this class was as good as it could have been. chem153a naturally includes a lot of content, so a lot of consistent studying is necessary to succeed in this class. lannan does a good job
of providing clear lecture slides, learning objectives, and homework assignments that thoroughly cover the material. the exams are straightforward and you can succeed with them if you put in the work. however, while the lecture slides are detailed, very often, dr. lannan will mention a concept that is not on the slides, and he will brush over it quickly without mentioning its importance. without writing down this information in that instant, there is no way to find it other than re-watching the lecture and really listening to it. unfortunately, oftentimes these small
tidbits are included in test questions. all this to say, i would take this class again with dr. lannan.

I'm not sure if it's me personally, but I didn't like Lannan much. His slides were pretty good and the class structure was fair, but his lectures felt really jumpy and rushed towards the end of the year. He'd use an abbreviation once and assumed you knew it by heart after that (within the same slide). Typically, it would be fine until he would forget to introduce a protein's or enzyme's abbreviation while using other introduced abbreviations that were similar, making it extremely confusing.

On the topic of feeling unorganized, a lot of the homework deadlines would frequently get pushed back without notice to how far they got pushed back. He typically wouldn't make announcements about the new due date or post the homework on gradescope until 1-2 days before the new due date that he didn't disclose. Although checking gradescope is a student's responsibility, a courtesy reminder of homework due date extensions would've been nice, especially since they did not match the due dates on the front page of the homework or the syllabus.

Also, it's important to note that his homeworks cover the same content as his midterms/finals, but are not similar in depth, format, or expectations. The main way to study is looking at the practice midterms/finals he fortunately gives you. On the topic of midterms, be careful about submitting a regrade request which you'll be tempted to use. His rubric is incredibly strict on wording, meaning lots of students felt that they explained the concept correctly but didn't word it the right way (even if the reasoning and key words were correct). Because of this, he took points off for "bad" regrade requests and threatened to cancel all regrade requests if the number passed a certain threshold which is unreasonable in my opinion. In fact, I checked over with a TA on one of the questions and he agreed it was graded incorrectly but because of the threats he gave, I never ended up submitting the regrade request.

This class was a lot of work, but I genuinely enjoyed it because of Lannan. He's a funny guy and if you go to office hours you see that he really cares about his students understanding the concepts. If you're interested in learning the material, he's interested in teaching you it. There were a couple of easy ways to earn extra credit. The practice exams are a great representation of what exams will be like.

If you have to take this man I'm so sorry and I'm praying for you. Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic. Lannan is genuinely a very nice and likable man, but as a 153A professor, he's... interesting to say the least. He's very particular about using specific wording on the exams or else you won't get any credit, not even partial. However, the good news is that his practice midterms are very similar to his actual ones. If you can do them without your notes and get a good grade, then you should get the same outcome on the actual midterm. After every class, if you have time, please rewatch the lecture and rewrite it in your own words. Annotating the slides does not do sh** I'm sorry. You have to write the concepts out yourself if you want to pass. Post as much as possible in the Campuswire because that's extra credit right there. Also don't forget the evaluation at the end of the quarter (like I did smh) because that's also easy extra credit. Homework was moderate, but definitely a few challenging questions here and there. This class contains a *lot* of concepts for only 10 weeks of learning but if this is the only hard class you're taking it's definitely manageable. I believe in y'all <3

I like this man

I was not a fan of Lannan. He never took questions during class and often would skip around during lectures and emphasized that we "didn't need to know" certain content and then it would show up on the exam. The midterms were fine but the final was entirely unfair as he completely changed the format of the exam. He claimed it would be 60% new content, 40% old but it was easily 95% new content. Not to mention his grading rubric is ridiculous. You could write word for word what it says but if the grader "didn't feel it was correct" you wouldn't get the points. He is looking for very specific wording, not if you understand the overall content. He also is extremely unapproachable and discourages students from asking questions. I spoke to him once after class and he completely belittled me and spoke to me as if I was a child. I can't speak on behalf of other biochem professors but I don't think Lannan is a great choice. I think the department should look into hiring someone new cause this isn't going to work.

Lannan was a pretty average professor in my opinion. His lectures weren't very engaging and pretty boring at times, but he taught the material pretty well. There were some times when he would ramble about something that wasn't important and we fell behind in lecture material. The class had homework, participation, quizzes, two midterms, and a final. He also gave out ~2% of extra credit which was super nice. He provides a lot of resources that prepare you well for the midterms and he made them very fair. Sometimes there would be questions on the midterms that came directly from the practice midterms, so be sure to study them! I will say, the grading on the midterms was pretty harsh. You basically had to be word for word on the rubric to get full credit which was not fun. Overall, definitely not the worst professor I've ever had!

