Professor Hsu was a very engaging and clear professor. Many of the concepts discussed in class are easy to relate back to "real life." He is very approachable and will answer almost any question you have and provides accessible office hours do ask anything else.
The class itself is relatively easy to manage, particularly in comparison to the other clusters. Attendance is counted for the discussions which are supposed to last two hours but typically are done in one. Cheng as a TA was fantastic as he kept the discussions fun and informative; discussions actually felt like a good use of your time.
While taking notes in class is always a good idea, the professors always post the slides from that lecture on CCLE after class so you can go back and review later.
As many mentioned, the grading system is kind of weird. The first "real assignment" is a paper on Ageism, around two pages long, which is returned around week 5. By week 10, you really only know the score from that paper and the first midterm (around 30% of the entire grade). I would not say that the grading system should deter you from taking the class though.
I would recommend taking the class if you actually have an interest in human aging. You will be provided many resources and have some pretty good professors.

This is a review of Cluster 80A as a whole rather than just of Dr. Hsu. This class is actually a joke. The class has 126 students, 3 professors, 3 Teaching Fellows, and 1 Inquiry Specialist, yet they still manage to grade things unjustifiably slow. There is no reason why it should take them 6 weeks to grade one three page paper and 3 to grade a 45 question midterm. The exams aren't too bad though. Even though the assignments themselves aren't horrible, it's their grading that will kill you. I got marked down for starting a paragraph on a new page? I still don't get it. If you can, do not take this class. It is not worth the work and the hassle, you are much better off taking an easy GE, do not make the mistake I made.

As a professor, Hsu is really great. He is really engaging with his students and lectures calmly and slowly with enough detail without being boring. He’s a great guy.
As a class, it’s quite painful. The readings are doable at first but get increasingly longer as the quarter goes on to the point where I gave up reading because of how long it takes. Also, as the previous review noted, the grading is absolutely horrendous and is a huge reason as to why I would stress all the time over this class. The assignments weren’t as difficult, but when you’re waiting weeks just to get back a grade on a two to three page essay, you start getting anxious about your grade. There’s no reason why they waited until the last days before grades were due to upload the remaining 80% of assignments, most which I am definitely sure were graded some time ago (one was a presentation that was graded on the spot! and it still took them weeks to just put the grade up). The grading is super annoying but if you put in the effort and see the inquiry specialist for feedback on assignments, you should hopefully do well. The readings aren’t super important but they include a couple questions in the exams regarding them. Overall an eh class.

I really liked this class! I had it with Prof Hsu, Prof Soroosh, and Prof Hahm. They alternate in lecturing. I do agree that you should be interested in the topic to have a good experience in this class. The class was around half biology, but it was pretty interesting even coming from someone who has always hated bio. I had Joseph Zoller as my TA who was very well versed in the biology part, which helped a lot with comprehension. Questions were encouraged, though lecture always went pretty fast. The slides were posted afterwards though, so you could just go back and fill in the gaps. There were a few cool socials where they bought us food or cookies. I appreciate the interdisciplinary aspect of this class and the fact that there were multiple professors. I recommend taking!

This is more of a review of the cluster overall rather than just Dr. Hsu. But I will briefly overview each professor throughout. First thing is, which almost every other review has said, you really need to be interested in the content to do well in this class. Although the work itself isn't extremely difficult if you do the bare minimum (like me, who didn't do the readings and barely paid attention in lecture) it's super important to do a lot of studying before the exams. Since I took this during COVID, the exams were online and the hardest part was the time limit. It's kind of ridiculous to only give 60 minutes for 65-75 questions that are a mix of mc, t/f, and short answer. It's open note but the time constraint really prevents you from checking notes or even reviewing your answers. I kind of bombed the first exam but that's mainly because I didn't study. REALLY MEMORIZE THE LECTURE SLIDES. The textbook readings really aren't necessary but the pdf/article readings tend to be 2-3 questions on the exams. The absolute worst part about this class is communication and grading. I would definitely recommend the class if their grading wasn't driving me crazy. It takes them 5 weeks to grade a 2 page essay and they tend to submit grades last minute. And they are awful with communication and instruction. You write 3 essays first quarter and they barely give any guidance. TA is important too because some grade harder than others (mine took 2 points off bc I didn't capitalize one of my sources o_O). In terms of professors, Dr. Hsu was probably the most interesting, Merkin taught policy which is boring but she did a good job, and Whittaker taught the bio part, which is the hardest content of the class but he explained it well. Honestly this class is hit or miss. At times I was ready to drop this cluster and just take GE's but the service learning may be a benefit. Also if you want to minor in gerontology this cluster covers all its pre-reqs.

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ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. I was so excited to take this course as an incoming freshman, hoping to learn more about elderly people and generational effects. THIS CLASS WAS ENTIRELY SCIENCE -- we learned about mitochondrial buildup causing senescence of cells that results in aging. SO BORING, if you do not enjoy science do not take this class.

