I love Professor Esdin. He is very smart and coherent and made learning super fun. Overall, it's a very easy class, but you learn a lot of practical knowledge. Only hard parts of getting an A is making sure that you study for the midterm and the final (midterm is slightly harder), but as long as you get a B on those, I think you can end up getting an A if you get 100 on all the little quizzes and participation, which is relatively easy.

People be writing some mean reviews.

I don't care what people say, it's not a hard A. It's about 90% effort based. Grade breakdown is as follows:

631 total points. All points are weighted the same.
55 points for lab/lecture attendance. You just need to show up for 9% of your grade. Even better, you can find friends to sign you in (maybe do a rotation between a few people, and you show up for maybe 10 lectures the entire quarter).
100 points for the workbook. It's really not a lot of work, maybe 15 minutes per week, and you get full credit for full effort (as long as you answer most questions decent enough).
100 points for your project. Takes about 6 hours to hammer out, and as long as you follow the guideline you'll get full points.
6 points for filling out myUCLA professor/TA eval.
40 points for "lecture" quizzes. 2 quizzes 20 points each. Supposedly based on lecture material but it is actually straight from the course reader, all super easy. You don't even have to you read and you can look through the course reader to find the answers.
30 points for discussion quizzes that probably aren't even graded. Another free 30 points. Probably less effort point for point compared to filling out the eval.
150 points for midterm, 150 points for final. Not cumulative. About 45 questions in 50 minutes, all multiple choice. If you read one or two chapters at a time to stay caught up, and then read it again before each exam, you should be totally fine. I didn't quite pay attention in lecture, I had maybe a page front and back of notes in the last 6 weeks; reading the course reader sufficed. Most people walked out of the exams within 20 minutes (this includes double checking work). There's some people saying you have to memorize every single thing on the course reader. Not completely off the mark since the exam questions are pretty specific. Either you know it or you don't. But let's consider your situation though. You're aiming for an A. Assuming you've already gotten 331 free points (TA literally says that you should get full points on everything else as long as you do it, and he's absolutely telling the truth), you need to average 80% on each exam. Some statistics for the midterm: the mean was 79% and median was 81%. For the final: mean was 78%, median was 83%. Pretty much the average student gets an A in the class. And let's be real, the average student in a 400 person lecture probably doesn't go to class or read the course reader.

Grading aside, this class is actually pretty interesting and relevant to most people. There's tons of people who go to De Neve and pig out, and even more who go to BPlate thinking they eat healthy and way overinduldge on peanut butter and spritzers. The class is all about raising awareness about lifestyle diseases and providing a solid knowledge base so you can make informed choices in your life. It's probably more relevant than Ethno or Scand.

If you're looking for an A, this class is for you. The difficulty of this class is probably a 2/10. Workload is probably 15 mins a week, plus a single 5-10 hour project depending how slow you work. Perhaps the hardest part of the class is signing in every lecture at 9AM for participation.

Professor Esdin is very passionate about this class and cares about his students understanding the material and taking this knowledge with them after the quarter ends. I had this course online and definitely had an easier experience than usual due to the world circumstances, but I really did enjoy listening to this professor and learning the content in this course. Definitely an easier GE course at UCLA, but also a valuable one. Complete the (decently light in my experience) course work on time, and review notes before quizzes and tests and you'll have no trouble getting a good grade.

This class was an easy A but not fun at all. Like most people I read the "this class will make you get your life together" review on this site and thought the class would be worth a shot, it was not. The class is barebones health education material stripped straight out of the course reader. I'm pretty sure you could distill all of the information we learned into a 10 minute ASAP Science video.

Lecture is literally just Professor Esdin writing on blank powerpoint slides for an hour. The stuff he writes is literally copied almost word for word from the course reader, but attendance is still mandatory so you're forced to sit through every lecture. He also has a weird "no photographing my slides" rule for some reason. The material was applicable to life and helpful and all, but it really could have been much more than it was.

The labs were the best part of the class because they actually helped you gauge your own health. They are held only once every other week and take about 30 minutes a piece despite being labelled as 2 hour sections. They are fun in that you gain some introspection to your own health status, but the same effect could be achieved by weighing yourself and wearing a fitbit.

