Professor
Stacie Nakamoto
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Most Helpful Review
Sooo I took this professor during session A this summer, and overall, this was not easy. She says on the very first day not to take the summer course, so that's a clue right there...but I had to stay b/c it fit my schedule and nothing else. I commute to school on the bus everyday, and while I was taking this class I worked 20 hours a week at night, so after 4pm Monday-Friday, I could NOT study anything. BUT, I did end up getting an A in the class. So there is hope! I went to lecture every day, and yes her writing on the compendium overhead is kind of annoying but not too horrible, kinda just wasted a few minutes every day, I went to a couple different TA sections during the week, and multiple CLAPS sessions. I didn't buy a textbook, and I memorized the entire compendium...no joke -.- not fun...I wrote and rewrote allllll of the pictures and notes in the compendium, so that when the final was coming, I didn't have to look at the compendium to study, I just used my own notes. Definitely do all of the CLAPS and hw questions, even the ones not assigned, and bring questions to discussions, they help A LOT. The midterms were straight up memorization, so memorize everything :/ but the final was random. I did not end up leaving early, and I almost cried when I came out of the room. I had left some parts blank, and I thought I was gonna get a C...I started to get nervous during the final and began just writing whatever I could remember without thinking into much detail b/c I didn't have enough time, and thank God the memorizing worked and I wrote out everything like a reflex. There were some naming of molecules that came out of the blue, but I had to use knowledge from the chem20/30 series info to help me on those...So again, midterms are memorization (very doable) and final is more conceptual. I never asked her questions so I don't know whether or not she was easy to get a hold of...but pretty much I had to study every day till 4pm, did notes, rewrote notes, memorized EVERYTHING, and came out with a solid A...and it was the summer...Just focus (which I know is hard to do with this kind of class) but you gotta just pump yourself for the class. I also studied with 2 good friends and we studied together every day, sometimes next to each other in the library, but having a solid study group is very helpful. To summarize again, memorize the compendium, have really good and thorough notes, go to multiple discussions and CLAPS sessions, go to class every day, and FOCUS. It was kind of hard for me to focus during the summer b/c a lot of my friends were out having parties, touring abroad and such, and it was easy to just give up, but if I can do it, anyone else can. Trust me. My brain isn't exactly wired to be a genius, I'm not, and I was kind of jealous of the kids in discussions that got everything right away, but you have to work hard. It's not an easy class, but you can still get an A. :] Good luck!
Sooo I took this professor during session A this summer, and overall, this was not easy. She says on the very first day not to take the summer course, so that's a clue right there...but I had to stay b/c it fit my schedule and nothing else. I commute to school on the bus everyday, and while I was taking this class I worked 20 hours a week at night, so after 4pm Monday-Friday, I could NOT study anything. BUT, I did end up getting an A in the class. So there is hope! I went to lecture every day, and yes her writing on the compendium overhead is kind of annoying but not too horrible, kinda just wasted a few minutes every day, I went to a couple different TA sections during the week, and multiple CLAPS sessions. I didn't buy a textbook, and I memorized the entire compendium...no joke -.- not fun...I wrote and rewrote allllll of the pictures and notes in the compendium, so that when the final was coming, I didn't have to look at the compendium to study, I just used my own notes. Definitely do all of the CLAPS and hw questions, even the ones not assigned, and bring questions to discussions, they help A LOT. The midterms were straight up memorization, so memorize everything :/ but the final was random. I did not end up leaving early, and I almost cried when I came out of the room. I had left some parts blank, and I thought I was gonna get a C...I started to get nervous during the final and began just writing whatever I could remember without thinking into much detail b/c I didn't have enough time, and thank God the memorizing worked and I wrote out everything like a reflex. There were some naming of molecules that came out of the blue, but I had to use knowledge from the chem20/30 series info to help me on those...So again, midterms are memorization (very doable) and final is more conceptual. I never asked her questions so I don't know whether or not she was easy to get a hold of...but pretty much I had to study every day till 4pm, did notes, rewrote notes, memorized EVERYTHING, and came out with a solid A...and it was the summer...Just focus (which I know is hard to do with this kind of class) but you gotta just pump yourself for the class. I also studied with 2 good friends and we studied together every day, sometimes next to each other in the library, but having a solid study group is very helpful. To summarize again, memorize the compendium, have really good and thorough notes, go to multiple discussions and CLAPS sessions, go to class every day, and FOCUS. It was kind of hard for me to focus during the summer b/c a lot of my friends were out having parties, touring abroad and such, and it was easy to just give up, but if I can do it, anyone else can. Trust me. My brain isn't exactly wired to be a genius, I'm not, and I was kind of jealous of the kids in discussions that got everything right away, but you have to work hard. It's not an easy class, but you can still get an A. :] Good luck!
