While Dr. Illes was generally an engaging lecturer and the content she covered was interesting, her exams and assignments unnecessarily, and excessively abstract and vague. She is also very unresponsive through email, thus you may have to heavily rely on the TA.

For the final exam, there was not a single person that received >89%, and no, she did not curve the final grade...

This is the WORST professor I have ever taken at UCLA. I am at a loss for words of how bad she is. If I have one piece of advice for anyone reading this, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR. All of my friends cruised by this class with literally any professor with flying colors. I expected the same, but boy was I wrong.

The class seems deceptively easy because the lectures are relatively straightforward and easy to grasp. It seems like pure memorization. The labs were practically a joke, having absolutely nothing to do with the course material. But still really easy and you get 100% for just completing it. Then the midterm comes around, and any nitty gritty question is asked. I got a C+ on the midterm which was 2% above the average for my TA section. I thought it must be a joke or curved, but the TA announced there would be no curve. The entire class was furious. The professor said she refused to make a study guide (I believe due to laziness) and is extremely stubborn and unresponsive to student needs.

The TA then said the final should be much easier and that the professor was listening to our feedback. She even made us a study guide, which really wasn't much of a study guide and rather any broad topic that she has ever covered, and it honestly did not help at all. The final was just as hard as the midterm, with the class average being in the low B's. For a notoriously easy GE, this is ridiculous. This professor is a mean and rude lady who does not care about her students. WORST PROFESSOR EVER!!