Halpin sucks. Seriously, she REALLY blows. Worst professor I've EVER had. I've The fact that I've been pushed here SOLELY for the purpose of reviewing her should speak volumes to that.

This review is NOT grade-sourgrapes. I've maintained a 90+% exam average, ONLY because I've retained memories of the upper division coursework I've completed prior. If you're taking LS with Halpin, do your upper divs FIRST.

She makes the students buy a license for online lecture "participation". Totally trivial and unnecessary (what are we, still in highschool?)

Her exams are LONG and TEDIOUS. Commit EVERYTHING on her lecture slides to memory.

Lab grades are iffy. You're gambling on the T.A. there.

The only positive thing that can be said about her LS1 class is that you can miss her lectures because they are boring, directionless, irrelevant, and entirely USELESS. Get some sleep instead. Because that's all you would have been doing anyway. ZzzzzZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzz......

To reiterate what has been said by so many others - Halpin is NOT an educator. She does NOT LIKE YOU. She does NOT CARE about YOU. She has NO RESPECT for YOU. WHATSOEVER.

The consistency of the student body's hatred of her is a direct reflection of her attitude towards us; We do not like her. We do not care about her. We have no respect for her.

As we damn well SHOULDN'T.

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If you're on the verge of graduating, remembered your upper div material, and just need 5 units you can stay home for, you might consider taking this class, AT YOUR OWN RISK.

If this is one of your first biology classes, IT IS NOT WORTH IT. Taking this class leaves a dark cloud of RESENTMENT over your head, the last thing you need to stay with your for your duration as an undergraduate.

The sooner ATROCIOUS M. HAPLESS is removed from teaching, the better off the freshmen and sophomore bio students will be.

Pipe dream, though, considering the sway she holds with the department.

Halpin is the best professor I have had at UCLA. Inspired me to change my major to EBE. Yes, you have to memorize things. Surprise! College is learning stuff. The tests are fair. This class prepped me for later course work really well. The grade is percentage unless the average falls to low. In other words, she picks whichever system gives the students the best grade depending on how they do.

I usually write long reviews about professors, whether they are good or bad. However, Halpin doesn’t deserve that. She sucks. Don’t take her. Her class sucks. The tests are hard. Attendance is mandatory. The online homework is pointless. And the TAs grade like idiots on the demos. Wait for another professor, even if they are only slightly better.

Selling LS1 TEXTBOOK: Evolution (Making Sense of Life), Zimmer and Emlen

Down to let you haggle for a fair price :D

Get at me if you're interested!
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Halpin is one of the WORST PROFESSORS AT UCLA!

She is so bad at lecturing and her tests are impossible. The whole grading scheme in LS1 is messed up. For example, one short answer question that requires 2 words will be worth 10 points. If you forget 1 word, you lose 5 (and most of the time, you won't remember both so you get screwed).

Her in-class questions are such bs since you don't have to get them correct. She says "um" every other word and made me hate the environment. She thinks she is actually making a difference in the world....but she is probably one of the dumbest professors I have had at UCLA.

Be prepared to not do well...the TAs grade harshly on labs as well...the only good thing is that everyone complains so it's really fun to make fun of her...

Honestly, I hate Halpin with a burning passion, with an intensity that exceeds the burning of one thousand suns. Yea, she sucks. I received a C- in the class, I did every lab, attended every lecture (I also had a broken ankle all quarter and was on crutches) and still barely passed. Most of my friends didn't pass and will have to suffer through this hell again. If I were you, I would wait till Halpin got fired to take this class, go ahead and take LS2 etc, botany is boring anyways.

If you are unfortunate enough to take this class with Halpin, bring some homework to do during lecture because they are completely and utterly useless. My friends and I would listen to the podcasts, and hear Halpin asking us to be quiet at least a few times a lecture. Truly a great experience.

