Professor Lannan delivers captivating lectures and equips students with the necessary tools for success in the class. While his midterms may appear challenging, the availability of extra credit and ample practice materials contributes to high average scores. Professor Lannan is notably accommodating and genuinely invested in the success of his students.

I loved having professor Lannan so much. I was so terrified of CHEM 153A and I was reluctant on which professor to take. However, I really scored with Lannan. I loved his lectures (sometimes he scrambles around) and the way he explains things and dumbs it down makes sense. He cares so much about his students. I specifically remember him saying "I am here to be an instructor and I am not so focused on research right now, rather I want to teach you guys biochemistry". And this stuck with me throughout the quarter. His class was like a huge breath of fresh air in the chemistry department. He is a legend. Please take him.
I scored almost a perfect score on the first midterm and a low A on the second. I didn't rewatch lectures, rather I just copied down the most important things from each slide and made detailed notes on the practice midterms and homework. WATCH AK LECTURES. Especially for hemoglobin / myoglobin stuff. This is what got me such a good score on the first midterm. AK Lectures is also good for the ETC at the end of the quarter. Do not waste a bunch of time studying for the quizzes as they are all just memorization. Homeworks felt sometimes a little rushed as there was content on them that we were learning the day that it was due, but he ended up extending the due dates for most of the homework and grading on completion.
Overall, Lannan is holding the #1 position for me as the best professor at UCLA, and coming from the chemistry department that is shocking. I loved having him. He is charismatic and when he wears his Patagonia fleece you just know you're going to have a good day. If you are reading this Lannan, thank you for an amazing quarter, you are loved here at UCLA and plz don't go anywhere.

Lannan is actually a god. This is a tough class with a lot of content (4 lectures a week [BRUINCASTED] is a lot) but Lannan makes it very manageable. He is super nice and very approachable. He has many office hours and he uses Campuswire so you can get questions answered on there as well. He really displays the material in an easy way that can be understood. He is accommodating if you have an issue and he is legend. He’s also pretty funny sometimes without even trying. (records lectures, posts slides before class that contain all necessary information)
I was super scared of this class but I fell in love with it as the weeks passed. This class is a lot of work in my opinion (but so is every 153A class [probably]). The homework’s are not too easy, especially right after learning the material, and I had to utilize some office hours to get help on tough questions. But the homework’s are graded leniently (completion except 1 problem graded for accuracy) which was nice.
I love how Lannan has quizzes that are memorization based ONLY, just so you learn basic stuff like amino acids and glycolysis/TCA/ETC. THESE ARE EASY POINTS! I literally learned all the stuff for quizzes 30 minutes before (except the amino acids, that takes longer ha).
The midterms I believe are extremely fair and, yes, he does have some tough problems and requires specific wordings, but I feel like it isn’t that crazy of a thing to ask because you should be learning those “specific wordings” already. Also, he does change point values on exams if problems are too tough and if not a lot of people get the answer. He does put extra credit questions on his exams, which could include tougher questions, or more specific questions, or just drawing a meme or picture. For me, I think I studied 2-3 days before the exam, and I got A’s on each one. HINT: I think reading through all the slides right before the exam is pretty helpful.
You have to use iclicker for participation, but you can click in anywhere in the world so you don’t “have” to attend. Discussion does have attendance though, so try to get a good discussion if you can. I think you can miss some discussions and you can miss a week’s worth of class.
Although the final this quarter was no harm, I still took it as if it were normal and, once again, the test was well made and more than fair. His final tests the new material, and it is cumulative but it tests stuff that wasn’t on the first 2 midterms, so you can kind of hone your studying for the previous chapters if you remember what was not tested on already. HINT: I suggest that after each midterm you write down what was not tested on (or focused heavily on) so you can study it for the final.
Homework’s are great to use as studying resources (he uploads the answers). He also uploads learning objectives which also helps if you can answer them. Even though Lannan is great, I did use outside sources for more perspectives on certain topics. I used AK lectures on YouTube which really helped.
He also offers extra credit. 2% that includes a creative group project, LA and prof feedback, and Campuswire participation.
Overall, this class was hard, but it was extremely rewarding. Lannan has moved into my top 3 professors at UCLA. He really cares about his students and his students’ learning. I know there are other professors like Jarret who I’ve heard are easy A’s. This class might not be the “easiest”, but in terms of the difficulty of the material, Lannan teaches it super well and if you study for a little bit you can easily get an A, and you WILL learn something. By making his exams the way he has, you really learn the material, which is great for MCAT or just learning biochem for future courses. I would highly recommend this course with Lannan if he is an option!

