Even though I got a B for this class Aly is an exceptional professor and truly cares about whether or not his students are actually learning anything. Even during the COVID pandemic, he is extremely interactive and engaged with the students. He posts all his in-class "clicker questions" on his site as well as the in-class lecture slides. His office hours were flexible, to an extent, and even though the LaunchPad txtbook is a bit high you can keep it for the courses that follow so overall you save money with the one time purchase.

This was my first class at UCLA, and having Aly as my instructor was great! He is an amazing professor, and he really cares about ensuring that his students understand the material. All of his lectures are super interactive and engaging (even through zoom)!
The LS7A tests are quite difficult to make sense of at times, but Aly provides students with numerous resources that help develop a better understanding of the topics (office hours, weekly problem solving sessions, campuswire, clicker questions, exam viewings). The class requires a lot of self studying, but Aly is super easy to approach and speak with if questions do arise.
Overall, this class is a good introduction to what the Life Science classes entail, and it helps develop effective study skills for future science courses. I'm super happy to have gotten the opportunity to take this class with Aly, and I hope to have him as a professor again!

The LS 7 series as a whole was not too difficult, but 7C was definitely the hardest. There is far more information than the other two classes, and the concepts are less intuitive. However, the tests are still doable. My only gripes with the class were that the discussions were graded off of correctness, which made them an overall more stressful experience during a time where we should be practicing with the material. Also, Aly would rush through important material at times. Overall, if you're taking 7C, you know by now that to get A's, you basically need to teach yourself. This class is no different. Learning objectives and CLC sessions are a must!

I took this class through CSI over the summer of 2021. As someone who had taken AP Bio, I thought that having that foundation and familiarity with the concepts made this class significantly easier, but don't expect the exact same material. A lot of the AP Bio and LS7A Curriculum is different, so don't be surprised if you find yourself having to learn new concepts even though you never even touched on it in high school. Honestly though, you can succeed in this class even if you never took Biology in high school; there is a good amount of extra credit (up to 10 points per midterm which was like 11% back on the first midterm + 2 points for filling out a course eval survey) and Aly makes sure to go over the material and clicker questions in class thoroughly. Also, he is always happy to answer your questions in the chat or through DM on zoom during lecture and he would never belittle you or make you feel stupid for asking questions like some teachers do.

In terms of course structure, the class was pretty dense but I think in a normal 10 week quarter it probably isn't so bad. Most of our reading and reading quizzes are done through launchpad and iClicker is used in class for clicker questions. Also, the worksheets done in Discussion are really helpful and definitely solidify the concepts (plus a lot of the diagrams in lecture and discussions are often reused in practice exam questions or real exam questions so it is definitely worth it to stay engaged in both lecture and discussion). Overall, I thought the course was manageable and would recommend Aly to other students.