Take him don't hesitate!! LS30A with Professor Bennoun was by far my favorite class this quarter and I am very lucky to be in his first class at UCLA!! He is kind, genuine, and approachable, always down to answer questions from students. Textbook is free and grading is lenient. Although the textbook can be confusing at first because it talks about conceptual things very differently from high school math, Professor Bennoun does such a great job explaining the material. The study groups made us feel connected. I feel so sad that Professor Bennoun is not teacher LS30B next quarter :"(

I went into this class thinking that Professor Bennoun was gonna be a wildcard. Now, I'm really happy that I chose that wildcard because he is a genuinely good teacher. I guess the best way to describe his personality is wholesome dad vibes. During office hours, he takes time to explain stuff and is always willing to help his students. As for the class and its content, my friends and I jokingly call it "fake math" since it is literally nothing like calculus. For LS 30A, the only calculus we do is integrals and derivatives. Everything else is basically graphs. For me, since I hated calculus, it was great. I will say that if you genuinely liked calculus, you should probably take 3A, you probably don't because you are a Life Science major. Anyways, if you have the option to take Bennoun, I definitely say that you should consider him as an option. (This class was taken online because COVID-19 was a thing, so it was totally online.)

tldr: He does not prepare you for the final, and his accent made me sleepy.

I honestly kinda enjoyed Bennoun's class until he absolutely fucked us over on the final exam. The class's structure is pretty laid back (at least in COVID times), he's super chill, and the coding labs were kinda fun sometimes. Maybe it's burnout or maybe it's adhd, but he's from Switzerland and his accent nearly put me to sleep sometimes. Take advantage of homework help groupchats, sometimes it's pretty lengthy and people were really chill about helping out. There's only one midterm during week 7, and it's really straightforward. With that said, his final exam was ridiculously harder than that of the other 30A professors and I will definitely not be taking 30B with him.

Professor Bennoun is just a great person overall! His lectures are engaging and he is super helpful. If you do take a class with him please appreciate all the effort he puts into this course and really use every opportunity provided to you. If Yoon is a TA when you take this course I'd recommend him as well :)

This class is great and so is Professor Bennoun! It's not exactly calculus because there's a much greater focus on models and applying math to life sciences (so definitely don't go in thinking it's a straightforward calc class), although if you have taken AP Calc in high school it doesn't hurt. If you haven't, that's fine too. I liked this aspect though, because I could clearly see the relevance to my life.
Some of this information might be different since I took this class online during Covid-19, but each week we had a homework assignment, weekly quiz, and a lab assignment. The homework is from the textbook (which the professor provides for free, btw) and can be confusing at times, so definitely take advantage of office hours. Professor Bennoun and the TAs are more than willing to help with any questions. The quiz is based on information from lecture that week and is usually pretty simple as long as you've paid attention. There are also multiple attempts. As for the labs, if you have even a little bit of coding experience, they should be alright. Again, take advantage of office hours and also pray that you have a good group. Clicker questions during lecture are also part of your grade, but the lectures are recorded and there is opportunity to make up missed questions, so don't worry too much about missing class. There's 1 midterm and final, both consisting of three parts - study guide, individual (fill in the blank) portion, and group assignment. The final was a bit harder than the midterm, but as long as you understand all the concepts it should be okay - the assignments prepare you well. Extra credit is built into the grading scheme. Overall, I thought this class was graded fairly and it was pretty easy to get an A.
As for Professor Bennoun, he's an incredible teacher. He really cares that his students understand the material, so he's super helpful and will answer any questions you have. His lectures are engaging and funny. He's super understanding about online classes too and has extended deadlines with almost no persuasion. Steve is just genuinely a sweet and caring guy whom you will love. Do not listen to reviews from Cornell!
TLDR; This class was easy and I learned a lot; would highly recommend!

PROFESSOR BENNOUN IS AN AMAZING TEACHER!!!! He did not have any reviews prior to enrolling in his class so I felt very nervous in taking his class because I thought he was going to be a bad prof. This was COMPLETELY FALSE. He is an amazing, caring, and funny guy. You can tell he really wants his students to succeed because he would push back homework assignments and labs to ensure we had enough time to study for our tests. I would definitely take his class again because he is just an overall amazing and funny professor. Also, attend his social hours, he talks about some pretty interesting stuff that is not math related.

This class was very manageable and an easy A (because of the built in extra credit and because the worst HW/labs were dropped). However, I hated the textbook for this class (it didn't explain things in depth/ didn't explain answers to problems). It's also basically impossible to find information about the course content online because it is very niche (you can't just look up a youtube video to help you understand the content like a normal calculus class). The labs were the worst part of this class because I had no background in coding and my TA didn't explain things well (I had to figure out a lot on my own). That being said, a lot of the content was very interesting and applicable to a career in the life sciences. We studied the spread of disease, population dynamics, and much more. Professor Bennoun was a fine lecturer and obviously cares a lot about his students. I wouldn't say he's the best professor ever, but he definitely put a lot of effort into the class. He put people in collaborative lab groups which helped a lot (especially during this virtual quarter). I believe this was his first quarter teaching this class, so I bet his lectures will improve in future quarters. Overall, I enjoyed this class a fair amount and would recommend for anyone studying the life sciences.

Do not ever use the Cornell Rate my Professor reviews of Dr.Bennoun. Those reviews make you question if they were even talking about the right professor. He was by far the most helpful professor throughout distance learning and he makes sure his students understand the material and can succeed in the class. He gives a decent amount of homework but nothing ridiculous and he drops some of the lower grades in the class. Bennoun truly was a godsend during this pandemic and I hope more professors can be like him.

Bennuon is the coolest guy, he's very sweet and you can tell he cares about his students. I was worried about going into the class having taken 0 calculus but it ended up being fine (although it would've helped). Getting an A is very manageable if you put in a bit of work. Lectures were pretty engaging. The coding labs were kind of annoying once they got harder at the end but again, still manageable. Overall it was an interesting class and Bennuon is a great professor.

When signing up for classes this Fall, I picked Bennoun as a coin toss. I'm going to say that being one of his students was an enjoyable experience. He tries to be extremely accommodating for his students, and he has given multiple homework extensions this quarter.
The weekly quizzes match with the content taught in the lectures, so if you pay attention in lecture or just take a look at his annotated slides, which he uploads after class, you're set on the quizzes. His office hours have been pretty useful, and he always stays a couple minutes after lecture if there are any questions. Also, clicker questions aren't a problem, and if you miss lecture, you can just answer them as a quiz online.
His exams match up exactly with what is taught in class, and the practice exams he provides also line up with the midterms so I never once felt like I was going to get a problem I've never seen before.
The homework for the class is a mixed bag. The wording for some of the problems in the textbook is a pain, but it's not a massive issue. If you stop by at a TA office hour or the professor's, they'll be more than happy to help.
The labs were a mixed bag for me, but the TA's and LA's were a great help for me.
Overall, I'd recommend this professor to people interested in the LS series.