I truly like Professor Austin's class because I found that 5HB exposed me to research concepts a lot. This class is doable, the workload is manageable if you plan ahead and do not wait until the last minute to finish your assignments. Expect to have a lot of homework, mini quizzes, and assignments, but keep in mind that the worksheets are mostly graded based on effort. Of all classes at UCLA, this class is one of the easiest classes I've taken so far. Professor Tina Austin cares a lot about her students but she was overwhelmed with a heavy workload so it seems like she doesn't have much time to reply to emails, so please be patient with her! If you have any difficulties, try to stay back after class and discuss directly with her, she always welcomes students and wants to know more about her students. If you email her but did not get a response, your email might be buried in tons of emails she receives every day. If you have difficulties but do not reach out to her or do not find other ways to reach out to her, I don't think it's her fault. This class is the hardest class in BMD Minor but it's completely doable! The worksheets are designed to help you to read scientific papers and review concepts, worksheets and quizzes are only worth a small grade distribution so don't stress about them too much. She is very flexible. Sometimes, she may change some quiz dates or small things but it won't affect everyone much overall. People only complained about some random small things that make them mad here but don't tell you what she has done for the class in general. According to a review above that she changed the quiz date. I agree, but that quiz was only worth 1% of the grade, she sent out a poll and everyone agreed to change the quiz date to a bit earlier so we would have fewer materials to study for the quiz and avoid conflicts for some folks in the class. There were so many times she changes to due dates to later, was super lenient with grading, and be flexible with deadlines, and offered tons of extra credits, no one even mentioned it here! People forgot to mention that our class had the worst TA ever because she did not teach us or help us with anything at all. She also did not grade our assignments until super late and our final research proposal depended on her grading. She graded harshly and did not follow the rubrics. Professor Austin had to step in and resolve all the issues caused by the TA without even complaining or telling the class overall. I think it's not fair if some people only complain about some small things that made them not happy but do not look at the overall results and what they have gained from the class.

Note: In class, you'll be introduced to a lot of new research concepts and if you have not been in any lab yet, you may be overwhelmed at first. However, her slides are usually very helpful and she repeats/reviews concepts a lot during class. She usually reviews old lecture materials before starting a new lecture, so try to pay attention in class, review the slides after class, and if there's anything you don't understand or want to discuss further, come to her OH! She loves talking with students in the OH, it's also the way she knows you personally and gives you many helpful advice. I have learned a lot from Professor Austin's OH. Or if you have time, pop by her OH to say hi to her is fine too!

This is a great class to start BMD Minor overall! Pay attention in class, allocate your time to start and finish the assignments properly, and go to OH are my tips to rock the class!

What can I say!!! Dr. Austin is one of those professors that you will never forget in your life. This woman is absolutely incredible. She made MCDB 50 so so so so fun and interesting. She is extremely knowledgable and laidback. She gives a SHITTON of extra credit assignments like its insane lol. Just do the HWs on time and do well on exams and you'll be fiiineeee. Also, she selects amazing and very chill TAs so you'll have a very chill class. I took her class as an elective my last quarter at UCLA and it was the best decision I made in my life. Crying cuz I didn't have her teaching me biochem :((((

(If you get a chance to take her, DO IT non negotiable!!)

Also, PARTICIPATION IS IMPOrTANT. Dr. Austin has a different way of teaching which I love. She turns the class into a big discussion so you get to hear many viewpoints. Please participate a lot. Y'all love to talk a lot so this is your chance to have a great conversation with a great audience :)

This class was great. Workload is very manageable. Professor uploads notes for weekly content covered which was incredibly useful and helped narrow down what you were supposed to focus on in class so you dont need to take notes during lecture and can just listen. TA discussions were incredibly helpful and reinforced content gone over in class weekly and highlighted what you should know for quiz and exams. Highly recommend showing up for discussion before quiz's and exams as they really prepare you for them. If you arent related to anything bio related this class is very light on the bio topics and doesn't require any background knowledge on topics and helps introduce you to a ton of new content that is pretty interesting. Class is basically half Bio and Half ethics and everything is interesting enough to remember. If you need to take a GE and dont want to be bored to death take this class. Extreme amount of extra credit and the professor genuinely wants you to succeed and get an A in the class with grading being readjusted in weight to better benefit students. Professor also adjusts course to do what students are interested in she included multiple lectures on new content because people had stated that they wanted to learn about x topic. Highly recommend taking this course you wont regret it. Teaching team for this class want you to succeed and get an A which i cant state is the goal for every class.

I took MCDB 138 with Professor Austin and it was honestly my favorite class at UCLA. Not only did Professor Austin do a fantastic job covering developmental bio, she also cared deeply about her students. One time I asked a few questions during class about the lecture content and Professor Austin reached out to me after class offering additional help with the course material.
As for grading, I thought it was very fair since we were provided extra credit and our lowest graded midterm was dropped. Professor Austin also gave us the opportunity to give a short presentation to the class and allowed us to be very creative with it. She also made it easy to study for the class since she posted weekly notes with all the content we needed to know for the midterms and the final.
I recommend attending Professor Austin's office hours because she's incredibly helpful at explaining and clarifying anything from her lectures. Attending discussion was also really helpful because my TA made sure we were prepared for all assignments and exams. During week 10 the class TAs also hosted a Jeopardy game during discussion to help us review for the final exam.
The class was very interesting and fair in terms of grading. I highly recommend taking Professor Austin’s class if you have the chance.

