This was my absolute favorite class I have taken at UCLA. I liked it so much I added Evolutionary Medicine as my minor. She is a very engaging lecturer. Her lectures are actually intriguing to watch and she is a very funny person. All of the information we learned was incredibly interesting. The "textbook" was two of her own books, which were pretty cheap on Amazon. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these books. In fact, my mom and friends started reading the books as well, even though they weren't taking the class. Overall, I highly recommend this class, especially with this teacher.

I took this class online, so things may be different in the future. Overall, I thought it was a great class! Dr. Horowitz is a great speaker and a really cool person in general. Lectures are very "TED Talk"-y in that the subject matter is really cool but is presented quickly, if that makes sense. However, at least when I took the class, small details from lecture weren't super important for homework+exams, which were primarily research-based. Pay attention to how she explains and approaches in-class examples. Scientific writing, experimental design, and library/internet research were important skills as well.

When I took the class, we were expected to participate in discussion (just by talking out loud/in chat, no quotas so this was easy) and lecture. Lecture participation came in the form of questions prompted by Dr. Horowitz at random intervals throughout class based on the reading. The required texts are easy+interesting reads, but it was hard to recall the details needed for the questions without taking extensive notes. We also had 90 seconds to type our answers and PM them to our TAs via Zoom, which was kind of anxiety inducing, but my TA didn't grade them harshly and I got used to them as the quarter went on. There were also lots of extra credit opportunities to make up for any lost participation points.

Homework typically required substantial time+effort to research, but they prepared me well for exams. We had one assignment every week, but sometimes the more difficult research assignments were replaced by lighter fun ones.

I highly recommend this class! I learned a lot and had fun doing it, even during an online quarter. The teaching team is amazing and wants to see everyone succeed. Shout out to the TAs!

Took this class during quarantine, so should start off by saying Professor Natterson was not as acclimated to zoom classes/online formatting. Because of this (and because of other copyright reasons), lectures are NOT podcasted, and slides are NOT posted. Other drawbacks in this course is that depending on your TA, grades may take weeks to post (I didn't get a grade for any assignment/participation until Week 6). Professor Natterson has a tendency to change what she is talking about very quickly, and this can lead to a bit of confusion; the concepts discussed in this class are also very novel and at times a bit abstract.
Negatives aside, this was by far the best class I've taken at UCLA. I would take her class again and would recommend it to anybody who wants to actually learn applicable skills. This class made me understand how to write research papers, how to (actually) develop scientific writing, and at the end of the day the topics covered were pretty damn interesting. That being said, do NOT take this class if you are looking for a hard science upper division - there is absolutely no need to memorize anything science-y in this class, as it's primarily a writing/research class imo.

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Dr. Natterson is definitely one of my favorite professors I've had so far at UCLA. She is such an accomplished person, and you can really tell she puts thought and time into teaching. However she is a busy person, so she doesn't waste much time at all. She speaks very quickly and changes slides fast (doesn't post the slides either!!) so you really have to be prepared to either a) type everything she says word-for-word the whole lecture, or b) record the lecture bc it's not bruincasted. This class doesn't have homework besides one big group project, and there are quizzes at the beginning of each discussion. Pay attention to her lectures and read her book, and you'll definitely do well on her quizzes. Overall, I learned a lot and the material is super interesting! Highly recommend taking this class with Dr. Natterson.

A great class! Highly recommended!