Selling MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF THE GENE
Author: Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine, Losick
Custom Edition for UCLA

I'll let you bargain for a deal (:

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Selling LS3 Lecture 2 Discussion 2a. Email me at *************
Spring 2013

He taught the second half of LS3. Didn't go to a single one of his lectures since they were podcasted. Honestly it is a waste of time to go because he flies through the slides and there is too much info on them to understand that fast. I got an A by sitting down and spending 2-3 hours watching each lecture initially and handwriting my own notes to summarize each slide. I took full advantage of the pause and rewind features - I made sure to understand what was actually going on without focusing too much on the specifics. Then before the final I went back and studied all the slides again to make sure I had all the details down (or at least most, since there is a ridiculous amount of material covered in 5 weeks).

The final felt difficult while I was taking it; while the questions weren't unfair per se, it seemed like alot of them focused on details that were glossed over during lecture. One out of the two free response questions focused completely on HIV which he maybe talked about for 2 mins. during one lecture, to give you an idea of what he thinks is fair game...

The Darwin stuff is annoying. Not relevant to the course. And while he says he only tests on major ideas that Darwin had, the questions about it on the final were definitely detail oriented...don't spend alot of time on this though, since its extra credit and only 3 questions.

While the final did somewhat sour my view of Professor Wall, he did do a decent job explaining the concepts. And his slides are well written - he puts enough info on them that they make since when you read through them and don't leave you with too many questions. Will say I'm glad this class is over, though.

Michelle Kim as a TA does suck. Had her for LS2 for a different professor and hated her.

Wall teaches straight off the slides. Just memorize EVERYTHING on the slides and you'll do fine. He might test on some of the smaller details on his final, but if you memorize the slides you'll do fine, I got an A.

just like in any LS class, memorize memorize memorize and youll be fine.

Wall has a slight Southern drawl and dry humor, but he's competent in teaching microbiology. His lecture slides are ungodly. He might as well give us papers to read, since some of his slides are seriously 5 paragraphs long. He tends to focus on experiments in lecture and gives a 10-15 minute briefing on Darwin's life at the beginning of every lecture. As for the final, it was fair but slightly tricky: on a handful of questions, he tested on obscure details (like asking us to recall the functions of a specific antibiotic, even though the TAs told us that we didn't need to memorize the list he gave us), but they're relevant to the bigger picture, so it's not totally biased. Just as in any LS class, devoting time to memorize the little details and understanding the bigger concepts will suffice. Do not buy the textbook, since nothing from the tests is extracted from it.

Don't know why this is split up from the other entry, but here it goes.

He taught the second half of LS3. Yes, he has personality but his teaching style is boring and shows an apparent love for Darwin (5-10 min talk about him every lecture). I have issues with his teaching style because he doesn't understand the point of the lecture slides. This is because he crams A LOT onto one slide. Before you think that i'm exaggerating, please understand that i mean "A LOT" because his slides are either paragraphs or bullet points that form an entire block of text. He is notorious for testing details and believe me, there are plenty. Studying for his class is extremely time consuming. He does have semi-interesting examples and such, but his office hours are more so ramblings than answers. If you tried to make a slide into an index card to study, its nearly impossible to fit it one slide per index card.

I'm glad this class was over. His slides are compacted with so much info. way too much info. You are literally reading essays on each slides and he doesn't even expand on all the points but skims it. I taught myself LS3 off youtube pretty much. His communication skills are subpar and he seems very bored when lecturing.
He spends time going over the previous lecture which is helpful somewhat but he does go over 5-6 slides on Charles Darwin which is irrelevant to the course.
The exam was fair I would say but there were so many little details that you had to know that it was so hard not to second guess yourself.
I would highly not recommend him for LS3. I studied so much for this class especially since the final was worth 50% of your grade. He gives us "review slides" and claims the final is on just the material on that but I just went through all the slides just to make sure. However, really study the review slides as I do feel like the test was from just those slides.

Wall was very good at lecturing and he was more interesting than Pyle. The class was co-ed with Pyle and your grade is based off one midterm and one final, which were both 3 hours long. They were basically both finals because the midterm covered everything Pyle taught and the final covered everything Wall taught, they weren't cumulative. If you wanna do good, you basically have to go over his slides but really memorize the ones he goes over in the mini reviews he does before every lecture.