Overall Bennoun is a GOAT, he gave us a hard midterm but the final was much easier comparatively. He gives you enough time to finish all the labs in class so the only real homework is to do the assignments, I took it as a GE which is cool if you're someone who doesn't like bio as much, recommend.

Professor Bennoun was a great professor to have this quarter. His lectures were engaging and informative and the clicker questions really helped to supplement the material. The class content itself is definitely different than high school math with the only similarity being basic calculus (derivatives and integrals) but I found it a lot more interesting than anything I did in high school.

Every week there was a coding project, quiz based on the lecture material, homework set, and pre-lab videos and quiz. The coding projects are done in a small group during discussion and most of the time you can finish or get most of the way through them then. The TAs also hold office hours where you can get help on the projects. The homework is sometimes confusing because of the textbook and was pretty long so I would definitely not try to do it all the night before it's due. The lowest two homework scores, lowest quiz grade, and lowest lab score were also dropped! There was one midterm and a final and I found both of them not overly difficult. He provided a lot of practice tests and held office hours which were both really helpful for the tests. Overall, I would recommend to take this class with him.

He taught LS30A so good that he tricked me into taking 30B

Professor Bennoun is an amazing professor and he is generous. He switched our bonus from 0.5% to 2.5% after finding out that Professor Shevstov let her students gain back points for their midterm. He's great at teaching, but please don't think this class is an easy A. A lot of the reviews from the past were from COVID so they took it online. In 2022, the grade adjustments were made so it was also easier for them.

Textbook: You don't need to use it all.

Lectures: Go to the lecture and make sure you pay attention, especially during the clickers. A lot of the concepts from the lecture show up on the midterm. When Professor Bennoun explains concepts, make sure you understand them and you're able to write down what the concepts imply when you take your tests.

Homework: Going to the lecture alone wasn't enough for me to complete the homework successfully. I went to office hours each week. I highly recommend Micah Vinet's office hours if he's still a TA by the time you see this. He has the most students coming, but he does the problems on the board and it starts to make so much sense. I received 100% on each homework assignment AND I understood everything thanks to office hours.

Midterm: It was so bad for me. I got a C- and I thought there was no chance of me getting an A, let alone an A+. I studied a lot, but I feel like I didn't study right if that makes sense.... The practice midterms were not enough and were way easier than the actual midterm.

Labs: The labs were easy at first but they got pretty difficult. Make sure you try to do as much as you can during lab sections and don't be afraid to ask your TA for help. It's their job and all of them are friendly.

Lab Practical: The lab practical was easy because I studied the past labs, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. Start early and keep practicing until you feel like a pro.

Final: When I flipped through the final, I was so relieved. I think Bennoun and his team realized that we struggled a lot on the midterm, so the final was fair. I got an A on the final and I studied by going through the past homework, doing the practice midterms, and attending office hours. At one point I attended four office hours a day. It was a lot of hard work but it was worth it in the end. Also, the TAs are so generous when it comes to grading the exams.

The reason I got an A+ in this class is because of Bennoun's grading schemes. Two grading schemes take away the midterm and increase the final exam percentage from 35% to 60%. If you do badly on your midterm, don't think it's over. An A in this class is so doable, but it's not extremely easy. Good luck!

Dr. Bennoun is a very helpful professor. He speaks clearly and is easy to understand. He teaches topics from the basics and builds it up so it is easier to grasp the concepts. The class is generally easy, however the concepts and the coding can definitely be a bit challenging to grasp. I'm taking him again for LS30B next quarter because my experience was so positive! And if enrollment is anything to go by, his class always goes away first.

I'm convinced that this man's spirit animal is the GOAT.

This class is NOT extremely calculus-heavy, more-so applications of those concepts in actual biological scenarios. The first couple of weeks had almost no relation to calculus so if you're behind, it's not too big of a deal. The midterm and final were extremely easy if you actually understand the material (don't memorize the formula, know why they work).

The python coding labs are not as challenging as you might think! I had absolutely no prior coding experience and still managed to breeze through them. The trick is to actually READ the labs, because they often give you the answer and you just have to reapply it to the context of the problem. The labs can be pretty engaging and fun with the right mindset, and they're really good ways to strengthen your problem solving and logical skills.

Professor Bennoun is an excellent teacher and a very considerate person. If you can, I would highly recommend attending his office hours, because he can teach the material efficiently and help you UNDERSTAND the material instead of just knowing it. Due to the TA strike, Professor Bennoun made two critical changes: replacing the lab practical with the lab grade (essentially increasing how much labs were worth) and changing the cutoff for an A from 93% to 90%. In my opinion, this made the class a lot easier (almost trivial) but it goes to show how considerate this man is. Even if you're not skilled with calc/coding, this class is really manageable and I'd highly recommend taking it with Professor Bennoun.

