His midterms were more than fair. Between 80-90% averages are the same as or BETTER than what I have heard from other 153A classes. He's honestly a pretty decent lecturer and helpful at his office hours, not the best not the worst. He did improve a lot throughout the quarter. Not a fan of these people showering hate on him because they did poorly in the class.

There are a lot of negative reviews for Lannan, but personally, I thought this class was taught very well. He cares about his students learning and understanding the material, and his explanations are very clear. There were mistakes made here and there, but it was understandable seeing as this is his first time teaching this class and he is relatively new to teaching. There are also a lot of comments about the fairness of his exams, but I thought that the material on the exam was very fair. Everything on the exam is mentioned in class so there are no surprises (just make sure you write down the details in your notes when he lectures, as some of the details are not explicitly mentioned on the slides themselves). As long as you understand the material and study, the class is very much doable.

Many people are upset with Ryan and the way he ran 153A this quarter. I think that, to a point, it is warranted, but it has kind of gotten out of hand. 153A is meant to be a tough class, and will require hours upon hours of studying and memorizing. If you cannot put in the necessary time and dedication to do well in this class, it is entirely on you, and I think people were unhappy with this to say the least. I will admit that at some points, he made the class more confusing or difficult than it needed to be.

That being said, we all saw Ryan grow as a professor this quarter. His lectures started out muddled and confusing, and the first midterm was graded incredibly harshly. As other reviews have stated, the first midterm required that you use very specific wording in order to be granted points. Oftentimes, some of these terms were not communicated to the class during lecture. The class felt like the midterm did not accurately reflect our understanding, we brought up our concerns to Ryan, and he LISTENED! Ryan gave everybody some points back for questions that were unclear/unfair, and I really don't think enough people are giving him credit for this. Midterm 2 and the final were very fair. People need to remember that this is his first time teaching 153A, and that he only had a several week notice to prepare all the slides, homework, and content.

As the quarter went on, the lectures became less disorganized and very engaging. I can confidently say that Ryan is an outstanding lecturer when he is not held back by his own disorganization. He knows biochemistry like the back of his hand, and communicated all the content thoroughly and clearly by the end of the quarter. I do not have a strong affinity for biology or biochemistry, but Ryan actually made biochemistry intriguing.

The assigned homework was weekly, and I thought it was quite manageable and beneficial. A lot of the concepts on the homework appeared on exams. If you did not understand a problem, Ryan would help you in office hours and explain everything clearly until you understood. There were several quizzes throughout the quarter, and yes, they were based on rote memorization, but I think that these are just free points. As you can see, the assigned work was very fair, and I think the class structure ended up being beneficial for everybody.

One of my favorite parts about this class was Campuswire. He incentivized participation by granting .25% of extra credit to your final grade if you asked meaningful questions and answered people's questions. Do not skip out on this. I cannot tell you how many times looking at a Campuswire post or having my question answered by a fellow student facilitated my understanding of the material.

Overall, I would recommend Ryan as a professor. I think that we were kind of his guinea pigs this quarter, but he definitely grew and understands how to better run 153A for future quarters. Come into it with an open mind, and understand that this class will take up a significant chunk of time. Biochemistry is NOT easy, and it simply isn't fair to berate Ryan and threaten his job for some of the shortcomings of the class. Do all the extra credit that adds 2% to your final grade, go to office hours, pay attention in lecture and write down terms that he repeats and emphasizes, do the homework thoughtfully, and you will be fine in the class.

Too much fault is pinned on Lannan. He was a good professor with fair exams and even offered extra credit. For his first time teaching, he did great. I feel like many students forget that Chem 153A material is supposed to be hard. It is not an easy A/class. Exams were fairly easy if you comprehended the material on the study guides. I would recommend taking him.

Really confused about the hate Lannan received in the GroupMe this quarter - I thought all exams were extremely fair. He did not give a practice exam with questions nearly identical to the actual exam, like several students seemed to want, but all exam questions were covered in the study guides and there were no surprises. Finals have not been graded yet, but I received an A on both midterms by focusing on answering the study guide questions. I did not attend discussion sections. Start as soon as possible for his study guides; they will be lengthy as they cover the majority of course content without narrowing down topics. For the amino acids, I recommend using the Amino Acid Quiz app to learn them and refresh your memory in your free time.

