EEB 100 was not a very difficult class overall.

halpin sucks because she is a boring lecturer, but the class/tests werent that hard so I dont think she deserves all these terrible ratings just because she sucked in lecture.
Lectures were power points that were really boring, and I usually fell asleep in class. Didn't use the textbook once, especially considering it was optional to buy. All material on tests are from lecture.
tests were fair, a little on the more difficult side, but i dont think they were that bad. they were multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer.

the shittiest part was not halpin or lectures. it was boring and time consuming discussions. it was mandatory to go to discussions, and most of the time you didn't learn anything useful. we had 3 papers. two small field reports that were pretty easy (hand written, one page), and one research paper (typed, a few pages). For the research paper you had to create your own experiment you would want to conduct (all about animals of course) and explain in detail how you would run the experiment. It was basically a miniature scientific report (intro, materials, procedure, results, discussion) but you never actually carry out the experiment. You basically just explain what results would mean had you gotten a specific result. Boring.

FOR MOST OF YOU WHO ARE READING THIS LOOKING FOR A GOOD EEB CLASS TO TAKE SO THAT YOU CAN FULFILL A REQUIREMENT, GRADUATE AND GO TO THE MED/DENT/PHARM SCHOOL OF YOUR CHOICE, DONT TAKE THIS CLASS.

Halpin was BY FAR one of the WORST professors I have ever had the unfortunate luck (or lack thereof) of taking here at UCLA. First of all, NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND IS GOING TO BE AN ECOLOGIST OR A SQUIRREL BEHAVIOR SCIENTIST OR A CLAM SHELL ECOLOGICAL BIOLOGIST OR ANYTHING RELATED TO ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY. Most, if not all students take this class to fulfill requirements and graduate to go to Medical, Dental, or pharmacy school. And with this in mind, Halpin was by far the most unaccommodating professor Ive ever met. During the quarter I had several med school interviews scheduled that were out of state, but Professor Halpin didnt see them as legitimate excuses and was not the least bit lenient with my absences. Sorry to burst her bubble, but nobody gives a shit about bugs or ducks or sea shells or albino Indonesian clam pinching beetles.

On another note, Halpin treats her kids like they're in 4th grade again, taking attendance at lecture and giving "pop" lecture quizzes. She makes us purchase PRS clickers, which are her way of making sure people attend her god-forsaken lectures and dont fall asleep because honestly, what can be more exciting at 9:30 in the morning than studying the changes in kelp in the Pacific Ocean? We only use the clickers for the first half of the quarter, and for the first few weeks Halpin cant even figure out how to use the damn things so we end up buying these clickers and staying awake for absolutely no reason.

Im going to stop myself here because I feel myself getting actually angry about how terrible this class really was.

A Horrible professor.

Not only is she boring, she cannot teach. Her lectures are just her standing at the front of the class reading off her slides. Did I mention that she is a complete idiot? She thinks her jokes are funny, gets confused by her own slides and has the mental capacity of cabbage. The most annoying thing she does is when no one laughs at her jokes, she'll let out a nervous "ha-ha-ha" under her breath. This comes through on the Podcasts (for the unfortunate soul that actually decides to listen to it).

Her exams? Don't actually test your knowledge of the material; they merely test how well you were able to cram every thing from her lectures onto a page of paper. You might think, "Hey, we get a cheat sheet... that means she doesn't want us just to memorize, but LEARN!" Well, you'd be wrong and worse you'd have a horrible grade on the exam because you expected the tests to be based on what you learned. Instead, it's all regurgitation. She asks you for things directly out of her lecture and even someone with her mental capacity could spew back out the lectures.

So you've paid your $2000 dollar tuition or whatever to come to lecture, be bored to hell, learn nothing, then get a bad grade. Sounds like a bad dead? Well it gets worse...

Not only does this class and the professor suck, to the point of making me wish I was in Bodegay Bay (the most depressing place on Earth, worse then the 7th ring of hell, that's another story) but now you have to waste $50 on a PRS clickers. It's basically an electronic nanny - now you HAVE to go to class to answer in-class quiz questions, but you have to spend money you could have spent on other stuff (forget the books, just pick up a new Nintendo DS game for lectures). I know what you're thinking... "It couldn't POSSIBLY be any worse... right?"

WELL YOU ARE WRONG AGAIN!

Not only do you have to answer these stupid questions in class, but now you get points for them. Sounds good, right? Easy points? Perhaps... but it's all or nothing. I could answer the question "2+2=?" with "Go To Hell, Halpin" and still get my credit for it. Yea... this is university-level learning right here, definitely worth tuition and my time.

So yea... it couldn't get WORSE than this, right?

Sorry but you're wrong AGAIN!

Not only is she the worse professor on this side of the Mississippi, but she has this thing she does. It's almost like an obsessive/compulsive tick. Like mental tourettes. Whatever you want to call it, it's the most annoying thing in the world. She encourages students to sit in chairs during her lectures. So if you happen to come in late and don't want to be a tool and crowd through people trying to find a seat, you get a seat in the back or on the stairs. Well guess what? NO FUCKING GOOD! Halpin will herd you in, like you're her sheep or something. But it goes beyond standing in front of the class telling people to come in. She will walk her miserable self up the stairs and she will actively HERD you in. She must think she's jesus or something. In any case, you're better off just running away (she won't be able to chase after you, she's out of breath just trying to figure out how to get her PRS clickers to work).

Oh what? The PRS clickers don't work? Oh yea, I forgot to tell you: THEY DON'T WORK HALF THE TIME BECAUSE HALPIN HAS THE TECHNOLOGICAL CAPACITY OF A PIECE OF DRYWALL! If she put it into the poewrpoint, she did it wrong. If she did it right, read the previous sentence. She also forgets the cable to hook up to the antenna. Gee whiz... you need to hook up the antenna to the computer so you can get everyone's answers... WHODATHUNK!?

So in summary in case you did not want to read this whole thing (yea I know it's long, but its more entertaining than going to her lectures) here is a truncated version:

1. Halpin sucks at everything
2. She cannot teach
3. Lectures are boring and you do not learn anything
4. This class is a waste of time and money
5. PRS clickers are flawed and don't work
6. Halpin is obsessive/compulsive
7. Her exams suck (even though they are easy)
8. Avoid her like the plague... actually, I'd rather get the plague then go to her class.

So this class is easy to get an A in. Here's what you have to do:
1. Go to lecture to get easy PRS quiz points, but bring a game to play to kill time
2. Copy all the words on the lectures onto your cheat sheet (5 pt font works, 0.25" margins)
3. Go to discussion to bitch about lectures and get more easy points
4. Regurgitate everything on the exams
5. Did I mention get a game to play in class?

Here are some games I found enjoyable:
1. Super Mario Bros (DS)
2. GTA: Chinatown Wars (DS)
3. Make flip books in class using those little post-it notes
4. Attempt to throw chunks of erasers at fellow students
5. See how high you can stack a pyramid of gummy bears before someone notices

So yea... that's it.

She taught 5 weeks of Ecology in this class and she did many not-so-nice things. She forced everyone in the class to buy a $40-$50 clicker to force students to come to class (attendance based on answering questions). I was extremely ticked off because the class was only 5 weeks long and that was a lot of money wasted to use twice per week. She would read from the slides word for word and not really go into much depth, which made people fall asleep because there's nothing worse than being read to during class. Her exam was fair but the multiple choice was ridiculously hard, probably to lower the overall scores. She is nothing special, just your typical dry professor.