Dr. Ryan Lannan is a friendly, knowledgable, and clear professor for CHEM 153A. I would recommend taking biochemistry with him, as he is likely one of the easier biochemistry professors.
With that being said, biochemistry is just a difficult subject and requires a lot of conceptual understanding and memorization, so by no means was this class easy. However, Lannan's 153A class is crucial for pre-meds who will eventually take the MCAT, as the material learned in his class is arguably the most valuable, of any pre-med prerequisite, for succeeding on the MCAT.
There were two midterms and one final exam for this class. The grading was on Gradescope and for free response questions, based on a relatively strict rubric that allocated points for saying specific terms/phrases that he expected. Therefore, there was often some ambiguity and errors in some of the grading, but Lannan was somewhat receptive to regrade requests. The final exam was cumulative, but did emphasize the later weeks of the course, which in my opinion, were the hardest weeks. There were also five quizzes throughout the quarter, roughly one every 2 weeks, and these were straight memorization of facts that we needed to know in order to be successful in the class. For Winter 2024, the five quizzes covered: amino acids, enzyme kinetics, glycolysis, TCA, and ETC.
This class covers amino acids and proteins, then enzymes, and then metabolism. The last 2-3 weeks were all about metabolism (glycolysis, TCA, ETC, ATP synthesis), and it felt the hardest since it required the most memorization of arrow-pushing mechanisms, enzyme and intermediate names, and step-by-step detailed understandings of how the reactions worked, all in a rushed and jam-packed 3 week span. To be fair, CHEM 153C is entirely about metabolism, so 153A likely only covered the superficial basics, so the metabolism part of the course therefore felt jam-packed into 3 weeks of lectures.
Lannan was quite helpful in office hours and had a Campuswire forum where other students (and he) would frequently answer student questions and provide logistical updates about the class/deadlines. He was not particularly responsive to emails, however. Lannan provided practice exams that were administered to previous quarters on Bruinlearn, and these were quite representative of the tests that he gave; sometimes, there were a few questions word-for-word repeated on our exams from the practice tests, so it's definitely worth doing them and understanding all the answers/reasoning. Lannan did offer some bonus points on each exam, as well as an end of quarter group extra credit project where we had to creatively apply some biochemistry concepts to a sci-fi writeup. He was also quite receptive to student feedback and curved the second midterm exam (added 5 points to everyone's exam total) because it was very difficult and averages were lower than usual.
Overall, Dr. Lannan is a nice and knowledgeable guy who seems to care a lot about student learning and success. While this course is difficult, covers a lot of material in what seems like a short 10 weeks, and the exams can be challenging due to the somewhat strict FRQ grading rubrics, Lannan probably is still one of the best bets for taking biochemistry at UCLA. Would recommend!

TLDR: Expect a tedious class, but manageable if you put significant time and effort into it.

This class reminded me a lot of LS7C: a class where critical thinking meets knowledge output. But unlike LS7C, this class really should have been broken up into two quarters from how much we learned. I should have prioritized this and not have taken other classes because of how stressful it was. Most of my critiques of this class is about the course itself rather than the professor. I think Lannan as an individual was fantastic – he felt like a more relatable professor that is able to understand you well.

The midterms and final are eeringly similar to the questions he gives on the practice ones AS IT SHOULD BE!! Classes that have the practice exams look nothing like the real deal are so stupid, but Lannan is amazing for actually doing this for us. Sometimes, the questions on the homework or practice tests are literally the same exact question you get on the real deal.

Luckily, you don't have to read from a textbook in this class. Everything that is fair game for the exams are straight from the lectures. However, lectures meet 4 times a week and are all mandatory, so that's a little unfortunate. The lectures are also really fast since they are 50 minutes each and he leaves barely any time for questions, which is also unfortunate.

Thankfully, he provides a plethora of office hours and final exam review sessions. He is just as approachable as the TA's in this class, and is super friendly, so don't hesitate to go ask him questions.

There are a whole bunch of extra credit opportunities he gives out, although, the percent worth is miniscule. For example, there is an optional project you can undergo a minimum of roughly 2500 words worth with 3-4 other group members. However, that's only up to 1.25% of credit depending on how well you do. Besides, it's right after Midterm 2 and a due a few days before the Final. Should be worth more in my opinion. Also, he uses Campuswire reputation points for various degrees of extra credit (the 50 upvote/20 answered being the most points receivable but only around 0.3%).

Professor Lannan is a good lecturer and is pretty decent at explaining conceptual stuff; however, I felt that his class needed much more clarification and had many areas for improvement. The class is incredibly fast-paced, and he doesn't slow down, making it difficult to keep up. He talks during lectures as if you already know everything, often just gliding over some concepts and then making the most difficult questions out of them for the midterm. His office hours were useful at first, but they became useless after the first four weeks. He has ADHD, so he's always saying, anyways, you guys know this, while no one knows what he's talking about. He also talks so fast, which adds to the confusion. The exams are brutal, and your wrists and hands will hurt after each midterm. He is a harsh grader, and there are a lot of mistakes while grading the exams. Unfortunately, he is not open to improvement and seems to think everyone is in love with him, while in reality, almost everyone dislikes him. He has no sense of awareness about this.

The TAs are also poor graders, and the regrade request process is absolutely unfair. He deducts points from you if he receives too many requests because he can't review them all. Well, nobody forced him to implement the regrade request system. Additionally, he doesn't accept requests for 0.5 points, which is problematic if there are multiple grading mistakes on these smaller questions. He is an awful grader, extremely non-responsive, and rude towards students. He is very mean in emails and tries everything to single you out, often insinuating that you are trying to cheat in the class. I really hated this class. It gave me so much anxiety, and I am a chemistry major, so I have been through the hardest chemistry classes at UCLA. Another major issue is that he sets you up for competition against other students and has clearly stated this many times on CampusWire. While it's understood that eventually, you're evaluated against others, this is not something that should be explicitly stated in class for 800+ students. Each class should be structured in a way that you're being valued based on your own knowledge at least.

I think other professors, such as Gober, should be brought back to teach biochemistry rather than Lannan. While Lannan has some strengths as a lecturer, there are significant issues with his teaching approach, grading policies, and overall attitude that need to be addressed.