The former post has wrong phone number.
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Useful class.
Selling my course reader, workbook and i-profile with good price. (Free course notes, review materials, and ideas about how to prepare for the examinations) If u r interested, please msg me at 424-291-1002 :)

I recommend you guys to take the class not only for a GE but also for your life. I learn a lot about diet and exercise and some of my misunderstandings of nutrition and health were broken up.

About the Class
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1. Attendance. there are sign-in sheets for each lecture. What is important for your success in the class is, Dr. Esdin will sometimes release one question that will be shown on midterm/final. There are four labs that need your participation. Each of them helps you to measure how your body functions. Very interesting.

2. Required materials. 1 course reader, 1 workbook, 1 i-profile. I recommend you buy second-hand since if you buy these things in the bookstore, it will charge you more than $100.The edition of course reader doesn't matter from my perspective. But you need to buy the workbook. I-profile is an online software on which you record you daily diet and exercise(Which is needed for the assignment).

3. Prepare for the exams. That's a tricky part. One of my friend even said: "To prepare for the class, just write down every thing he said...“ To some extend, that's true. The exams can ask really detailed questions. It seems like every sentence in the course reader can show on your exams. I didn't do well in my midterm but before finals, I fortunately got the idea about how to prepare for the exams. ①Attend the lecture. Dr.Esdin will emphasize the important things. ② attend the review session, go back to the pages that include the important things that he mentions. ③do not miss the free questions that he gives during lectures.

4. Dr. Esdin has accent but he is easy to comprehend. The class doesn't have bruin cast or slides.

Highly recommend:)

Interesting lectures, points for attendance (even in discussion). Read the course reader according to schedule and work on the workbook related to the chapter, don't fuck up like I did. Not reading the course reader thoroughly messed up my exam scores. And an iProfile project- easy- just time consuming, DON'T put it off to the last minute. TA does a fantastic job on explaining the project, with lots of guides. Lastly, a few easy peasy quizzes.
Overall: loved it, love Esdin, wish I approached this class with the above advice.

Great GE, even for international students. I walked away with some real useful knowledge.

Prof. Esdin makes the class accessible and easy to understand; the TA, Asif, is also awesome when it comes to test prep. Definitely attend ALL review sessions if you want good grades with shorter review time.

Also selling:
the NEWEST edition (2015 Fall) of coursereader- great condition with no marks on it
iprofile account (which expires on September 2016 so you can resell it after you finish the class)

Message me at 424-325-8624

Selling the course reader/articles for $25 that you will have to read for quizzes! text me at 909 438 0213 if interested

Selling the Science of Biology 10th edition. Loos leaf edition in a binder. Perfect condition no writing or wear. $75. Contact me if interested cmelero28@gmail.com or text me at 562-340-3435

Dr. Esdin is an absolute sweetheart. Hands down, the BEST professor I have had thus far at UCLA. He cares so much about his students and puts in a lot of effort to make lectures entertaining and captivating. Yes, his tests are hard as hell but if you study a lot, and study consistently, you'll do just fine. I took LS2 over the summer so it was incredibly fast paced but Dr. Esdin was extremely gracious in cutting down the workload a little towards the end to make it more bearable.

We also had Dr. Roberts for a week but I wasn't a fan of his teaching style. He talks really fast and it's hard to pick out what to focus on because he has 60 slides per lecture and spends time talking about all of them.

Overall, LS2 was an amazing course with Dr. Esdin, as everyone says. The material is excellent and so is the professor teaching it. I would highly recommend you wait to take this class with Esdin if you can't get in, because the wait is definitely worth it. We deserve this kind of experience at this world class university, so I wouldn't settle for anything short of the best.

Got an A.

Esdin is a great lecturer, but he gives extremely hard and detailed exams. I did not learn AP biology in high school and really regret now; I couldn't find a way to digest tons of new words and knowledge. I was hurt really hard by the curve and ended up with a C-... gonna retake this class :(
What you should learn from my failure: develop a good study habit and memorize every single slide!!!!

I took Esdin/Roberts.

Esdin is a really good lecturer. He speaks slowly and clearly, and is very eloquent and well-spoken. However, his tests are extremely difficult. I took three years of biology in high school and did not do well at all in this class. I recommend that you record every lecture and memorize every word that this man speaks. LS2 consists of an insane amount of material to memorize. His free response questions are extremely difficult because he grades so specifically. Make sure you take good notes, because if you miss one little thing, you could be screwed for the exams. I recorded every lecture and memorized everything in said lectures for the final exam (which was not cumulative), but still got a C. Definitely a difficult class.

Class taken during S15. He just made the final exam not cumulative which was really nice. His lectures are engaging and reasonably paced. No clicker for his part of the course. Record and relisten to his lectures as prior reviews have recommended, filling in your lecture slides which are always posted in advance

Midterm 1 average with all Yang material, tricky free-response: 71

Midterm 2 average with mostly Yang material and very straightforward, some trickier Esdin material: 76

Final grade policy: Esdin claims he's always had a curve for his class, has never curved grades down, will always make 90+ an A even if a quarter of the class earns it, has no quotas on his A's he gives out, and that 20% of the class can usually achieve A's. Not bad.

The 4 discussion quizzes administered throughout the quarter (on readings that have nothing to do with exam material) and the mandatory section in general are a drag, but doable/survivable.

Yang taught first half of course, and while some people gave her grief she wasn't too bad of a lecturer. They cut more and more material as the years go on according to her, but she still had to rush. She genuinely cares about students, triple-checking that everyone's clicker worked fine and that her office hours were accessible. I understood her accent absolutely fine give or take 5 words in the quarter...some people need to check their outright racism.

Go to her office hours on exam day. Few took advantage of this glaringly advantageous opportunity to talk with the creator of the exam.

LS2 with Esdin/Yang was not as scary as I thought it would be for sure, but then again I've yet to take the final so *knocks on wood*

I'll start off by saying this about Esdin... he is an amazing lecturer, he's very eloquent, speaks slowly and clearly, and hes a very nice guy. He explains the material about as well as anyone could, but he only teaches half the course the other half was taught by arnold, i just took it this past winter (W15) . dont bother buying the textbook youre never going to open it.

Theres 2 midterms, and the negative thing i will say about esdin is this however. he grades HARD. for the midterms theres a multiple choice section and a free response section. for the free response, he wants very specific things written that are drawn straight out of lecture or his powerpoints. it doesnt matter that you put down the general idea, he wants a very specific phrase within your answer to get your points. for example there was a question on the first midterm asking to describe amino acids that was worth 6 points almost everyone in my discussion got 3 points or less because we didn't put the phrases he wanted in the answers. i can not emphasize this enough... HE WANTS VERY SPECFIC PHRASES. not knowing this i didnt do so well on the first midterm, but with this knowledge for the second midterm i did a lot better. the final was culmaltive all multiple choice, but ive heard some years they do free response on the final so i guess it just depends on what he wants to do.

overall: its a lot of memorization (as all bio classes are) its actually quite a difficult class as i had to study a lot to get a B+ (the first midterm really hurt me) so study up. i will say that if you are going to take LS 2, take it with esdin youre going to learn a lot, and you'll probably develop good study habits. (trick for the class make sure you record his lectures and give them a listen after, the class isnt podcasted so listening to him reiterate points will help you focus your studying)