He was alright. I didn't really go to lectures and pretty much learned everything off his slides alone. I really liked his exam study guides and used those to make flashcards and memorize everything. You definitely need to put loads of effort into this class if you want to succeed. I don't have many complaints about Ryan. He wasn't the best but he wasn't the worst either. I don't think his lectures help that much since his slides have a bunch of information already, and the homework answers are also useful. Just study your ass off.

Professor Lannan is a passionate professor who got unlucky. Yes, he was very disorganized at the beginning of the quarter. But people fail to give him any sort of grace-- he was only told he was teaching this class like a few weeks before. He literally had to make hundreds of slides, exams, homeworks, etc all within a very short time frame. And yes, the first midterm was kind of a disaster (I personally was not happy with my score, I got a mid C), but he more than made up for it with the second midterm, the average of which was like an 88%, and I got an A on that one. Biochem is commonly known as one of the hardest classes at UCLA, and I can safely say that because of Professor Lannan, I fully understand all of the material to the point where I'm going to LA for this class next quarter. Don't listen to the people on here who are just salty that they didn't study enough and did badly. Students here act so entitled to good grades and it's so annoying because people like Professor Lannan get screwed over. He is a brand new professor, he will only get better, and overall I think he was a good professor. Which isn't to say he didn't screw up a bunch of times, but the important thing was that he fixed those mistakes.

He is NOT that bad of a biochem professor. Biochem is just a hard as hell class and I have had ruthless professors in the past. Missing lectures will turn into a snowball effect so dont do that. Despite this class behind super hard, I feel like this class gave me a strong understanding of biochem. He struggled a little bit during the first 1/3 of the course which is to be expected. Our in-person midterm and final were quite fair in my opinion. The only main critique I have is that he does sometimes confuse himself with minor details like bis phosphate vs biphosphate and penalizes his students for some of the mistakes he makes, which I think students should not be penalized for. Another critique I have is that I wished he as a little more accommodating with grading since he also likes to add stuff to be tested our study guides like 2 days before our test and is new (No lowest homework or quizzes dropped in this class). Another factor was that it was also a little hard for the first midterm since none of the students had prior knowledge of Lannan's style of test questions. However, in the future if he continues to teach biochem and has developed his official learning materials, hell be a professor everybody will want to take biochem with.

Make sure to study homework problems, make flashcards, use Campuswire, do the study guides, and watch AK Lectures and you should be okay. He does give extra credit not that much (2% boost max)

I came into this class expecting complete disaster, because I had 0 knowledge of biology. Hearing the super-detailed exams and knowing so many details have also made it even more scary. Rest assured, all of these details are true. Despite not doing well on the first midterm, the overall class experience is much better than expected. He clearly knows how to explain, even with his speaking issue (I have a speech issue, so I relate to him very well). Additionally, his slides along with campuswire, TAs, and office hours give you all the tools needed to pass the class. Lastly, he was extremely caring to his students; even though I did not have any knowledge in biology, he was very patient and did not belittle me for that reason. I strongly recommend working out all the learning outcomes, his practice exams, and attending every optional review section. Overall, I would not take this class again (or biochemistry as a whole; its not my major) due to its sheer amount of material covered, but I would 100% take Lannan's class again.

Ryan Lannan is BY FAR the best professor I have had at UCLA. For how hard the content in this class can be, Lannan does a great job of breaking it down and making it as simple as he possibly can. A lot of the other reviews talk about how hard his tests are, etc. etc. If you sit down and think about it, for how complex the material covered in class is, he makes his tests on the easier side. Yea, there are tough questions sometimes, but I think we can all agree that Lannan takes his students' feedback into account - he changes point values based on how hard a question was perceived to be, he gives extra credit on tests, and he's willing to make exams easier in the future when he realizes he made an exam a little too hard.

Aside from Lannan's grading, I feel like there's a lot to appreciate about his teaching. He's one of those people who loves biochemistry, and honestly, I feel like his passion for the subject translates to his teaching. Some of his jokes aren't the best, but I mean he's trying. A lot of them made me chuckle at times.

So when you're thinking about taking 153A with a professor, I would HIGHLY recommend taking it with Lannan. He's approachable, he knows his stuff, and he's pretty lenient with grades (although he does focus a bit too much IMO on specific wording). This is the man who held office hours every day for 2 hours a day in Week 10 during the TA strikes. It's not often you find a professor like that.

Grading Distribution:
MT1: 20%
MT2: 20%
Final: 30%
Participation: 8%
Quizzes: 10%
Homework: 12%

Extra Credit: ~2% (0.25% for course evaluations; 0.5% for campusiwre; 1.25% for a group extra credit project)