This class broken down:
Midterm 1 200 points 20%
Midterm 2 200 points 20%
Quizzes (5 total, 1 is dropped) 100 points 10%
Homework (usually weekly) 120 points 12%
Participation (iclicker+discussion) 80 points 8%
Final 300 points 30%

Lannan definitely improved a lot in his second quarter of teaching. He got a lot of hate in the winter for his slides, but he made his own set for this quarter, and they're incredibly clear and to the point. He's a good lecturer, and you can feel how hard he works to make the class manageable. The midterms themselves were fair and very much based on his learning objectives. He was also extremely accommodating for the final, considering the TA strike situation. I would recommend taking 153a with him :)

As someone who hates memorization, I was dreading this class because I had heard from everyone that biochem is pure memorization and that I had heard all of the biochem professors are awful. (It also didn't help that I am a transfer student and this was my first quarter). However, I was greatly surprised by how just how much I loved this class. Sure there is stuff to memorize but Prof. Lannon really tries his best to keep that to the minimum and focus on learning and understanding. He has good lectures that are engaging, although he can work on the wording on his slides to make them more informative but they are pretty good. For some reason though I would always feel like I was falling asleep in that class. I am not sure if that was because I had the class right after lunch or what, but it wasn't anything in his power (his lectures aren't boring). His HWs are also very good at showing you what is important and he also provides practice exams which are definitely useful. His office hours are also very useful (only if you have specific questions), but they do get packed very very fast, so you have to make sure to run there if you don't want to sit on the floor. But I only recommend going to office hours if you have a specific question, else it is mostly a waste of time. He is also very nice for having extra office hours (even during weekends) before exams. He also uses an app called "Campus Wire" which is essentially a worse version of Discord but it is pretty good for getting your questions answered. He also does check attendance with iClicker. The quizzes are very simple memorization and should be free points but he does drop one, and also offers a good bit of extra credit. The worst part about this class was just how AWFUL the majority of TAs were. The majority of the time they had no idea what they were talking about and couldn't answer basic questions, this resulted in lots of incorrect grading on exams (thankfully there are regrades though). This also made it so that you had to write ALOT in specific detail for exam questions because the TAs essentially just check to see if you use keywords that are in the answer key. On the other hand, the LAs were amazing and basically knew way more than the TAs, so if you need help definitely as the LAs instead of the TAs. This class is very dense and covers lots of content, so it is important to understand the concepts and not just memorize them as by the time the final rolls around there will be too much to memorize. Also, start studying for exams at least one week in advance and do a little bit each day. I have heard that some other professors go very in-depth with ochem, but in my opinion, Professor Lannon just does the right amount of ochem and biology. I genuinely enjoyed this class way more than I thought I was going to, and I actually learned a lot of biochem. However, be aware that this class is full of tryhard premeds and for that reason, most of the time the averages for exams are very high (for us it was around 88%) so don't expect a curve.

I loved this class! Lannan is a great professor and deeply cares about his students. He is very approachable for questions both on campuswire, after class, or in office hours. The content was very interesting and the tests were fair. Plus, there is a fair amount of extra credit on exams and a final extra credit group project,

Lannan very clearly cares for his students and their performance in his course. He is very open to criticism when it comes to exam difficulty. This class is definitely meant to be hard, but he teaches it well. I find his exams to be fair and he even offers extra credit on some.

I am still in his biochem class. I'm retaking biochem from summer which I just didn't go to class and didn't pass. That summer version was SO simple and manageable looking back - the professor seemed like they didn't want to play with you. Just get straight to the point and take your grade. Grade was based on max 3 things - the midterm, final & zoom participation. DR. LANNAN MAKES THIS THE MOST COMPLICATED, HYPER-SPECIFIC GRADING RUBRIC I HAVE EVER SEEN. POINTS COME FROM EVERYWHERE, AND ITS BASED ON A 1000 POINT SCALE???? WHY?? HE IS A HOT YOUNG PROFESSOR WHO REALLY WANTS YOU TO LEARN BIOCHEM BUT ALL WHILE MICROMANAGING THE WAY YOU DO IT. I DON'T NEED HOMEWORK ANYMORE AND WHY DO I HAVE TO BE IN YOUR PRESENCE TO RACK UP POINTS FROM YOUR UNNECESSARILY FRACTIONED SYSTEM OF MEASUREMENT. HE'S CUTE BUT HE'S DOING TOO MUCH RN. I'M PROBABLY GONNA GET A D OR C HOPEFULLY NOT F.

Lannan definitely learned from previous constructive criticism from past quarters. He is a great lecturer and is very nice and approachable. He knows how to teach the class very well. The material itself, however, is super difficult. His homeworks are reasonable and his midterms are semi reasonable. The grade breakdown goes as follows:
Midterm 1: 20%
Midterm 2: 20%
Quizzes (Memorization): 10%
Homework: 12%
Participation: 8%
Final: 30%

Lannan is a good lecturer and makes biochem a bit more intuitive, although I found myself falling asleep in class sometimes, and I found his office hours to be much more helpful. I don't know why he made MT 2 so hard and ambiguous, and I can tell he wrote/printed them like right before the test date because the papers were still warm. He's a cool dude and gives a lot of point leeway outside the exams, which is also nice and stress-relieving.