Caring and approachable professor but students will take a while to get used to the accent.
Weekly discussion sections that require weekly readings of research papers. Weekly assignments corresponding to the research paper read for the week.
For exams, be sure to know the slides (even the details and steps of the important mechanisms) really well. Exams are fair and not impossible for a good grade, however, it's not very possible to study the day before the exam to pull a passing grade (study every week and don't fall behind!)
Interesting topic to learn about.

Lectures were kind of all over the place. A lot of memorization about what inhibits what and what activates what during development. Definitely don't take this as an elective for psychobiology, I have had friends do this and they were not happy about the material/workload. If you are MCDB, this is a good first MCDB upperdiv to take (or 165A).

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I'm gonna tell it to you straight. This class was the bane of my college career thus far. Most important info you need to hear: if you answer a question incorrectly, he takes away points. Multiple people got negative midterm grades. I think about 25 people out of 120 people dropped this course after the course drop deadline. I'm going to be honest, I'm like a B student, I don't try that hard, but I got a 12% on the first midterm. I then proceeded to go to office hours where he made me cry. But he told me I could pass the class if I completely changed my study habits (super helpful right?) Following the L on the first midterm, I spent about 20+ hours per week studying for this class alone. Even the TAs thought his tests were unfair and that the professor was bad at explaining things. His accent was so bad, I thought we was making up words. Bottom line, avoid this if you can, the overall concepts are interesting but not worth the emotional pain.

MCDB 138 is a very challenging class within itself. It covers a lot of material and requires a lot of memorization. I do not want to intimidate anyone or anything but be prepared to spend some time getting to know the material and memorizing signal transduction pathways.
For this class with Dr. Lin we had 2 midterms, 6 reports on scientific papers (that require minimal effort), 2 review quizzes (taken on weeks we had midterms), and a final. Discussions were mandatory and we mostly went over the papers(techniques, experiments conducted and major results). The lecture was video-casted so if you missed class it wasn't that big of a deal.
There was two things that I struggled with and mostly the reason I got a B rather than an A. I work in a developmental biology lab so I was familiar with major concepts. But Dr. Lin goes into excruciating detail about everything. It was also a bit hard to understand him at times because of his accept but after the 2nd week I got the hang of it. The other thing I disliked the most was that all his test were painful! Literally painful! All the details he provides during lecture and his lecture notes (which he post on ccle for us) were on the test and his test were all multiple choice graded SAT style. Meaning that if you got a question wrong you got deducted a point. For example, if each question on the exam is 3 points, if you missed a question (by bubbling in the incorrect answer) you would actually miss 4 points instead of 3.
The class was rewarding and everything like other posts say but be prepared to invest time in this class. Be sure to minimize commitments during the quarter you're taking this class.

Developmental bio with Lin is extremely challenging, but also super rewarding. He's pretty monotone during lecture which makes it hard to follow, but you're really going to want to pay attention to everything he says. I found it most helpful to review the lecture notes and slides before class, go to lecture, and then review the slides and notes soon after class. It really helps you stay on top of the material, because there is no way you can cram before his tests and do well.

For the tests, make sure to be able to understand and explain EVERY SLIDE from every powerpoint he posts. Some really random and detailed questions will come up on the exams, so go to office hours if even the smallest detail from 1 slide doesn't make sense. The lecture notes are a good supplement for when you're first learning the material because they give more detail, but don't try to memorize everything in those for the exams - just refer back to them for review on the concepts he goes over in lecture. Our exam averages were MT 1 = 68, MT 2 = 74, Final = 65.

You also have to write a report for 6 scientific research papers throughout the quarter and take a review quiz on lecture material when it's a midterm week. These are pretty easy points, and the exams only have 1-2 questions about each paper so there's no need to understand them in extreme detail.

This class is a lot of work and requires a LOT of memorization and understanding, but it's extremely worth it in the end. I feel like I learned a lot of really valuable things in this class and would take it with Lin again.

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I majored in MCDB and did really well in 138 with Lin. If you need a tutor for 138 (Lin or Lyons) or any other MCDB course, email tinaorsadi at yahoo dot com

He's alright, typical memorization so you know the routine. use bruindemand.org for the journals as a excellent review before the quizzes.

Key thing I always did to study for each exam was try your best to understand the powerpoint slide by slide, and then read the complementary note. Then look through the power points again and try to tie it all together. And on the exam day, you should be able to recognize what is what on the slides and you should also be able to read through the chapter notes without any confusion.

A LOT OF MATERIAL BUT VERY REWARDING. Loved this class and ended up getting an A.