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - EDIT: This review became the #1 review of all time of Prof. Nakamoto within just a few hours of it being posted, really makes you think... I'm just going to post my instructor feedback as my review below: Never before in my entire four years of college and year of COVID online learning have I encountered such an incompetently designed course, led by TAs and an instructor who could absolutely not give less of a turd about their students' well-being and/or actual learning of the material... I hope there is some internal mechanism by which this class can be audited and investigated by the administration, otherwise I have thoroughly lost all faith in UCLA as an institution of learning. Prof. Nakamoto, you need to stop giving your TAs so much power in this class and be more involved yourself. Ryan is very clearly narcissistic and has mental problems which he projects onto his students, I genuinely never thought school or a class could give somebody post traumatic stress until I experienced this class. He needs to be fired, and he's lucky nobody has sued him yet for emotional distress, there are genuinely many people who wish horrible things upon him for the way he treats people. Rebekah is nicer but is just patently bad at what she does. Victor is the only good educator out of the lot of you, but his hands are tied because of how bad this course was designed. Any inkling of criticism brought up about the course design was shot down and spit on. This happened early on in the course and led to everybody being literally afraid of the instructor and TAs and put everyone in survival mode. This should be considered absolutely unacceptable, I would even recommend Ryan for dismissal from his position IMMEDIATELY. Genuinely, what makes you think the way you run journal club is any good whatsoever? I can honestly tell you not a single person understood anywhere near what you intended from it. The GLADs where genuinely good and helpful, and you literally stopped doing them after week 2. Throw out journal club as a whole and just do GLADs the whole quarter and people will ACTUALLY LEARN. Midterm 1 was fine, but the way you handled midterm 2 is honestly disgusting. You didn't say a peep about the material that would be on it other than "study JC2", great, so if journal club was bad we all just get double penalized on the exam for not knowing it. There was no "second chance" to learn it because the TAs literally didn't care to help us, not to mention we DIDN'T GET OUR GRADES BACK YET. On the topic of grading: What the heck makes you think it's okay to just not give us back all but 2 assignments by the end of week 9? OH OKAY SO "we're very busy running this class" well then stop wasting everybody's time doing stupid things like grading journal club presentations and do actually useful things with your time please. I understand that you need to have the two papers, but the lab time usage is such a waste right now. These stupid 5-minute one on one sessions are an absolute waste of time. We aren't allowed to have more than an outline (Ryan literally refused to comment on my work if it was more developed than he cared to read) so all the feedback we get is literally just generic. We'd be better off getting more detailed explanations of the lab itself. I honestly doubt anything will happen with this, because this school suffers from being bogged down by bureaucracy. But I had to put this in here to give it a shot. All-in-all, this class was an absolute dumpster fire and I hope everybody responsible faces serious repercussions because none of this was okay in any way, shape, or form. To whoever is reading this: -If you are either the professor or one of the TAs, you are probably thinking "this kid is just mad that he's not doing well, this class is perfect, its a rite of passage, I took this myself and did it- blah blah blah." If you are thinking this, I want you to know that you lack all form of critical thinking and self-reflection skills and I hope you are not/don't go into science. -If you are somebody who has the power to investigate what might be going on, PLEASE do so. This course needs to be rebuilt from the ground-up for COVID, the way it's being run now is horrendous and causes anybody who takes it to 1. Regret literally every life choice that led them to this point and 2. Not learn a damn thing because they have more cortisol in their blood and PVCs/day than they are comfortable being aware of. I've only ever gotten one B in my academic career until now and will be lucky if I pass this class. I'm telling you, if you interview some of the students for more details, you will be absolutely shocked and disgusted with what you find. -Stacie, nobody needed a "social hour" because we were plenty social with each other sharing how much we despised this class. -Yes, I am in therapy, partially because of this class...
