LIFESCI 7B
Genetics, Evolution, and Ecology
Description: Lecture, three hours; laboratory, 110 minutes. Enforced requisite: course 7A. Principles of Mendelian inheritance and population genetics. Introduction to principles and mechanisms of evolution by natural selection, population, behavioral, and community ecology, and biodiversity, including major taxa and their evolutionary, ecological, and physiological relationships. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Absolute garbage professor. Yet another reason why I hate most of the South Campus professors in this school. This speaks to a broader problem in general in UCLA, which is the lack of consistency in the quality of professors as well as little repercussions for having students screwed over to boost the professor's ego or due to negligence. I don't care how nice Princess Confusion is. I cannot stand her incompetency and I think should be fired
Fall 2019 - Absolute garbage professor. Yet another reason why I hate most of the South Campus professors in this school. This speaks to a broader problem in general in UCLA, which is the lack of consistency in the quality of professors as well as little repercussions for having students screwed over to boost the professor's ego or due to negligence. I don't care how nice Princess Confusion is. I cannot stand her incompetency and I think should be fired
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - This class is divided into two sections. Genetics is covered in the first couple of weeks, and I found that a little challenging because it was more statistics/problem solving. The rest of the class is evolution and ecology, which I found incredibly straightforward and pretty easy. I found this class to be easier than LS7A. I didn't read launchpad at all throughout the course, and I mostly studied for the exams by rewatching the lectures at 2x speed and I did fine. If you took AP Bio in high school, then you should be totally fine for this class. Prof Kane was an ok lecturer, she did seem interested in the later units though, and brought up examples from her own research, which was interesting.
Fall 2021 - This class is divided into two sections. Genetics is covered in the first couple of weeks, and I found that a little challenging because it was more statistics/problem solving. The rest of the class is evolution and ecology, which I found incredibly straightforward and pretty easy. I found this class to be easier than LS7A. I didn't read launchpad at all throughout the course, and I mostly studied for the exams by rewatching the lectures at 2x speed and I did fine. If you took AP Bio in high school, then you should be totally fine for this class. Prof Kane was an ok lecturer, she did seem interested in the later units though, and brought up examples from her own research, which was interesting.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Class Distribution: Midterm 1 - 120 points Midterm 2 - 120 points Final Exam - 200 points Lab Section - 135 points Clickers - 72 points Weekly Launchpad activities - 45 Weekly pre-class review questions - 45 Weekly practice exam questions - 45 Total points possible = 782 (Graded on normal, straight scale) LS7B was an okay class overall. It's very similar to LS7A, with the same type of clickers and launchpad assignments, the only real difference being the lab sections (which are honestly just longer discussion sections, with some of them being entirely useless). The professors were great and very accommodating, making sure they had extra office hours for exams and they were active on Campuswire too. However, the exams were poorly made, with many vague questions with confusing wording. The first midterm involves a lot of probabilities which can definitely be confusing, and the overall exams had a lot of "what if" type questions which were also confusing. Still, there was lots of extra credit given from simple surveys, midterm reflections, mini midterms (a 6 question "midterm" after the actual midterm), as well as a 1 question leeway on all the exams. Instructors also removed questions that they deemed to be unreasonable. There is no group stage for these exams. The best way to study for the exams in my opinion is to review clicker questions, practice exam questions, practice midterm questions, and going to office hours. Problem solving sessions can be helpful, but didn't really help me too much. Also, you are allowed to miss an entire week of class activities/homework and still get a 100%. My scores: I got a 100% in all the sections except the exams. Lab sections were pretty leniently graded by my TA. Midterm 1 - 114/120; Midterm 2 - 118/120; Final Exam - 180/200; these scores include the added points from the reflection and mini midterm. Dr. Kremer himself was an amazing professor who takes his time to answer everyone's questions and genuinely cares about his students, integrating small videos and extra tidbits of interesting info in his lectures, but the monotonous nature, the labs often being busy work, and poorly-made exams of the course diminish his teaching skills. I took the course where he was teaching with Dr. Pires, so it was divided so that Pires teaches the first half of the quarter, and Kremer the second. Not too much of a difference in the experience I got from either of them.