Only take this class if you already have experience with calculus!! Bennoun is a kind, good lecturer. However, his tests are unfairly hard and he often gives long homework assignments that feel like busy work.

LS30A was definitely a struggle - this was pretty evident based on the overflowing office hours that kept increasing in attendance as the quarter went on, and sentiments from friends/peers. This class is not curved, so you really need to have a solid understanding of all the concepts to do well. The midterm (for F23) was extremely challenging, like some others mentioned - I studied literally so hard for it, thought it was difficult (everyone did), and got an 81%. However, Professor Bennoun has 3 different grading schemes that you can use to get the best possible grade in this class - which is really nice. I got a 99% on the final (I thought it was way easier than the midterm), so I was able to pull my grade back up using a different scheme. The lab portion of this class is also pretty challenging, especially for people with no coding experience (basically everyone). They start out pretty simple and guided with a lot of instructions, but they get harder pretty quickly with less instruction and more "figure it out on your own"! It also didn't help that labs were almost nothing related to the class/lecture content. Therefore, I thought the lab practical (the coding "final" of the class) was pretty difficult, but I still got a 90% somehow through generous partial credit, I guess. Ending with some tips:

- GO TO MANY TA OFFICE HOURS. Pick your favorite TAs, and go to their OHs every week. And don't just go to get answers to your homework and labs. Try to really understand and learn from office hours, because if you're just copying the TA's answers, you won't do well on the exams. You have to know what they're doing and be able to replicate the work/concepts yourself.
- Study consistently for this class - try not to cram before exams. Review your lecture notes after each lecture, make them more organized, and see if you understood everything.
- Try to get help on and understand the labs and the *meaning* of the code. Again, you can copy code from peers and TAs who help you, but you'll have to understand it when the lab practical rolls around in week 10.

Overall, an interesting and doable class that requires a lot of hard work and persistence. I did have a breakdown in one LS30A lecture this quarter because I was so overwhelmed. Just know it'll all work out and be fine in the end - all you can do is study hard and try your best. You got this!

Plainly speaking, this whole series is a load of bullshit. It's calculus that has been molded to fit Life Sciences, and while I can see it being helpful in the future, for now it isn't really. I can't see myself using differential equations in my own research, but maybe that's just me.

Bennoun is a great lecturer, I will give him that. He cracks jokes every now and then but he also plainly expresses when he's dissatisfied with the students in his lecture (oftentimes due to lack of participation). He posts the slides so that it's easy to follow along every class and has mandatory i-clicker questions that really help with comprehension.

However, this class gets confusing quickly. The concepts themselves aren't hard in the slightest, but the application of them does get difficult. This is especially considering he assigns a ton of homework problems (as in 3+ hours work per week) that are of significantly higher difficulty than anything he has done in class. Oftentimes you just end up having to self-apply the concepts, ask a smart friend, or cry a little as you strain your teensy brain to come up with some bullshit answer. Want help in office hours? Good luck! Office hours are filled to the brim with students all needing help on homework or labs and it will take the TA's 30+ minutes to get to you. Have a question 10 minutes after your last one was answered? Too bad--the TA isn't going to get back to your side of the room for another 20 minutes! After I waited 2 hours to get 2 questions answered I stopped going and started getting my questions answered through study groups.

You have weekly labs that are the most unhelpful things ever. Did I come out of the labs with an A? Yes. If you asked me to code you anything would I stare at you blankly and tell you I have no idea how to? Also yes. It's a game of filling in the blanks, changing numbers, and figuring out what to copy and paste. The TA and the LA(s), to their credit, are really trying their best to help you out when you're confused. Problem is, everyone is confused.

Midterm was literal hell. I came in pretty confident and left with my soul crushed, confident I had barely been able to pass. I managed to get a B in it, and the only thing I can say is DO THE HOMEWORK PROBLEMS!!! The practice tests and TA review worksheets were completely useless at the end of the day. Final was easier to get through, though it was more like it was because you knew what to expect instead of the questions being easier.

Tldr: if you took ap calc bc and got a 4 or took ap calc ab and got a 5 just take calculus.

Ok, I loved Steve, and his class was relatively helpful, but here's where I have an issue. His notes were not helpful in relation to the homework at all. The concepts taught in class made sense and I knew how to do, but the homework was at certain times, unrelated to topics taught in class (we were expected to know stuff we weren't taught). As much as they say this class is for people who are coming to UCLA with little to no calculus experience, the kids who took calculus in high school had a massive advantage on tests and homework. Trying to learn something when people around you already know it can be kind of frustrating. I did my homework in study groups, which was helpful, but sometimes none of us knew how to answer our homework since we weren't taught the steps in class.