This class is one of the best I have taken thus far at UCLA because of Professor Schopf. In an academic setting where rigor is often the status quo, Schopf really takes the time to make his class accessible and open. He gives out the textbook, which he wrote, for free. He tells funny jokes and offers nearly ten office hours a week. Taking this class was always a breath of fresh air and an added dose of positivity to my day.

Throughout the class myself and a friend wrote down some of the funny things that Schopf says, so if you take his class you can hear some of these gems firsthand:

--Schopf: If you are Chinese I say Ni-How! (Student he was Speaking to): I’m Korean. Schopf: Then I say hi in Korean!
--I'm gonna make a t-shirt, I really really am! Then I am gonna sell it on Youtube! I’ve never watched Youtube in my life.
--Bobo Head
--(YOU CAN DO IT)x 4 Belieeeeeeve in yourself!
--Soviet Hoopster! Chinese Hoopster?
--Oh My Golly Gosh
--SYAD, That's Russian for sit down, because you are rushing to sit in your seat.
--If you pass by a car with a headlight out, that means you can kiss your girlfriend!
--Bologna!
--Just like you it has a low index of crunchability; I made that up to sound scientific
--A big brouhaha
--My hole is bigger than your hole! (talking about ripped jeans)
--Everyone thinks they look stylish when they look like a Hobo!!
--When the daffodils are daffing. They know about daffing
--Not a spelling bee but a buzzing bee.
--China has gone gangbusters
--I’m not even friends with no beetles
--Here. Is. Clam.
--MY SPECIMEN IS BETTER THAN THE ONE IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL HISTORY MUSEUM.
THE OTHER ONES HAVE BROKEN TEETH BUT MINE IS PRISTINE!!
--Next time you are at a dorm party, walk up to someone and call them a coelomate
deuterostome
--At this point when I’m by myself I swear and that seems to help Student: Feel free. Schopf: I
can’t, I would teach you new words.
--Hey mom put the stuffing in the coelom (Talking about stuffing Turkeys)
--They get attracted to the wiggleferousness
--I don’t know about Jeff, he probably likes the taste of earthworms
--Friendly fish? I like friendly fish
--Stay away from me bobo!
--Nice Doggy. Thank you very much. Do you want to date? (Talking about men who walk their
dogs)

Honestly, this class ended up being a lot harder than I expected. I was taking this class as a GE and I'm a biz econ major and I'm not very good at science, so I struggled a lot. I enjoyed his lectures and the labs were easy, just show up and your TA will help you with all of the questions. The tests were a lot harder than I was anticipating, if you have a background in biology and the basics of life you will probably do much better.

This class is a mix of biology, history, and geology. If you are interested in the history of evolution, geoformations, and life, this is the class for you. Professor Schopf is a great lecturer and his stories are very engaging.
In terms of coursework, the class has a total of 7 lab reports, 1 lab midterm, 1 lab final, 1 lecture midterm, and 1 lecture final. Weekly lab reports aren't always straight forward but shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to complete. All exams are multiple choice based on stuff covered during lecture and lab. If you pay attention in lecture and take good notes, getting a B shouldn't be too hard. When I took this class, Bs on exams got curved to As. Don't know if you'll get the same curve tho...

Taken online with pre-recorded lectures over Summer 2020. All labs and lectures were made available from Week 1, and this flexibility made the coursework very manageable.

Like other reviews have said, the midterms and finals (split into lecture/lab) had quite a few "trivia" questions. Nothing super obscure, but I needed to review the lectures/readings to do well (just looking at the course notes wasn't enough). Also, read through the lab manual! There's some info not mentioned anywhere else for the exams. If you just want to pass, a basic background in biology and reading the course notes is more than enough.
A lot of the material between the lectures, readings, and labs is repeated, so you really don't need to watch and read everything. This was nice because you can choose what to do based on how you learn best.

All of Schopf's lectures are pre-recorded. I was worried that this would mean that they would not be as entertaining as reviews for his in-person classes suggested, but this wasn't the case at all. Sometimes he could go on a 20+ minute tangential story! While I enjoyed these tangents, I think some people might not. In the syllabus, there are abridged notes for each lecture, and all of the slides were on CCLE to download. I found when I wanted to review or didn't have the time to listen to a lecture, this was a good alternative.

