LIFESCI 107
Genetics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, 75 minutes. Requisites: courses 7C, 23L, Chemistry 14A (or 20A), 14C (or 30A). Not open for credit to students with credit for course 4. Advanced Mendelian genetics, recombination, biochemical genetics, mutation, DNA, genetic code, gene regulation, genes in populations. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Dr Pham is an angel given to us by UCLA. Never have I ever had a professor who cared about students this much as well as ensured that each lecture is very engaging and fun for the students. You can tell that he is very passionate about teaching and always wants to make sure that the students' mental health and circumstances are considered during grading and tests. The tests are not that difficult and the content is not that heavy. However, you still need to do the past papers and understand the material well in order to do well in the tests. There is no reason for anybody to not get an A in this class as long as you put in the effort and attention to the class. He is beyond fair in grading and is very understanding if you have any personal issues which may impede your ability to take the test. 100% would reccomend taking him for LS107. If I had a choice, I would take him for any other class he teaches as well.
Winter 2020 - Dr Pham is an angel given to us by UCLA. Never have I ever had a professor who cared about students this much as well as ensured that each lecture is very engaging and fun for the students. You can tell that he is very passionate about teaching and always wants to make sure that the students' mental health and circumstances are considered during grading and tests. The tests are not that difficult and the content is not that heavy. However, you still need to do the past papers and understand the material well in order to do well in the tests. There is no reason for anybody to not get an A in this class as long as you put in the effort and attention to the class. He is beyond fair in grading and is very understanding if you have any personal issues which may impede your ability to take the test. 100% would reccomend taking him for LS107. If I had a choice, I would take him for any other class he teaches as well.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - I love this prof but he completely changed the format of this course and the whole time it was miserable for me. We had SO MANY QUIZZES every week to the point where I'd forget about them completely because of how many there were to keep track of. It used to be almost 100% As in this class, but now you have to score almost 100% on every single exam to get an A in the class and that's near impossible. Also the sheer amount of people who purely cheated (by taking exams in huge groups behind the profs back) was extremely disappointing and embarrassing. Tell me why I got a B+ in this class despite scoring a 95% on the final and a 97% on midterm too. I scored around a 72% on the first midterm (my fault for not studying enough bc i was also enrolled in 3 upper-division chem classes simultaneously) but I'm really disappointed in how many people got near 100% in the class after purely cheating. The material is also extremely dense and not very intuitive, so I don't recommend this at ALL if you don't love biology and statistics (yes there is a lot of math). I got an A+ in LS7B and still struggled a lot towards the beginning of this course because of how many quizzes there were and the high pressure of needing to perform exceptional on all exams.
Winter 2024 - I love this prof but he completely changed the format of this course and the whole time it was miserable for me. We had SO MANY QUIZZES every week to the point where I'd forget about them completely because of how many there were to keep track of. It used to be almost 100% As in this class, but now you have to score almost 100% on every single exam to get an A in the class and that's near impossible. Also the sheer amount of people who purely cheated (by taking exams in huge groups behind the profs back) was extremely disappointing and embarrassing. Tell me why I got a B+ in this class despite scoring a 95% on the final and a 97% on midterm too. I scored around a 72% on the first midterm (my fault for not studying enough bc i was also enrolled in 3 upper-division chem classes simultaneously) but I'm really disappointed in how many people got near 100% in the class after purely cheating. The material is also extremely dense and not very intuitive, so I don't recommend this at ALL if you don't love biology and statistics (yes there is a lot of math). I got an A+ in LS7B and still struggled a lot towards the beginning of this course because of how many quizzes there were and the high pressure of needing to perform exceptional on all exams.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Dr. Pham is an absolute blessing to the life sciences department at UCLA! LS 107 was one of my favorite classes that I have taken at UCLA. Dr. Pham was incredibly caring, knowledgable, and was always open to answer questions during lecture, after lecture, and during office hours. Similar to the LS7 series, there were pre-class videos to watch and then quizzes to take. Lecture consisted of practice iClicker genetics problems engaging with the material covered in the pre-class videos. Dr. Pham was incredibly thorough and went over all the iClicker questions slowly and clearly to make sure that all students understood how to solve the problems; the clicker questions often closely resembled the exam questions. Additionally, there was a weekly quiz (almost) every week and then two midterms and a final exam, all online via Canvas. Dr. Pham provided seemingly unlimited practice midterms and final exams from previous years, as well as one online Canvas practice exam for each test that was extremely similar to the real test. After each exam, we were offered 5% extra credit on our exam score which could be earned by answering a short bonus quiz that had similar, but not the same, questions as the ones that were commonly missed on the real exam. Overall, LS 107 with Dr. Pham was an elite experience. He was incredibly patient, clear, and facilitated student learning in a genuine and sweet manner. I strongly recommend Dr. Pham for LS 107 and all life science courses at UCLA; he is the absolute best!
Winter 2024 - Dr. Pham is an absolute blessing to the life sciences department at UCLA! LS 107 was one of my favorite classes that I have taken at UCLA. Dr. Pham was incredibly caring, knowledgable, and was always open to answer questions during lecture, after lecture, and during office hours. Similar to the LS7 series, there were pre-class videos to watch and then quizzes to take. Lecture consisted of practice iClicker genetics problems engaging with the material covered in the pre-class videos. Dr. Pham was incredibly thorough and went over all the iClicker questions slowly and clearly to make sure that all students understood how to solve the problems; the clicker questions often closely resembled the exam questions. Additionally, there was a weekly quiz (almost) every week and then two midterms and a final exam, all online via Canvas. Dr. Pham provided seemingly unlimited practice midterms and final exams from previous years, as well as one online Canvas practice exam for each test that was extremely similar to the real test. After each exam, we were offered 5% extra credit on our exam score which could be earned by answering a short bonus quiz that had similar, but not the same, questions as the ones that were commonly missed on the real exam. Overall, LS 107 with Dr. Pham was an elite experience. He was incredibly patient, clear, and facilitated student learning in a genuine and sweet manner. I strongly recommend Dr. Pham for LS 107 and all life science courses at UCLA; he is the absolute best!
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