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This is literally the worst class you will ever take at UCLA. I took it with Lipman and Gorlitsky and I thought Gorlitsky was bad until I had Lipman. Both the midterm and the final were insanely difficult for no reason at all and discussion section questions were graded very difficultly. Both are dry lecturers with nearly no personality and little regard for the welfare of their students. Moreover, Lipman frequently incorporated her own political opinions into lecture in order to brainwash her students. Please save yourself before its too late.

I am currently taking EEB100 right now with Alison Lipman and Gregory Grether, and I'm not going to lie, I was scared to take this class when I saw the Bruinwalk reviews. But, after the midterm and quizzes from her half of the class (which was on topics that only *she* covered), I think she has improved her teaching style and tests since the last Bruinwalk reviews. She was very clear during lectures, and the answers for the weekly quizzes we take are explained almost word-for-word in her lectures. I got a 100% in almost every quiz just by pressing "ctrl+f" through the lecture transcripts. But beware, you should at least still watch the lecture to actually comprehend the quiz questions thoroughly.

I got a 90% on the midterm with minimal studying, although I know other students had their grievances with the number of calculations on the exam. The class average was 87%, so I think the majority of students did very well. I'm glad to see that she realized she needed to change something about her class and actually listened to students- she also made her exams open-note once students voiced their opinion. Also, with consideration that not everyone could attend/afford an off-campus extra credit assignment for 10 points, they later offered a couple of on-campus options for EC.

In conclusion, I was very satisfied with the ecology section of this class. I will write another review for Gregory Grether's section on animal behavior on his Bruinwalk, but Alison gets 5 stars from me!

The final was unnecessarily difficult. I could not believe I was tested on the concepts she chose as they were explained very briefly during lecture. I almost shed a tear. I felt as though I had a good grasp on concepts but apparently that did not matter because we were tested on ~15% of the information on the final.

I took this class with both Dr Lipman and Dr Gorlitsky. Dr Gorlitsky taught the first 5 weeks on Animal Behaviour, whereas Dr Lipman taught the latter 5 weeks on ecology. With that being said, Dr Lipman's portion was not only more engaging, but her exam was also markedly easier. Overall, I enjoyed both professors and the class. The textbooks were also helpful for further clarification on subject material.

Where do I start? This class is ridiculously annoying. While the material is easy to comprehend, the professors methods of testing are very unclear, specific, and out right frustrating. I feel I was constantly having to mind read what the professor and TAs were expecting in terms of answers to the very specific questions. Don't let the free response format fool you! The professor delivers the necessary information, but it is difficult to gauge the simplicity/difficulty of each test question. Lastly, the TAs, at least my TA was useless!! She always looked at me awkwardly and with confusion. I felt perpetually screwed in this class because even after seeking for help, I didn't know what to expect

I'm only writing this review because the GroupMe for this class seems to be going crazy. Professor Lipman is an exceptional teacher. She stays up to date with effective teaching methods and successfully employs them in class. She taught the second half, i.e. the ecology portion, of the EEB100 class. She truly believes in the importance of her work and its real-world applications. To that end, she often mentions how we as students can get involved in conservation efforts which is incredible. She is incredibly engaging. I have to admit I would tune into live lectures and just watch TikTok for the hour and 15 minutes but I would still end up having learnt something every single time. For the final, I just skimmed her slides and rewatched the recorded lectures at 2x speed for any confusing concepts like the diversity indices and life history tables. I never bothered reading the textbook. She covered everything in plenty of depth in her lectures even for someone who wasn't even really listening. She encourages class participation to work on problems together. She does assign a lot of weekly articles and documentaries. I didn't read or watch any of them but answered the relevant questions on the final with nothing more than common sense. The final was incredibly fair and I truly believe I would have gotten an A without any review. The answers to the questions from the discussion articles could basically be found in the abstracts of each paper. The GroupMe however seemed to think that the exam was impossibly hard and unfair. They misinterpreted her lecture slides and tried confronting Professor Lipman. I was curious so I went back to the lecture recording to the relevant sections and I really don't see how they managed to confuse themselves. The average for the final was still in the 80s so I have no idea what they were tripping on but there was some beef there. I only wrote this review because it seems like there's a small but vocal group with an agenda against her and I wanted to present the other side to this story.

There was a lot more reading, writing, and talking in this class than I expected. Lectures are quite enjoyable and engaging, and the content is definitely interesting. Discussion sections are almost two hours long, which can be pretty excruciating. Participation also matters, and you are expected to speak in sections at least twice to get full credit. You are given a lot of time for exams but they are really long and took me forever to finish. Grading seemed pretty fair to me, but I think it depends on your TA. Overall, do not think this is a super easy class because quite a bit of effort is required. That being said, you will learn a lot and Lipman is a nice professor.

I really did enjoy this class, because of how passionate Professor Lipman, the TAs, and other students are about the subject! Most students who are taking this class actually are interested and care about the subject, so class discussions are very engaging. Professor Lipman tries to make these lectures engaging by using polls, annotate activities, and breakout rooms. There is a lot of reading for this class, that isn't necessary to understand lectures, but is super helpful for exams. My quarter she structured it with a midterm, final, weekly quizzes, and discussion grades (discussion grades comprised of participation, a group presentation on a reading, and a group presentation on conservation organizations). Discussion readings were pretty interesting, and the contents often come up on the weekly quizzes. The exams were hard because of time constraints and page length constraints. Both the exams were all short answer, but multiple parts of each question. The difficulty was that we were given a limited amount of space, but asked to answer many questions with a wide breadth and depth. She pushes for group writing for the final, but you had the option to take it alone, which I did and did just fine.

Overall the class was very easy and eye opening. She has a lot of cool personal stories that relate to the concepts and it kinda just makes the class more enjoyable, feels kinda like a conversation. A bog majority of homework and lecture are just watching youtube video(I am not complaining). The labs and lab reports are easy for the most part but they are time consuming; luckily I had a good group and everyone worked. Tests are kinda weird but if you pay attention in class and understanding the basic concepts, you'll get an A or B on them. Overall, this class really showed me how much an average human affects the earth in a very easy way. I would take one of her classes again. P.S. I was 3 points away from an A but I didnt do the extra credit(5 points) so i kinda screwed myself over.