Nice dude and good lecturer, but started out really slow (for half the class we were always at least 2 weeks behind the syllabus) which made him speed up A LOT in the last 2 weeks of the quarter which made it overwhelming. As other reviews say his grading is really harsh because he looks for super specific words/phrases in your answers. But overall this class was a lot easier than I expected, if you made it through 14D you'll def be fine for this one.

Grading breakdown:
Midterm 1 20%
Midterm 2 20%
Quizzes 10% (lowest score dropped; all just memorization, but that helps you a lot with the content/tests)
Participation 5% (lecture iClickers and discussion attendance; you can miss like 6 lectures and 1-2 discussions)
Homework 15% (lowest score dropped; almost all on completion, with 1-2 questions per homework grade on accuracy)
Final 30%
+ some extra credit form LA/prof evaluations and a creative group project at the end of the quarter

STAY ON TOP OF LECTURES. Lannan really takes his time with lectures and explains concepts well, but it is very easy to fall behind. Everything in this class is very fair -- from the homework to the quizzes (which essentially test memorization). The only think you should look out for are midterms and finals as Lannan is VERY PICKY with wording. Definitely try to get some of his past exams if possible because he almost always reuses 90% of them. Overall, super nice guy and gives good lectures. Felt like I learned a lot from this class.

Although I enjoyed Biochem as a class this quarter, unfortunately, I didn’t have a great experience with Professor Lannan. He came off as pretty rude and dismissive at times. One of the most frustrating parts of the class was the way he handled Gradescope regrades: he would take off even more points if he disagreed with your regrade request. Small requests for a 0.5 point regrade were not allowed, and were penalized by a -0.51 deduction regardless of whether the regrade was correctly found or not, even when the error was on his part. It doesn’t make sense to penalize students for pointing out HIS grading mistakes. He also fell pretty behind this quarter; the last two weeks of content covered something like 15 lectures and it was pretty overwhelming.

In terms of the class, I absolutely love the content of this class, difficulty wise its not too hard its just alot of detail. Lannan is a decent lecturer and all the information you need will be in the lectures, no outside sources required. His pacing is a bit odd, but you’ll get used to it. He manages to talk about everything and nothing at the same time so rewatching is definitely something you’ll be doing constantly. I genuinely learned so much from his class and genuinely understood the content. The thing is his exams are a bit odd. The rubric for what you gets points for is extremely strict as he is looking for very specific things that you might know but might not mention. Unfortunately, I think the only way to try get the grades you want for the class is to have his practice exams and finding old exams with the rubric attached as he does reuse his exams and questions. He is a very helpful and nice professor who is pretty reasonable with changing the class and adjusting based on student needs. I would say if you have access to past exams, definitely take the class with him as you will genuinely learn alot. This class is a rare type of class where the grade you get could often under-represent the amount of content you actually know.

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.