Halpin... Hmmm. Halpin. This class seems pretty easy when you walk in the first day. THE FIRST DAY. Tells you of what your grade will consist of. Weekly lab assignments, two midterms, weekly reading quizzes and of course, a final. Let me start with labs. The labs are not too difficult, BUT my T.A. marked every little mistake and took off points (EVEN IF THEY WERE GRAMMATICAL). I hope you get a good T.A. Each lab is only worth 10 points BUT every single point counts in this class because she grades by points. Whatever you get out of a total of a 1000 is your grade. The weekly reading quizzes that we had to do on the mastering biology website were easy. I usually got a perfect score on those by googling articles on the subject. Midterms were NOT easy at all. You have to memorize the slides, but its still not enough. Like someone mentioned her grading is ridiculous. 4 points for a multiple choice question, really? Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that Halpin is just not a good professor at all. Like, at first when I saw her I thought she couldn't be that bad that the reviews were lying. But oh my gosh was I wrong. Halpin just reads off the slides, and gives busy work just so you have something to do. (I mean like the two quizzes per week and the labs per week). She is very awkward when you try to talk to her. I remember someone asked a question when she asked her usual question (any questions?) and all she did was repeat what she had just said. the student just remained confused (as well as the rest of us.) Anyway, good luck is all I can say and wish for you. Enjoy the course.

If you absolutely cannot avoid taking Halpin, please read only the tips section and disregard everything else. I do not want to depress you. In fact, she's a wonderful person. You'll do swell. Chin up. And good luck. :)

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The fact that I actually created an account to leave a review should speak volumes about how strongly I feel about her. I admit this is partially a case of sour grapes because she released the grades on the 25th. However, I believe my review still rings true.

If you can avoid her, for the love of God, please do.

Professor Halpin does not exactly read off her slides as the other reviewers suggest. However, what you need to know for her class is located on the slides. So, you don't really need to listen to her. She WILL keep you in class for the full fifty minutes. Sometimes she will let you out early; most times she will let you out exactly at the fifty minute mark or a little bit later. I'm not saying that she isn't entitled to the full fifty minutes of the class; however, she will call you back if she sees you or the entire class getting up to leave a minute early. This annoyed me greatly because I had only ten minutes to make it across campus to my next class. I say if we want to leave early and miss something, it's on us. Let us face the consequences ourselves. Don't drag us back. We were all falling asleep anyway.

I scored on average about 15% higher than the average on the midterms and final. I ended up with a B+. I would honestly love to know how the rest of my classmates fared.

TIPS:
1. Memorization of her slides is key. Surprisingly, some questions actually did force you to apply them a few concepts.
2. Not everything you memorize will be on the exam.
3. I went to the test bank for past exams because some reviews said that she reused a lot of her questions. However, this is no longer true. About only 1 or 2 questions ended up being recycled on her midterms. Past final exams weren't available at the test bank. Though, if you want the practice, I am not advising against looking at past exams to familiarize yourself with how her exams and grading style are.
4. You should get old labs from your friends to know how to do the lab write-ups because the page limit is ridiculous. I usually ended up writing at least twice that, and it took hours to cut it down.
5. Do the lab quizzes with a friend. Not all quiz questions are the same.
6. The answers to the reading quiz questions from the Mastering Biology website can usually be looked up online.
7. Every. point. counts.

As a person, she seems alright. Not someone I would EVER want to associate with, but still alright.
As a lecturer, I've had worse.
As a professor, I hate her. With a passion.
And if she is one of the better LS1 professors, may God have mercy on us all.

Also, either the grades for the Spring 2010 LS1 class are straight up wrong or those students are incredibly gifted.

Ok maybe those grades posted above are from a class that were fortunate enough to get the stupid curve, but I do not know how for LS1 Spring quarter 2012 the curve did not happen because litterally more than half scored a C or below on tests. She is literally just horrible, do yourself a favor and stay away because Chem 14 A was way easier.

Horrible. Horrible. Horrible.