Really easy class. Khankan is super clear about everything and if you use the resources she gives you you’ll easily get an A. I didn’t do any launchpad readings or go to any extra office hours. All you do is the day before the final, review all the clicker questions discussion sheets and the practice exam questions. Understand exactly why the answer is the best choice and none of the other answers are correct and you should be good to go.

Amazing teacher. She always explained things very well and she was ALWAYS down to help. LOVED her. she really vouched for us at the end with covid-19. but LS 7A will destroy you if you're not ready for it. the content was hard and the exams were soul crushing... if you want to succeed in this class, review the learning objectives and make sure you can answer them. Tests require lots of critical thinking and complex thought. It is not regurgitation by any means. However, class is heavily padded with launchpad assignments and quizzes. Make sure you understand how the mechanism works (not the details) and you'll be gucci

I took this class to decide if I could major in a hard science; I learned that I cannot. Obviously, the material is very difficult, and you have to put a lot of work into LaunchPad for a good grade. However, Dr. Khankan was a great professor! Her lectures are fine- there's just a lot of participation. Take every extra credit opportunity, as you never really know how you're going to do one the exams until afterwards. There's 2 midterms, 1 final, but a lot of your points will come from LaunchPad, Clickr questions, and the worksheets you do in discussion. Make sure you do LaunchPad on time before every lecture, even if you just click through it and go back later. I had my discussions with Sean, who wasn't very helpful, but my LA was great. It's important to get 100% on every worksheet in discussion, but it usually wasn't too hard, since Sean went over each question before class ended, and usually there were smarter students enrolled that could help. Attendance and participation is very important, but Khankan allowed you to miss up to 2 lectures, since the points were out of a smaller amount than the max. I really appreciate Khankan now, (end of winter quarter 2020- Corona), as she and all other classes have allowed us to prorate our final scores, instead of taking it online at home. Even though this wasn't just her decision, she has been an extremely fair teacher, and went out of her way to help answer questions during lecture.

Dr. Khankan is a great teacher. She's very knowledgeable, clear, and helpful during her lectures and office hours. I would highly recommend taking LS 7A with her. She's also very good at explaining clicker questions. For me, I would take notes for every launchpad but some students don't and just click through. I'm not sure how you can retain information without taking notes. Also, the CLC sessions are pretty helpful so try to go to those. Discussion sections are just worksheets but help you master the content. Honestly, everything designed in the LS series curriculum is pretty well done except for the fact that there is a lack of practice exams and problems. I know that there are clicker questions but it would help if they gave everyone a practice exam so students know what the format of the exam is going to be like because you kind of feel blindsided your first midterm. Just know that it is more application than memorization in the course and that this is a weeder class so some of the questions aren't even testing your knowledge but just whether or not you see what they are trying to test. So don't be discouraged even if your first midterm grade is low. And also, don't go to the TA Sean's office hours - his attitude is super standoffish and asking him for explanations of midterm problems made it seem like him doing the students a favor. He literally told me, "I don't know. I didn't look at the midterm beforehand. I don't know" and also, "if it's a true false question, then why are you asking me, you already have the answer". He was jsut not helpful at all and instead made the review process that much more negative. Sorry if you have him as a TA

This class felt like being transported back into high school, probably because the vast majority of students taking it are freshmen and the instructors know this. An incessant amount of "reflection questions", short quizzes, discussion worksheets, pre-discussion worksheets, iClicker questions, and extra credit activities... as a second year taking this class, a lot of it felt very repetitive and unnecessary, especially my mandatory 8 am discussion section.
In contrast to the very "beginner-friendly" tone of the lectures, the exams in this class are quite difficult, with multiple choice questions formulated so that you trip up on them and a very detailed knowledge of the material required to do well. Although this class is taught well and Professor Khankan clearly cares about her students, the combined workload of all the different small assignments was a lot.

Where do I start, for the first biology class you take at UCLA isn't extremely hard. This course was pretty interesting but if you didn't do the reading/homework you'd get super behind due to the content and the quarter system as a whole. This professor was great, super interactive, genuinely cared, and made this course for me enjoyable. Though it doesn't matter which professor you get as 7A has the same coursework all across the board regardless. She's an amazing faculty and be a plus for your 7A journey but not needed! Most people say that the hw is tedious, however, I thought it wasn't too bad and for the most part not a difficult thing to complete. The weekly quizzes or "PALs" were annoying at best but nothing too unbearable when it came to difficulty. The true horror of this class comes from the AOL's which in my opinion is the reason many people find this course difficult. The questions are structured horribly and getting a correct answer is more about knowing how to answer rather than the content you know. Overall I wouldn't want to do this course again, though the topics are interesting and engaging, just make sure to do the work and study for the midterms/finals. You should do decent if you do that!

KHANKAN IS AMAZING, this class is not. Khankan was a very concise, clear, and entertaining professor, and I would highly recommend taking her if ever possible. The workload for this class is very time consuming, but mostly completion based. Discussion worksheets are graded on correctness. There were two midterms-- each with an individual and group portion--, and a final with the same setup. Quizzes and prereading guides were due weekly and there were a lot of sections for each class. These tests are claimed not to be there to trick you, but they do. LOOK AT THE ARROW DIRECTION <-- biggest piece of advice.

There was a lot of material in this class but Khankan managed to do a good job of covering it. This class is a "flipped" class, where we're supposed to do a lot of the learning on or own, in reading the textbook, and then lecture is more of a review of what we were supposed to have learnt. Idk, I like biology so it wasn't too hard for me to stay engaged. I did get behind in material a little in the middle of the course, which made lectures confusing, but once I got caught up they started making more sense. You get out of it what you put in. Stay on track and try to ask lots of questions, and you should be fine.
Khankan is generally very friendly and clear, and she genuinely tries to help students. If anything is confusing you all you have to do is ask.

Dr. Khankan was great! I have a few qualms with the structure of the LS series courses (way too much busywork, poorly written exams, etc..), but that will be the case with any professor (as the courses are standardized). Khankan is super engaging and she really cares about her students. She was super accommodating (covid-related but also disability-related) and always checking in on students. She wasn't the best at answering questions (she often misinterpreted my questions), but her lectures were mostly very clear and engaging. She also gives many EC opportunities!

tldr: I would highly recommend Dr. Khankan as a professor for LS7A!

The main issue with the LS7 series is how HORRIFICALLY AWFUL the tests are. Every single test has typos and multiple incorrect answers that needed to be corrected. Questions are so vague they are honestly not even fairly written. I've worked as a tutor for many years and the quality of actual education in this class was abysmal, but the worst part by far are the tests. Even if you study every provided resource, the test questions are not even tangentially related to the course content, they rely on badly communicated assumptions and extremely generalized concepts.
Restructure the LS7 series, its really really really bad.