RANT: You will be forced to buy or share an iProfile subscription. iProfile is a literal scam. The UI looks like it was designed right when the internet came out. It's a health tracking app that supposedly helps you track your calories and exercise, but it's so bad that any information it gives you is probably wrong. It was obviously designed by white people (I am white, so I can say this) because they don't have ANY ethnic food listed in their "50,000 food items to choose from." If they have anything that wasn't developed in Western Europe then it's the shitty microwavable brand version. Literally they didn't have (to name a few):
- pho
- bean burritos
- quesadillas
- SUSHI!!! (wtf lol how do you not even have sushi)
- Ramen
- any indian food at all (they had curry powder mix as their only curry option)

Don't even get me started on the activity tracker. I hated this dumb app.
Rant over.

The multiple choice questions in this class were really, really easy but sometimes vague and confusing (discarded SAT question -style). It was either hard to tell what the question was asking or there were two very similar answers.

Take this class if you're just shilling for a good GPA, avoid this class and watch some YouTube health science videos if you don't want to waste a GE.

**SELLING COURSE STUDY GUIDE FOR $30**
**EMAIL - uclanotes23@gmail.com - IF INTERESTED**

Esdin is the GOAT. He wakes up at 4AM and gets his day started right. He's inspired me to live a healthier life.

1. Make friends in lecture & ask them to sign you in. Attending lecture is not necessary for doing well.

2. The midterm and final are non-cumulative are all multiple choice. They cover material in the course reader so reading that will be essential.

3. Start your project early. It's not that hard to get a free 100 points.

I am SELLING my 80-pages TYPED UP NOTES for only $20! They have all of the content taught in classes instead of the $100+ coursereader you would probably purchase. My notes are super complete and neat and use all of the content from the textbook and lectures. You can contact me at lanasamii19@gmail.com if you are interested! Price can be negotiated and you will receive the notes right away! I got an A overall (96%) and a full mark on the final too.

I am also selling the coursereader, completely in new condition and untouched for much cheaper, email me if interested!

I AM SELLING MY 25-pages TYPED UP NOTES FOR 25$. They are super complete because I incorporated my notes from the textbook into my lecture notes — you can contact me at pivoine00@gmail.com if interested!! Selling the course reader, fully highlighted, for 40$ (Price can be discussed).

Dr. Esdin is a very engaging and dedicated professor. He explains material well and makes you understand everything quite easily. I took this during COVID so the lectures were asynchronous. The class overall is pretty easy if you do the work and the reading.

However, the only down side for a lot of people who took this fall quarter was that his questions quizzes and exams were ambiguously written, which meant that practically all of us lost points on questions because of his wording...(even though we knew the material perfectly). Midterm is harder than final (I got 100% on the final). No extra credit offered. Class breakdown:

- 5 lecture quizzes (100 pts)
- 5 lab quizzes (75 pts)
- Attendance in lab (25 pts)
- Attendance in lecture (84 pts) — there are 3 points quizzes after each lecture
- Project (100 pts)
- Midterm (50 pts)
- Final (50 pts)
- Prof evaluations (6 pts)

Would definitely recommend. Also don’t be discouraged if you lose points at the beginning; I thought I would barely get an A- but turns out the quizzes get easier so I ended up with a 95% (A is 93%+).

TA Ingrid is amazing try to take her!!

The course reader required for the class is quarter dependent so please do not buy old course readers. A workbook, that cannot be purchased separately, comes in the package with the reader and it must be turned in for points.

Interesting class with material relevant to daily life. It will help you become more aware of how your diet and fitness decisions impact your overall health. In order to get an A, you must read the course reader and thoroughly understand the content within it. There is also a project that is not difficult to do.

I took this class as an easy A and I can confidently say that the only reason I passed with an A was because the tests were online. The lecture material is a bit droning, but you have to pay attention for the lecture quizzes due each day (these are not graded for completion but rather for accuracy which sucks). The midterm and final were extremely difficult, and again, if I would have taken them in person then I do not think any amount of studying could have gotten me an A. The project was kind of easy but just a lot of work and very tedious. The prof and my TA (Ingrid Cely) were really great at responding to questions or concerns you might have, but other than that, I would not classify this as an easy A.

this class was online for the entire quarter which was convenient for lectures because they were posted synchronously. you would need to watch them and take a lecture quiz (for participation) by 10pm that same day.
this wasn't an entirely difficult class, and the labs were basic knowledge for the most part. labs were every other week and attendance was mandatory. esdin was an engaging prof and very compassionate, but didn't hold office hours so you would need to turn to your ta.
if you took anatomy at any point this is pretty much that with more emphasis on diet and the cardiovascular system.
the lifestyle assessment project was so easy but it's just lengthy. managed to do it all in one night but there was literally no point in that except being a procrastinator. you just gotta overwrite almost everything and be very redundant in your report to show the ta you are putting a lot of effort into the lab.