, feel like her exams where not always on topic with her lectures. She is not a very stimulating lecturer. She is, however, very good at answering questions and will stop every once in a while to see if anyone has questions about the topic. She does not use the book. You can do fine just relying on her lecture notes and not reading the book, however I did find that the book explained some concepts better then she did. I would say that she is fine to take. She is very fare in her curbing of all exams based on the classes overall score. As long as you know her slides in depth, the concept not just the memorizing them, and use the book for supplemental material you should be fine. Do not rely heavily on the example exams that she gives you. Her exams where nothing like the practice ones she gave.

Dr. Johnson is a biochemist. Her L.S. 3 class reflects that, I think she makes some of the topics more difficult than they could be in an introductory microbiology course. HOWEVER, understanding the biochemistry behind it also helped me to understand what was really going on. She tells you to focus on the big picture but does in fact end up testing on some details. So make sure you know both the details and the big picture. I went to lecture and listened to the podcasts afterwards while taking extensive notes. I got an 82 on the first midterm, 75 on the second and a 82 % on the final and ended up with a solid A, therefore she does have a generous curve whereby she gave out more than 20 % As.

Overall, it just depends on how much you're into the material and how much time you spend studying it, she's really not that bad. And if you're pre-med at UCLA and looking for "easy A" classes...well then you've come to the wrong university and the wrong majors.

I took LS3 with Johnson fall '08 and it wasn't as bad as many people say. She bruincasts all her lectures and on top of that she uploads her powerpoint presentations plus several practice exams (although the practice exams were nothing like the actual ones). I barely used the textbook since her exams are mainly off of her lectures; thus, you will be fine as long as you review the notes and understand everything in the course reader. Also, her exam curves are VERY generous. As long as you keep up with her lectures, an A or B should be an adequately attainable grade.