I'll Split this review into two parts:

The class: Personally, I found the class content very boring. I didn't have any other options for GE's to take, and I wished I had another option. The class was very boring, and the wording on the exams was so weird. However, she offered a lot of extra credit throughout the quarter. I definitely recommend going to the discussions because the TAs were really helpful (shoutout to my TA Justin S, he was the goat). If you're a person who likes to skip classes and stuff, you can skip some of the lectures, but you need at least 40% attendance for full points. The discussions on the other hand, were super helpful. There was a presentation, and they made some grading changes to make it easier to get a higher grade, which I was grateful for. The workload was very low however doing every extra credit (which i highly recommend) can take up some time, so if you don't care about the content and want a low workload GE, you should take this class.

The Professor: This professor had to be one of the most disorganized professors I had so far. Her lectures were very scattered, and it was hard to know what was important, what was due, and where to find things on the canvas. Her links never seemed to work, and she often very confused with her directions. I don't know how she had a 5.0 before I rated her, but she was very disorganized. She was so confusing with her wording on her exams, and the questions were not well thought out (you'll see what I mean when you take the fill in the blanks for the final). So, take this class only if you are passionate about the topic because it was a pretty boring class. It should be easy for most people though.

Dr. Austin's class was great because it exposed me to biomedical research concepts and techniques I was unfamiliar with. Don't get overly stressed on the quizzes and worksheets, the largest and most important component of this class is a research proposal that you write up and present. Working on your proposal as early as possible is important to having success in this class, especially if you have little experience with presenting or watching others present their research.

As a graduating math student, I really wish I had taken this course earlier. The course is made up of half biology and half ethics, which is not an easy task for a student who's not a bio-relative major. However, Professor Austin dropped the lowest midterm, giving students many opportunities to get extra credits. Therefore, as long as we actively complete the assignments on Canvas, we can get a good grade (please remember to check the "To-do" list on Canvas after every lecture, I almost missed an assignment deadline once).

Professor Austin and TA are nice and willing to spend lots of time answering each student's questions after each class. English is not my native language, so at the beginning of the course, I was worried that it would affect my communication with the professor and TA (one math professor in this quarter had difficulty understanding my questions, although he was also a good professor). But Professor Austin and my TA Justin have shown incredible patience and seriousness in this regard, answering every question I am interested in and remembering my foreign name, which all touched me a lot.

I feel Professor Austin really cares about each student's interests and feelings about learning. Even though the class is not a small size, she held a lot of interesting interactions in class and even reviewed lectures' content through a game in the last lesson, and all the winners could get one extra credit (even though I did not understand the rules of the game and therefore did not get any points, I was still affected by the happy atmosphere of the class). In addition, in this course, everyone will have a presentation assignment, and the professor and TA will give us suggestions on our speech and even introduce some students' speech content into the subsequent lectures and encourage us to discuss them further.

One thing that needs to be mentioned is that the professor invited many biologists to share the content, which was a relatively big test for me and a little too difficult. However, they have little impact on the score. Besides, hearing the ongoing research of these scholars and their stories and suggestions, I have a brand new understanding of the research in biology and the pharmaceutical industry, which has a profound impact on my future study and career planning.

For a student with no background in biology, this course is indeed a little challenging -- especially in the first two weeks I need to adapt to many biological terms and concepts (I even thought about dropping this course in the first week). However, if you find biology interesting, it is worth taking this course! Communicating with Professor Austin and TAs is always a good idea when you encounter difficulties. Justin and Steven, our TAs in this class, are very friendly and helpful. What I feel pity most is that the professor's Office Hour conflicts with my other class schedule because discussing with her and TA about my course problems and the ongoing lab and internship is my happiest academic time this quarter.

This is my absolute favorite class at UCLA. I truly got to know Professor Austin and she is just the most caring person. She constantly updates her lectures to match current findings, puts in the effort to remember all of her students' names, reaches out to students herself through email, invites researchers and doctors to talk to us, and remembers little details I tell her about myself. I definitely want to stay in touch with her even after this class has passed.

I did put in effort to go to every office hour and review my notes after every lecture and it did pay off. I highly recommend taking this class and using every opportunity you have to get to know the TAs and professor Austin. They are all so passionate.

I really like Professor Austin, and the class. The class was fun and engaging, but there was a lot of HW and it was somewhat manageable. Overall, I really liked this class, and I would love to take any other class from her.

Professor Austin's class was incredible in its ability to provide a diverse range of subjects on stem cells, while also discussing the interesting politics that are in their background! Professor Austin herself is a great lecturer who makes sure the class is engaging by providing really interesting topics from discussing plant stem cells in skin care routines, the genetic factors that led to iPSCs, and synthetic organoids used for research. Along with the collaborative and passionate TAs, this course of MCD BIO 50 is incredible to take, and is one I would absolutely take to prospective MCDB students!