Lectures were often disorganized and not always clear but the tests were very straightforward and there was extra credit. I read the textbook and watched YouTube videos to teach myself the content and found the class to be pretty manageable.

The hate Lannan received this quarter was so unwarranted. I rarely write reviews for professors but felt the need to, because I actually really enjoyed his class. If you read one review on here I want it to be this one.

Homework: Very fair, for each homework (one every week roughly) there will be one question that is graded on accuracy. Unless you're writing bullshit down you will get your points in this category. Homeworks right before the exam are graded on completion.

Quizzes: Again, extremely fair. Purely based on memorization (names of certain structures or systems) so if you didn't get the points that's on you. If there's a grading error you can get them corrected. The grading was a bit slow for quizzes but it doesn't really matter since the content of the quiz is literally memorization, so you basically know what score you got right after. They're quick and easy points.

Exams: Everybody shits on the exams but again, they are VERY FAIR. In fact I've had some of the best exam experiences in this course. i KNOW that how much I study will be reflected in my exam grade, because there are no curveballs or surprises. Compared to countless other classes I've taken where the exam would have diagrams/structures I've never seen, curveballs, trick questions, Lannan's exams were a godsend. Though he didn't provide a practice exam, it was never an issue personally because he made a study guide. People complain that Lannan sent out the study guide late (which I could see as being frustrating), but his study guides are literally just everything on the slides. I feel like if you review the slides any student could produce his study guides bullet for bullet without him releasing it. I would say like half of the exam questions were altered versions of questions in the homework, so make sure when you're studying that you go through all of them. After the first exam you'll be able to predict what kinds of questions you'll have. Truly straightforward exams with sufficient time. People complain but the exam averages were always good/high.

Lectures: Whether or not you like his lectures comes down to your learning style. Again I know he gets a lot of shit in this aspect, but personally his slides were extremely easy to understand for me, was 100% reflective of the material tested. Also it's important to note that he was thrown into this position last minute, I assume he had to make the slides and material as we went, which caused some slip ups during lecture (which he always corrected first thing in the next lecture). It is unfair to compare him to professors who have used the same slides for years and years. I'm confident that the next time he teaches this course it'll be a lot smoother because he already has the material.

Extra Credit: Has 2% extra credit that you can get by during course evals, participating on campuswire, and doing a project at the end of the quarter. Pretty good imo. They haven't graded the project yet so I can't say anything about how they're graded but I think it's nice to have extra credit in a course.

Valid Criticisms:
- Exam grading had lots of errors, but I genuinely think that this is more of the TAs' faults than the professor. The reason I say this is because while the majority of the class had reaally dumb grading mistakes (literally having the right answer but having points deducted, writing the synonym for a word in ur explanation but getting points off for not using a specific word), my TA's grading was pretty fair. I guess some of the other TA's didn't really read ppl's explanations fully or something. The only time the grading felt strange for me was for the first midterm, but the professor addressed those exam questions and gave back points for them. So I think the grading stuff is mainly the TAs' faults but I understand faulting Lannan for not reviewing the exam grading thoroughly.

- I heard in the groupme that he was a little unaccommodating regarding taking quizzes online (the rule is that you must be there in person for all exams). Most likely if you can't make it to an exam or quiz the points will be put towards the final or something. Never affected me but if this is something that matters to you just keep it in mind

In general I really enjoyed this course. I was nervous for it coming into it but found that a lot of the material connected to stuff I learned in AP Bio (ofc more in depth but). I'm not saying it is not a hard course, because it is. You will have to study a lot, but that's the nature of biochem and not exclusive to Lannan. I genuinely feel that my grade reflects the amount of work I put in, which I can't say about many other classes.

Like the previous reviewer, I also took Chem14C with Lannan in fall quarter. Since it was his very first time teaching, Lannan was understandably not the best lecturer. He sometimes second-guessed himself, which in turn confused all of us. Fortunately, he tried his best to hold as many office hours and exam review sessions as he could, which helped me personally.

