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!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you are in the Biotechnology Cluster, take Film in Biotechnology with Krystal Navarro.

This class freaking rocked! Not only were there no tests, the weekly homework was to watch a movie and read two, often short articles. The seminar met once a week for three hours, but there were plenty of breaks and I never felt as if I was burnt out. You do have to go to all of the seminars, unless you let Krystal know in advance, and you should participate. Participation was not daunting though as the subjects that were taught in class were honestly super interesting. The grading system is contract grading, so as long as you put in a little bit of effort into assignments, you should totally get an A+. You will do one group project reviewing a movie, an analytical essay for a movie for the midterm, and then a short biotechnology story for the final. In total, the assignments took me a total of like four hours for the entire quarter. This seminar was freaking awesome, and if you can you should take it. Krystal is super nice and accommodating, and you always feel listened too. If there's one takeaway any new first years get from reading this review, it is to take the Film in Biotechnology Seminar!

Professor Rensel is the best teacher in this cluster. She teaches the science part of the course, however, makes it very clear and easy to understand. If you study her lecture slides and notes you took during the class, then you will easily get an A on her portion of the test. Just make sure to go to class and take good notes and you will be completely fine. Overall, I loved her as a professor and know you will too.

I love Professor Rensel's lectures because her slides and lectures are engaging and easy to follow. I like how I know exactly what to pay attention to because it's clearly outlined in the learning goals in the first few slides.

Overall this cluster is a bit misleading. I thought it would be more about the biotechnology aspect of life, but it is a social analysis class. It comments on adequate access to these biotechnologies which involves a lot of reading so be aware. This class is easy and if you complete all of the assignments, then this class is an easy A+ in my opinion. Here are a couple pros and cons of the class and more specifically Professor Rensel.

Pros:
This class is very easy if you do the work.

Professor Rensel does a really amazing job at breaking down tough scientific principles about biotechnology.

Professor Rensel is always available to talk after class and she does a great job communicating to her students. It is very clear that she cares about her students.

Cons:
This class does have some readings to annotate twice a week. The readings are not outrageously bad, but I probably spent 3 hours a week reading and annotating the readings.

Overall thoughts:
Overall, if you enjoy the concepts of biotechnology AND society then take this class. Specifically, professor Rensel is a great professor in my opinion who provides a plethora of resources for students to succeed. There is also a GMO game which needs to be worked on outside of class. This was not too time consuming, and if you have a great TA, like I did, the discussion work and GMO game become very manageable. The tests were quite easy in the class, and even if you are not a good test taker, there are several other categories that dilute your grade.

Not as cool as you think it is. Some lectures are kinda boring. Clusters are not as cool as the NSA at orientation hype them up to be. There are so many cooler classes in different areas that are so much better than this cluster. BUT THIS CLUSTER WAS NOT TERRIBLE. Its just a very okay class.

Overall, good cluster. Course topics can be NSFW at times (especially in the book we had to read and write a paper about, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous). Kinda boring sometimes. Discussion is fun.

The first quarter of the class focuses so. much. on GMOs (I should've known, considering the GMO game is a big part of the class). The game made the class super fun :) You got to be in a big group project and schedule meetings yourselves.

The workload is manageable, but there'd be reading like every other day. + There would be extra credit readings, too! The tests were what lowered my grade in the class, and I wish I had studied more :( However, Professor Rensel is SUPER ACCOMMODATING, so nothing was her fault, LOL!

To preface my review, a cluster is a team-taught general education course for freshman. I will also leave reviews on the co-professors for this class.

Dr. Rensel was a wonderful lecturer, who always made her topics (relating more to the biological aspects of the course) enjoyable. Her test questions are always the most reasonable on the test, and her grading is straightforwards. It is sometimes easy to put off her assigned readings if you get bored easily.

Overall, if you're interested in biotech, bioethics, or are just an engineer hoping to knock out all their GEs in one fell swoop, I would highly recommend this course.

If you are going to take a cluster, take this one!!! Interesting material, lenient grading considering almost half your grade ends up being made up of participation in the discussions, the GMO game, and homework readings (all of which you should get 100 on if you are keeping up with the basic work). The work load is pretty manageable, we have readings but they are pretty short compared to other clusters. Midterms and finals are sometimes slightly difficult but very fair and clear. Also 1% of extra credit is offered by doing pretty basic extra work
Rensel is the best professor in this cluster. She is super clear, organized, friendly, and just makes her material a lot more straightforward than the other lecturers.