Winter 2021 - EDIT: This review became the #1 review of all time of Prof. Nakamoto within just a few hours of it being posted, really makes you think... I'm just going to post my instructor feedback as my review below: Never before in my entire four years of college and year of COVID online learning have I encountered such an incompetently designed course, led by TAs and an instructor who could absolutely not give less of a turd about their students' well-being and/or actual learning of the material... I hope there is some internal mechanism by which this class can be audited and investigated by the administration, otherwise I have thoroughly lost all faith in UCLA as an institution of learning. Prof. Nakamoto, you need to stop giving your TAs so much power in this class and be more involved yourself. Ryan is very clearly narcissistic and has mental problems which he projects onto his students, I genuinely never thought school or a class could give somebody post traumatic stress until I experienced this class. He needs to be fired, and he's lucky nobody has sued him yet for emotional distress, there are genuinely many people who wish horrible things upon him for the way he treats people. Rebekah is nicer but is just patently bad at what she does. Victor is the only good educator out of the lot of you, but his hands are tied because of how bad this course was designed. Any inkling of criticism brought up about the course design was shot down and spit on. This happened early on in the course and led to everybody being literally afraid of the instructor and TAs and put everyone in survival mode. This should be considered absolutely unacceptable, I would even recommend Ryan for dismissal from his position IMMEDIATELY. Genuinely, what makes you think the way you run journal club is any good whatsoever? I can honestly tell you not a single person understood anywhere near what you intended from it. The GLADs where genuinely good and helpful, and you literally stopped doing them after week 2. Throw out journal club as a whole and just do GLADs the whole quarter and people will ACTUALLY LEARN. Midterm 1 was fine, but the way you handled midterm 2 is honestly disgusting. You didn't say a peep about the material that would be on it other than "study JC2", great, so if journal club was bad we all just get double penalized on the exam for not knowing it. There was no "second chance" to learn it because the TAs literally didn't care to help us, not to mention we DIDN'T GET OUR GRADES BACK YET. On the topic of grading: What the heck makes you think it's okay to just not give us back all but 2 assignments by the end of week 9? OH OKAY SO "we're very busy running this class" well then stop wasting everybody's time doing stupid things like grading journal club presentations and do actually useful things with your time please. I understand that you need to have the two papers, but the lab time usage is such a waste right now. These stupid 5-minute one on one sessions are an absolute waste of time. We aren't allowed to have more than an outline (Ryan literally refused to comment on my work if it was more developed than he cared to read) so all the feedback we get is literally just generic. We'd be better off getting more detailed explanations of the lab itself. I honestly doubt anything will happen with this, because this school suffers from being bogged down by bureaucracy. But I had to put this in here to give it a shot. All-in-all, this class was an absolute dumpster fire and I hope everybody responsible faces serious repercussions because none of this was okay in any way, shape, or form. To whoever is reading this: -If you are either the professor or one of the TAs, you are probably thinking "this kid is just mad that he's not doing well, this class is perfect, its a rite of passage, I took this myself and did it- blah blah blah." If you are thinking this, I want you to know that you lack all form of critical thinking and self-reflection skills and I hope you are not/don't go into science. -If you are somebody who has the power to investigate what might be going on, PLEASE do so. This course needs to be rebuilt from the ground-up for COVID, the way it's being run now is horrendous and causes anybody who takes it to 1. Regret literally every life choice that led them to this point and 2. Not learn a damn thing because they have more cortisol in their blood and PVCs/day than they are comfortable being aware of. I've only ever gotten one B in my academic career until now and will be lucky if I pass this class. I'm telling you, if you interview some of the students for more details, you will be absolutely shocked and disgusted with what you find. -Stacie, nobody needed a "social hour" because we were plenty social with each other sharing how much we despised this class. -Yes, I am in therapy, partially because of this class...
AD
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