I totally disagree with the previous comments. This professor is easy breezy.

Course: LS3

I was really looking forward to LS3, and was extremely disappointed with Professor O'lague. His class/tests are not hard; however, I do not feel like I was prepared well for future MCDB classes, and, quite frankly, felt I was cheated out of a good course. A few notes:

PROS:
- Tests are fair, and usually based on study questions (and answers) that have been provided.
- Professor O’lague is approachable-- not intimidating.

CONS:
- Slides are not well explained, and he usually only gives a "take home message" that is not very helpful. He also often says "I'm not going to go into this because you can read it in the book."
- Tends to mumble at the end of his sentences, making it difficult to understand him.
- In office hours, often answered questions with "well, you don't need to know that."
- Our hour and fifteen minute long class never lasted more than an hour, and too often ended in 30-40 minutes so that we could "go out and study in the sun and not have to listen to boring lectures." Personally, I felt this was not only a rip off for students-- (classes at UCLA are expensive, and I expect to get what I pay for. A few classes ending early is no big deal, but I feel I missed out on too many hours of instruction)-- but also insulting to assume that we would rather be outside than listen to "boring lectures."

If you are looking for a professor who makes LS3 interesting and prepares you well for future classes/admissions exams, I would not recommend O'Lague. If you are looking for a relatively easy LS class, he may be your guy.

I had him for LS 3. Don't take him. He's really unorganized, slides were useless, lectures were boring... it was bad. Ended up with a B because I stopped going to lecture and tried really hard to learn from the book, but I really didn't learn anything.

LS3 with olague is hard to describe. He will say you dont need to know anything "except for the study guide." He almost swears by it. But I'll tell you what it means. For the first midterm, it means "know all general concepts from each lecture slide, know specific concepts that I randomly mention in class, know almost nothing from the textbook unless it helps to explain the lecture slides that are mostly unorganized and confusing, and really understand the answers to the study guide questions." As the quarter moved on, things felt more jumbled up and even more unorganized and confusing for me. He picks some pictures from the textbook and randomly talks about them in lecture, which is very confusing since he doesn't follow the book's sequence so it is not like a math class where you build on information, everything is just out of order. You have to take the energy to go through the textbook yourself to find them which can be hard because sometimes his syllabus doesnt state the accurate chapter because he doesnt really follow the textbook, he just picks what he wants out of it. Many times, i found some of his lecture info out of A DIFFERENT biology book online, meaning that the class textbook is mostly a waste of money anyway. by the second midterm, i was surprised by the questions and the answers to the study guide. i was lost and realized that i wasnt focusing on what he wanted me to focus on since the lecture slides are just pictures that he randomly talks about. he didnt talk about many of the things he asked on the test. he says to not "go into detail" but his final was far more detailed than expected, and it threw me off. this many sound like a very negative feedback but i am only telling you about my experience. it wasnt nearly as painful as other classes i have taken. just know that he curves really well and i got an A- to my surprise.