WORST CLASS IVE EVER TAKEN. If you would like to sit in a classroom and fall asleep from boredom to the sounds of your professors indoctrinating your political and using vague terms and refusing to explain them, then this is the class for you. I was so excited to learn about aging, elders, and generations, but instead I learned about how horrible every place that isn't L.A. is. They take FOREVER to grade your assignments. By week 10, the only thing in the grade book was a paper from week 2 and a midterm from week 5, and that one just because students begged for their scores. I had to switch to pass/no pass to protect my GPA because I had no idea what my grade would be even during finals week. I urge you, PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS. I took the time to write this review, so I can save future freshmen from the horrible fate I suffered taking this class.

I had Paul Hsu, whose lectures were ok but extremely boring. I also had Artin Soroosh, who literally went through his slides faster than the speed of light and didn't give us a chance to take notes, and Aryun Hahm, who would go off of her slides and say random things which really threw everyone off. The class used the most vague terms and would not describe them at all.

Not to mention, this class was HIGHLY POLITICIZED. If we were not bashing one political side, we were talking smack about people who vote a certain way or people who don't live in California. If you would like to become indoctrinated and not be allowed to have a mind of your own, I recommend you take this class.

My TA was Joseph Zoller, who happened to be the worst public speaker I've ever witnessed -- he gave most of his lectures turned around with his back to the class and at one point I had to ask him to speak up because I couldn't hear his voice.

All in all, the professors really could have made this class fun but instead they made it a place of misery that I dread showing up to. I am dropping this class next quarter.

GE CLUSTER 80A: Frontiers in Human Aging

This is a cluster with 80A, B and C. Ideally you stick through it for a whole year.

The class is taught by 3 teachers + guest speakers in the De Neve Plaza.

Class consists of a powerpoint and the teacher's going over the topics. The syllabus is really well organised and has assigned readings (expect like +200 pages for the quarter if you actually do it). You have access to the powerpoint after the lectures.

NO PODCAST

• 50% exams (2 midterms, one week 5 and the other finals week)

• 5% brief paper #1 - 2 pages not too bad. Did mine in 2h (my own mistake) and got maybe a B, and if you actually do it properly it's easy to get an A

• 10% brief paper #2 - 3 pages- this year it was on healthcare system and it was a pain! Took forever and hated it.

Papers need to be in APA format with scientific references, this is honestly what makes it take so long and what I hated about it.

• 5% film review - really easy and fun

• 20% elder life review project - biography on an old person (5/8 pages + 5 pages analysing the persons life according to a bunch of theories you learn in class). Honestly the interview and biography part is not to bad, but the second part seems dreadful ( about to start on it!)

• 10% participation - show up to discussion and ask questions.

Overall you talk about social theories of ageing, old people, demographics and statistics. The only biology part is immune system and cardiovascular, but they do terrible part at explaining it and for someone who is pre-med I was disappointed that we didn't actually learn about it properly. Also talked a lot about social security, Medicare, Medicaid, ect.

TA - Mike Davorean is awesome! Get him!

If you go to every lecture, listen and take notes, read the book an add this to your notes, go over the powerpoint and make sure you know what the terms on there mean you should do fine. However I found it boring! I'm currently studying for my final and I have so much reading to do that I'm not motivated. I guess if you take it and every week put in the work it's not to bad, but I clearly had better expectations for what we would learn.

Professor Hsu was the most interesting, but still what were learning are statistics about old people and ageing population, and we rush through the science part of it pretty badly.

80B consists of lecture, discussion and then service learning. You basically go into a nursing home or something and do service for 5 hours a week instead of lecture on Thursday. This part seems really exciting!

However, I'm dropping the cluster next quarter since I'm not passionate about it and it is 6 units so it limits my enrolment in other lasses andI'd rather do other GE's I'm more interested in.

80A - fulfils diversity requirement + LS GE
By the end of the year you get: the 3 Society and Culture GE's, the Life Science GE, diversity requirement and writing II.

It does knock off a lot of stuff and that's part of the reason I took it to begin with, but it's not captivating and I'd rather 'spend' my GE's on classes that I'm really interested in. But for 80A you still get two things done, so go ahead and try this and you can always drop it like me if you don't like it!

I took the Social Justice seminar with Rachel Wells. She's super sweet and the seminar felt like it emphasized learning over memorizing. A lot of writing but not a necessarily hard class. The field trips/site visits made the class more interesting too!

The cluster is a lot of work but not hard to get an A
Make sure you go to the lectures and take notes and review slides before tests. If you want, read the textbooks. It doesn’t help with class content but there may be 1-2 questions on the test relating the textbooks.
I took all three discussion/seminar with Daniel Whittaker. Some people say he is a harsh grader, and he does follow the rubrics and strict about citations. His seminar is a lot of work too, which is weekly assignments that requires reading 2-3 journals and several videos, sending him reflection. No final but a final paper that has multiple parts such as the main essay about cutting edge research, policy memo, research record and all that. I still like him though, because his seminar is interesting and help me live longer.