Labs were essentially weekly homework assignments. You can easily finish most of them without the lab lecture. Going through the slides/lab manual gave me 90% of the answers.
Lab sections were live but not mandatory. My TA was helpful for clarifying some of the questions on the lab worksheets, but it wasn't super necessary to attend.

Professor Schopf genuinely cares for his students and he makes it very clear. I've sat through many sweet speeches of how he's determined to be there for us and our problems inside and outside of his class. He's also a legend in the realm of Precambrian fossils, but he's very nonchalant about it which I loved. The class itself is pretty laid back, and lecture exams are multiple-choice. My only complaint is that this class has an additional midterm and exam belonging to the lab, leading to a total of 4 exams for what is an "easy GE" for the majority of the class. Because the lecture exams are multiple-choice, your lab exams (and ultimately the quality of your TA) will either make or break your grade.

TAKE THIS CLASS!!! For Shopf ONLY! The professor is the most charming and wholesome old guy ever, and has the absolutely craziest stories. He will talk to you about rocks during lectures but also how the KBG chased him in Russia. He is so connecting with his students and kind, and really makes an effort to get to know you if you put yourself out there! Told me I looked like a movie star one time early in the morning, genuinely the sweetest guy. I will say the information is a bit dense and boring, unless you love rocks, and not quite what I thought it would be, but shopf makes up for it. The information is so heavy, and after the final I thought I was going to get a C in the class at the end, but he did a very generous curve that took me to an A-, and that wasn't specified in the class or on the syllabus. Definitely go to lectures to learn the information and to interact with the prof, and read the book! Requires effort but you will be so glad you invested it and chose to take this course.

Professor Schopf is a really engaging lecturer. However, he is really off topic and sometimes it is very hard to understand what the main point of his lecturers are. He offers lots of office hours though. The midterms and finals were VERY hard, but he did end up curving the overall grade of the class so it ended up being okay. The subject material itself is pretty boring. Definitely not an easy science GE.

This class was definitely not bad at all but I would not consider it to be a guaranteed A. However, the workload was really light as all we had were the labs and the exams. The labs were definitely easy and could be done in easily one hour, if not less. The midterm and final exams were each divided into a lab exam and lecture exam. The hardest part of the class was how extremely specific some of the exam questions are. He curves the exam though, so I believe as long as you study all the material then you should be good. Also, the textbook was not necessary in my opinion as only the lectures and notes were enough to help me study.
Overall, the class wasn't so bad even though the 1st half of the quarter was online and 2nd half switched back to in-person learning. This was not too much of a problem since he still uploaded the asynchronous lectures for us so attending in-person lectures was not necessary. However, I do not know if he will continue to upload these recorded lectures in the future.

This professor was the BOMB. If you're looking for a class to fill your science GE I would definitely recommend this one. The professor gives really interesting lectures and I felt like I really learned something of value after each one. Each week there are these lab assignments but they are not too difficult and the TAs are pretty helpful. Only thing I didn't like was how much of the final grade is determined by the final, the final is 58% of your grade and the midterm is 30 or 35% and they are both pretty detailed. This class has 2-3 hours of lecture each week plus lab, but lab attendance was optional, so it wasn't too extreme.

[Online Format] Professor Schopf is endearing ("Oh golly gosh!") and has a lot of fun stories from working around the globe. There isn't much work at all, except perhaps an hour of homework each week that we completed during the optional discussion section at our own pace. The exams (midterms+final) are really hard, with most students getting around a C or lower due to a lot of really specific and tricky questions. However, he curves everything generously at the end, which helps offset the difficulty of the exams. Overall the class isn't too bad if you need to knock out a GE but it's pretty tough as far as GEs go in my experience. Personally I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend the class but it's not a terrible one to take either. If you're particularly interested in studying Precambrian life then it seems that Professor Schopf is one of the foremost experts in the field and is always willing to chat with students after class.