As far as exams go, my experience was definitely a rollercoaster. First midterm was fair (not too easy not too difficult) and mostly straightforward concepts. Even though I thought I had done well, I got a B due to small errors that add up. But things got worse on the second midterm, which I got a low C on. For most people, 50 minutes was NOT enough time, considering the sheer number of tricky problem-solving based questions on that test. Luckily, Lannan curved everyone up by 6% because he felt bad about the time crunch (he even admitted that he would've given us more time, except there was another class after us that needed the lecture hall). I think Lannan took our experiences from the midterm to give us a reasonable final; I had ample time to finish, which in turn reflected in my grade (100%). Of course, I had to be extremely comprehensive in my studying and brush up on all concepts to get a full score, but there was little pressure.

Ultimately, the extra credit was my saving grace. Lannan added 2.5% to our grade if we attended 5/10 (correction to the 8/10 the previous reviewer stated) of the discussion sections, which I think is very generous. He added another 2.5% if we did a group video project or an individual writeup. If he hadn't offered the EC, I wouldn't have gotten an A.

I have never previously written a review on Bruinwalk, but after seeing the harassment and complaints Lannan has received throughout the entire quarter and especially towards the end, I feel compelled to write this to hopefully give a more objective review on him.

By far the biggest complaint by most students seems to be the difficulty of the exams. However, I found them all to be extremely straightforward as Lannan provides study guides outlining the concepts you are expected to know. Admittedly, his lectures at the beginning of the quarter were a bit disorganized (although definitely not to an intolerable degree), but improved significantly as the weeks went on. In addition, the homework assignments were designed particularly well in my opinion because they focused on key concepts. From what I have heard from others, the content tested in the course is also similar in difficulty to other professors who have taught this class in the past. Thus, in my opinion, students complaining about difficult exams only have themselves to blame⁠—Lannan definitely provided all the necessary resources to succeed on his exams.

Undoubtedly, the majority of the students in the class are pre-med and I'm baffled as to how they plan on getting through medical school if they can't even handle memorization at the level here and can only cope by single-handedly ruining the promising career of a budding professor through ridiculously exaggerated course/instructor evaluations.

The other major complaint is his spotty consistency and accuracy with grading, which is a valid point. Although I personally never had any major issues with this, it seems like Lannan generally is able to correct grading errors in the end. However, for some mysterious reason, many students decide to channel their inner-Karen and demand instantaneous corrections to any errors in grading for a class with over 700 students between the two lectures as they complain into the endless echo chamber that is GroupMe at 3 am.

Overall, the only negative of this class for me was dealing with other students, who had unrealistic expectations for both what a biochemistry class is like and the capacity of a new professor. If Lannan ever has the opportunity to teach again (which I hope he does even with the bashing he is getting this quarter), as long as you enter with the willingness to learn and are not tainted by the negativity of the mob mentality of pre-med students, you will have an enjoyable time.

Lannan is extremely disorganized and as the reviews stated below, is one of the worst experiences I have had at UCLA. Even when your answer is right, you will get marked off for not explicitly regurgitating exact terminology from his slides. He is extremely disorganized and unapproachable, please avoid him at all costs! I currently have an A in this class, but it has been hell.

This class is honestly love. I have never loved a class so much. I was truly distraught on the last day of lecture and in tears. Please take biochem with Dr. Lannan because you will begin to enjoy biochem so much and be able to connect it with other STEM classes. However, beware that before coming into this class you need to realize that in order to do well, you have to spend ample amount of time studying and doing practice problems for this class. Take this class with 2 other easy classes and you should be able to do to fairly well. Do not fall behind because that is just going to ruin so much for you. Go to lecture and actively listen and participate and soon you will realize how interesting the content is and how funny Dr. Lannan is. Make sure you understand everything on the homework and be able to do the practice exam questions. Give yourself ample time to study for exams and don’t wait till last minute like me. Regarding the professor, honestly, everyone loves this class because of how Dr. Lannan teaches it and I am sure I wouldn’t have done well if I weren’t taking it with him. He is actually listens to you and doesn’t belittle you if you don’t know something. This is a super rare trait in professors at UCLA.