Winter 2022 - Class Distribution: Midterm 1 - 120 points Midterm 2 - 120 points Final Exam - 200 points Lab Section - 135 points Clickers - 72 points Weekly Launchpad activities - 45 Weekly pre-class review questions - 45 Weekly practice exam questions - 45 Total points possible = 782 (Graded on normal, straight scale) LS7B was an okay class overall. It's very similar to LS7A, with the same type of clickers and launchpad assignments, the only real difference being the lab sections (which are honestly just longer discussion sections, with some of them being entirely useless). The professors were great and very accommodating, making sure they had extra office hours for exams and they were active on Campuswire too. However, the exams were poorly made, with many vague questions with confusing wording. The first midterm involves a lot of probabilities which can definitely be confusing, and the overall exams had a lot of "what if" type questions which were also confusing. Still, there was lots of extra credit given from simple surveys, midterm reflections, mini midterms (a 6 question "midterm" after the actual midterm), as well as a 1 question leeway on all the exams. Instructors also removed questions that they deemed to be unreasonable. There is no group stage for these exams. The best way to study for the exams in my opinion is to review clicker questions, practice exam questions, practice midterm questions, and going to office hours. Problem solving sessions can be helpful, but didn't really help me too much. Also, you are allowed to miss an entire week of class activities/homework and still get a 100%. My scores: I got a 100% in all the sections except the exams. Lab sections were pretty leniently graded by my TA. Midterm 1 - 114/120; Midterm 2 - 118/120; Final Exam - 180/200; these scores include the added points from the reflection and mini midterm. Dr. Kremer himself was an amazing professor who takes his time to answer everyone's questions and genuinely cares about his students, integrating small videos and extra tidbits of interesting info in his lectures, but the monotonous nature, the labs often being busy work, and poorly-made exams of the course diminish his teaching skills. I took the course where he was teaching with Dr. Pires, so it was divided so that Pires teaches the first half of the quarter, and Kremer the second. Not too much of a difference in the experience I got from either of them.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - This review will have a little bit of information about Professor Marcot, but will mainly focus on 7B as a class. Professor Marcot was very nice and clearly knowledgeable about the material if you asked him a content-related question. He also encouraged students to discuss with each other and ask questions. However, this caused our class to go a little slow, and we were always behind on material. If you asked him a course logistic-related question such as whether certain material would be on an exam, he didn't know because this class is entirely controlled and designed by Debra Pires. The clicker questions are so ambiguous that the professor occasionally crosses out all of the options and writes "It depends" as the answer. This translates to ambiguous exam questions too, to the point where my TA said during an exam, "We're getting lots of questions about how to interpret the problems, but we can't help you with that." The first midterm was nearly impossible to finish on time because you have to draw multiple detailed pedigrees from scratch and answer questions about them, but the second midterm was slightly better. The lab sections are designated to be nearly two hours long, but somehow the labs themselves are designed so that you have to work extremely quick if you have any hope of finishing them (they average around 6 pages worth of questions). The labs are also mostly unrelated to material that will be on the exams. For example, there was a lab where we had to go to 15 stations to learn about coelacanths, cephalopods, vertebrates, etc. and another lab where we had to go to different stations in the Botanical Garden on our own time. None of the professors answered questions on the online Campuswire forum, so it was just students trying to help other students. My best advice for this class is to get most, if not all, of the free points for participation, Launchpad pre-class review questions, Launchpad practice exam questions, etc., and go to your TA's office hours if you have questions. I would HIGHLY recommend going to the CLC problem solving sessions because this is where the LA's teach the material that the professors do not teach during the lecture but will nevertheless be on the exams. To study for exams, I would recommend focusing on the clicker questions, practice exam questions, the practice midterm questions that Professor Pires will email you, and the CLC worksheets. Don't worry too much about which professor you take for this class, because it's going to be very challenging (but doable if you work hard enough) no matter what.
