Strongly recommend the cluster with this prof. In my opinion, she was the clearest professor I've had so far at UCLA and a terrific lecturer in this cluster.

As a non-bio (or STEM) major, I've been able to follow and understand all of Prof. Rensell's lectures to the T. They are clear, concise, and the learning objectives and structure of her lectures help people follow along and know exactly what knowledge we need to learn for the final exam.

Terrific professor!

Dr. Rensel is super clear and her lectures were the best out of the professors this quarter. She discusses the STEM topics in the class. Her portions of the tests were easy if you studied.

DONT DO IT
Honestly, clusters are only helpful if you really need the GE help, and writing 2 credit, but writing 2 is WAYY easier than this class. 2 weekly reading which average 5 articles that average 20 pages EACH. Then you go to lecture, and the lecture is bar for bar the reading, so you learn nothing new. However, they'll drop like one random thing in their lessons and that is what the tests are on. This class is taught by 3 different professors: Rensel focusing on biology, Panofsky focusing on the like sociology of it, and Scroggins focusing on the economic/business part of it. Rensel and Panofsky's lectures are manageable, but Scroggins will literally talk about nothing all lecture, then somehow the whole final/midterm is about what he taught. On top of there being a final for this class, during discussion you will have to do a speech about a GMO game, and present it in front of everyone. The speech isn't too bad, but then you have a debate, AND a final position paper. ON TOP OF A FINAL. There's just too much work to justify for this class, it doesn't make it worth it. This was the only class I would fall asleep in that's how bad it was. No one I would ask liked this cluster, so I would either recommend just doing the writing 2 and a couple random GE's and it will be the exact same thing, if not way better. This is one of those classes where its supposed to be your "easy" class but then it ends up being your hardest, most time consuming class for no reason. Dont fall into the cluster propaganda, they are not sunshine's and rainbows like everyone makes them out to be, just take the GE's, you'll dread taking this class everyday.

Dr. Rensel was great. She was one of three professors who taught during the fall quarter, and focused on biology concepts while the other two focused on the economic and social implications of biotechnology. Her lectures were accompanied by slides with visuals and everything was very clear. I'm not a STEM major and still did well on her portions of the exams. There are two exams which are each worth 20% of the final grade, and the final didn't include topics from before the midterm so it was extremely manageable. The TAs provided study guides that were very similar to the actual tests. 15% of the final grade is based on an essay and a short speech that you present in your discussion session about GMOs, and the rest of the grade is from participation in discussion, lecture attendance, and annotations on the readings. The workload was pretty light, except that before each class you had to read 2-3 articles and write a couple comments (just graded for completion). I definitely recommend this cluster! It was really interesting, not too difficult, and balanced between STEM and humanities topics.

genuinely prof rensel was the best part of the class. overall class is rlly focused on policy/socioeconomic side of biotech so it got a little boring sometimes, but overall the workload is super light. the tests are also super easy so u don't really need to listen to the lectures, i just did hw most of the time. all the slides are posted, but prof rensel's slides were consistently the most clear for reviewing. she's also a great lecturer and there's honestly no need to review if you listen during class. panofsky is also a good lecturer and engaging, but his concepts are a little more abstract. scroggins is rlly engaging during class but genuinely i didn't understand anything from his lectures and had to review it later from the slides themselves. the discussions are also pretty light but there's a couple group parts and a speech which can be a little annoying. overall the class is pretty boring and tbh i regret not taking regular GEs as they're a good way to explore niche interests, but at least it's a low stress easy class

This class was taught by both Dr. Rensel and Dr. Garrison. I enjoyed both Professors and the workload was pretty demanding with the amount of readings fluctuating as every week passed. The midterm was multiple choice and had some free response questions, however, if you keep up with the lectures and slides/learning objectives, it shouldn't be too difficult. I would recommend completing the reading guides before lecture as it eases the material that is covered and even correlates into the learning objectives. We do have a research paper that is due by Week 10 and it's around the 1300-1400 word mark with scholarly articles only. I really enjoyed discussion sections and found the TAs to be extremely helpful (Shoutout Laurence!) You get a freebie absence and discussions don't begin until the second week. The final was strictly multiple choice and due to the ongoing protests in LA, our Professors switched it to an online setting AND even made it open-note! This characterized both Professors to be extremely helpful and accommodating and I couldn't be more appreciative to have taken this class this Spring.

Dr. Rensel does it again. She is my hero and I love her and loved this class as a result.

I recommend this class, it gets a lot of GEs out of the way. The midterm is super easy, but the final is hard (I failed) but I still ended with an A in the class lol

I love professor rensel! Best professor of the winter quarter. She makes lecture so easy to read, unlike the others. She explains things well. The Goat of goats

I would recommend this class and believe it is very manageable to get an A. I find the lectures to not be very engaging but think that reviewing the lectures and utilizing the review materials (there are a lot of review materials posted) is sufficient to do well on the two quizzes. There is a required literary analysis paper based on a book and I think the book was interesting enough and the essay was annoying but manageable. There are required annotations before every class but they don't take too long and provide helpful information.