Obviously, this class was still kinda hard but I feel like it was definitely better than ochem for me as the professor is probs the best biochem professor! I would def recommend you take with him over anyone else if you want to understand biochem and do well in the class. He gives a lot of partial credit for his tests which is how I ended up with an A. I feel like this class was definitely manageable as the wasn't even that much homework (only one a week) or anything. I took with 3 other classes and still did well, so u should def sign up for this class! One thing to note though is that he does use iClickers but he allowed us to go to the other lecture if our lecture didn't work for us. Also, discussion is mandatory so make sure you pick a time that works for you. The TAs kinda suck for this class LOL and the prof's office hours are always filled so that kinda sucks i guess, and homework does count for correctness but if u take this class with a friend you'll be good. Also, the prof is FINNEEEE

Lannan is a great professor. You could tell that he actually cared about us and he was great at accommodating us. He literally has multiple office hours a week and the week before the exam he had at least five office hours. He is actually really funny and relatable once you get to know him, and once you get used to his style of teaching his class is very straightforward. Tests were fair imo, and the quizzes are very straightforward - just memorization. There are no discussion worksheets, and most of the homework were graded on completion. Please take him if you can! This class made me want to change my major. I loved it so much and I was shedding tears once it was over.

Lannan wasn’t the best professor, especially in the beginning, but if there was a “Most Improved” professor award he would easily win it. He just got thrown into a difficult situation teaching the class for the first time on really short notice, and it showed in the beginning. However, he always ended up addressing his mistakes and the lecture quality was actually really high. The class is just really hard and many people are upset about the fact that they had to memorize things when last year everything was online so you could just use a cheat sheet. Were there issues with grading? Yes, but he literally just gave out free points and people still complained. Most of the mistakes were due to the TAs anyway, who were far more disorganized and lazy than Lannan (they promised to finish grading and ended up delaying multiple times), who ended up taking all of the blame. He’s actually a really funny and engaging lecturer who I would take the class with again. Don’t listen to the reviews that say he’s terrible and disorganized and hates all his students, he just didn’t know how to manage everything and got it figured out. Everyone just wanted Jarrett because she gives easy tests that won’t prepare you for the MCAT at all, but you’ll get that A+ because you don’t have to memorize anything!

Lannan was an amazing Biochem professor. Biochemistry is a tough subject and the professors are not known to be that good. Lannan is the exception, and he's pretty new so he'll only improve each quarter. Here's a breakdown of his class:

- Participation through iClicker and Discussion (6%), Quizzes (10%), Weekly Homework Assignments (14%), 2 midterms (20% each), Final (30%)
- He uses Bruincast and you don't have to be in the lecture hall to do iClicker
- Discussions are very helpful. They go over homework problems, so you're basically doing part of your homework there.
- Quizzes are strict memorization and pretty easy. There are 5 over the course of the quarter. You can drop your lowest quiz
- Weekly homework assignments are tedious, but easy. They're great preparation for the actual test questions and he only grades like 2 or 3 questions on correctness. The rest he gives full credit for as long as you submit it.
- Midterms are NOT during class time, but rather at night. You're given an hour and a half, but you can probably finish within the hour. He gives a couple extra credit points on each test, too!
- Overall, as long as you keep up in lecture and do some basic memorization, this class will be easy. Lannan is very helpful and responsive.

He also gives 0.25% grade boost for doing LA and Professor feedback forms.
He has a 1.25% Extra Credit group project in week 10, too, where you use your biochem knowledge to create your own organism.
Would definitely recommend him to take your Biochem requirement.