Winter 2020 - This review will have a little bit of information about Professor Marcot, but will mainly focus on 7B as a class. Professor Marcot was very nice and clearly knowledgeable about the material if you asked him a content-related question. He also encouraged students to discuss with each other and ask questions. However, this caused our class to go a little slow, and we were always behind on material. If you asked him a course logistic-related question such as whether certain material would be on an exam, he didn't know because this class is entirely controlled and designed by Debra Pires. The clicker questions are so ambiguous that the professor occasionally crosses out all of the options and writes "It depends" as the answer. This translates to ambiguous exam questions too, to the point where my TA said during an exam, "We're getting lots of questions about how to interpret the problems, but we can't help you with that." The first midterm was nearly impossible to finish on time because you have to draw multiple detailed pedigrees from scratch and answer questions about them, but the second midterm was slightly better. The lab sections are designated to be nearly two hours long, but somehow the labs themselves are designed so that you have to work extremely quick if you have any hope of finishing them (they average around 6 pages worth of questions). The labs are also mostly unrelated to material that will be on the exams. For example, there was a lab where we had to go to 15 stations to learn about coelacanths, cephalopods, vertebrates, etc. and another lab where we had to go to different stations in the Botanical Garden on our own time. None of the professors answered questions on the online Campuswire forum, so it was just students trying to help other students. My best advice for this class is to get most, if not all, of the free points for participation, Launchpad pre-class review questions, Launchpad practice exam questions, etc., and go to your TA's office hours if you have questions. I would HIGHLY recommend going to the CLC problem solving sessions because this is where the LA's teach the material that the professors do not teach during the lecture but will nevertheless be on the exams. To study for exams, I would recommend focusing on the clicker questions, practice exam questions, the practice midterm questions that Professor Pires will email you, and the CLC worksheets. Don't worry too much about which professor you take for this class, because it's going to be very challenging (but doable if you work hard enough) no matter what.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Pham is an extremely nice guy and knowledgeable. Very accommodating and always answers people's questions. However, classes were sometimes a bit slow or he stops to answer too many people's questions. We fell behind and had to watch extra recorded lectures. General course comments: Lab worksheets are boring, long, and don't really help that much. Exams were hard to understand, wording is so vague sometimes. Launchpad's aren't very useful in terms of exams and spending extra time on them is a waste of time.
Winter 2022 - Pham is an extremely nice guy and knowledgeable. Very accommodating and always answers people's questions. However, classes were sometimes a bit slow or he stops to answer too many people's questions. We fell behind and had to watch extra recorded lectures. General course comments: Lab worksheets are boring, long, and don't really help that much. Exams were hard to understand, wording is so vague sometimes. Launchpad's aren't very useful in terms of exams and spending extra time on them is a waste of time.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - ***I took this class during the COVID-19 pandemic in an online format. -- OVERVIEW: Maybe I had an individual bad experience, but I'm not sure why this professor's reviews for this class were so raving. Perhaps the online format is a little different, but I did not feel like Phelan lived up to the other reviews. "Going above and beyond" and "explaining concepts thoroughly" are phrases I would not attribute to Phelan. He seemed very reluctant to answer questions and help out, ignoring questions in Zoom chat and being unresponsive to emails. Lectures would often go on tangents about his personal life, which isn't productive when LS7B is so information dense and every minute is valuable. Dr. Pham was much better in LS7A, at least. Even considering that the LS series is just horrible, I still think Phelan wasn't the best choice. -- GRADING: Grading is pretty straightforward. There's mandatory lectures, enforced with clicker questions, of which you can miss about a week. LaunchPad practice questions and exams were the same, you could miss a week's worth and get full credit. Same goes for the labs. The two midterms and final were worth a lot more points, not curved, but there were extra credit opportunities if you did a "mini-final" and reflection assignment afterwards. Other EC opportunities were available for completing surveys about LAs. The class isn't curved, so you need to earn every point yourself. -- HOMEWORK: This section isn't really relevant to Dr. Phelan. I don't think he really controls the format of the homework and labs. But my god, if you thought LS7A was bad, LS7B makes 7A look like a cakewalk. The amount of LaunchPad material is crushing, even if you just skip the material and do the questions. I can't imagine how much time it would take to actually do all the material as they intended. Lots of stuff isn't gone over in lectures because of the sheer material density, and the practice exams make it feel like there's a full on test every week. Again, Phelan doesn't control this, so it's not his fault the homework is so bad. Labs aren't much better, they're very time consuming and I didn't find them very helpful, though that may vary with students. They seemed very poorly designed, like the entire LS7 series. Not much to say other than you just have to sit through them. -- EXAMS: Most in this section also isn't really Phelan's fault. LS7 exams are just horrible, and it doesn't get better in 7A. The actual length of the exams isn't bad, but the questions are consistently confusing, poorly-worded, ambiguous, or just straight-up wrong. No amount of studying will prepare you for a question you have no idea what it's asking. The main gripe I have with Phelan is that he seemed to be just as unaware as students of how to go about regrade requests. His policy is that regrades are not processed unless it affects our final grade, which puts the stress on students trying to determine if we will get the grade we need, when it was a mistake made on the instructor's part. Trying to reach out to him via email or during class won't result in anything, and the only saving grace is that tests are graded really fast because they are online and multiple choice. Just don't expect your grading to actually be right. -- TIPS: This class is the definition of grind. There's so much you're expected to do yourself, and while the LaunchPad makes it difficult to fall behind, they're also not comprehensive enough to truly prepare yourself. This class is 5 units, but it's probably about 6-7 units worth of work. It's much harder than 7A in my opinion, but this varies between students so take it with a grain of salt. I have quite a negative review here, but it seems that many other students had good experiences, and I'm just one view. To be honest, the class time is probably the most important factor for LS, since professor matters less for such a standardized series.
Spring 2021 - ***I took this class during the COVID-19 pandemic in an online format. -- OVERVIEW: Maybe I had an individual bad experience, but I'm not sure why this professor's reviews for this class were so raving. Perhaps the online format is a little different, but I did not feel like Phelan lived up to the other reviews. "Going above and beyond" and "explaining concepts thoroughly" are phrases I would not attribute to Phelan. He seemed very reluctant to answer questions and help out, ignoring questions in Zoom chat and being unresponsive to emails. Lectures would often go on tangents about his personal life, which isn't productive when LS7B is so information dense and every minute is valuable. Dr. Pham was much better in LS7A, at least. Even considering that the LS series is just horrible, I still think Phelan wasn't the best choice. -- GRADING: Grading is pretty straightforward. There's mandatory lectures, enforced with clicker questions, of which you can miss about a week. LaunchPad practice questions and exams were the same, you could miss a week's worth and get full credit. Same goes for the labs. The two midterms and final were worth a lot more points, not curved, but there were extra credit opportunities if you did a "mini-final" and reflection assignment afterwards. Other EC opportunities were available for completing surveys about LAs. The class isn't curved, so you need to earn every point yourself. -- HOMEWORK: This section isn't really relevant to Dr. Phelan. I don't think he really controls the format of the homework and labs. But my god, if you thought LS7A was bad, LS7B makes 7A look like a cakewalk. The amount of LaunchPad material is crushing, even if you just skip the material and do the questions. I can't imagine how much time it would take to actually do all the material as they intended. Lots of stuff isn't gone over in lectures because of the sheer material density, and the practice exams make it feel like there's a full on test every week. Again, Phelan doesn't control this, so it's not his fault the homework is so bad. Labs aren't much better, they're very time consuming and I didn't find them very helpful, though that may vary with students. They seemed very poorly designed, like the entire LS7 series. Not much to say other than you just have to sit through them. -- EXAMS: Most in this section also isn't really Phelan's fault. LS7 exams are just horrible, and it doesn't get better in 7A. The actual length of the exams isn't bad, but the questions are consistently confusing, poorly-worded, ambiguous, or just straight-up wrong. No amount of studying will prepare you for a question you have no idea what it's asking. The main gripe I have with Phelan is that he seemed to be just as unaware as students of how to go about regrade requests. His policy is that regrades are not processed unless it affects our final grade, which puts the stress on students trying to determine if we will get the grade we need, when it was a mistake made on the instructor's part. Trying to reach out to him via email or during class won't result in anything, and the only saving grace is that tests are graded really fast because they are online and multiple choice. Just don't expect your grading to actually be right. -- TIPS: This class is the definition of grind. There's so much you're expected to do yourself, and while the LaunchPad makes it difficult to fall behind, they're also not comprehensive enough to truly prepare yourself. This class is 5 units, but it's probably about 6-7 units worth of work. It's much harder than 7A in my opinion, but this varies between students so take it with a grain of salt. I have quite a negative review here, but it seems that many other students had good experiences, and I'm just one view. To be honest, the class time is probably the most important factor for LS, since professor matters less for such a standardized series.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - Professor Pinter-Wollman is a good lecturer when she knows what she's talking about. I had her and Professor Kane for 7B, and sometimes Professor Kane would have to step in and clarify a mistake during Professor Pinter-Wollman's lectures. That being said, Professor Pinter-Wollman is extremely knowledgeable in evolution and some other topics, and you'll definitely learn a lot from her. But it can get concerning at times when she seems a little unprepared for her lectures
Winter 2018 - Professor Pinter-Wollman is a good lecturer when she knows what she's talking about. I had her and Professor Kane for 7B, and sometimes Professor Kane would have to step in and clarify a mistake during Professor Pinter-Wollman's lectures. That being said, Professor Pinter-Wollman is extremely knowledgeable in evolution and some other topics, and you'll definitely learn a lot from her. But it can get concerning at times when she seems a little unprepared for her lectures
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