He was very concerned with student learning and generally very enthusiastic about the course material. I enjoyed the mix of chalk board and PowerPoint presenting. I know that lectures had low attendance, but I believe attending lectures was well worth my time even though they were BruinCast. I believe he expanded on the basic ideas of the slides with useful and interesting information that I was able to apply to my lab research in which I study the molecular biology of tumors. I learned the science behind many experiments and techniques that I previously could perform but did not understand fundamentally.

Kochegarov had a very thick accent, but this was not in any way his fault. He really knew the material well, however that did not mean he could teach well. Luckily, his tests were very straight forward and all you had to do to get a good grade was go off of what he said in lectures. There were no trick questions or difficult concepts. Although, he did pop in a random quiz that was not stated in the original syllabus which was a little bit stressful. Honestly, Kochegarov tried very hard and did his best in this class for being thrown into teaching at a huge university. Props to him and I would recommend this class with him as the professor to anyone.

I like this course, he is a wonderful teacher! He will help you and explain everything during office hours if you are struggling or show interest in studding. He explained me a lot from scientific papers that we are supposed to read and answer questions. These papers are VERY hard to read and their conclusions in discussion are very controversial and ambiguous; I was so happy there were no questions in Final from these papers. Also, I like this course because he gives a LOT of extra credits for doing home works. I STRONGLY recommend this course for everyone.

I like this course, he is a wonderful teacher! He will help you and explain everything during office hours if you are struggling or show interest in studding. He explained me a lot from scientific papers that we are supposed to read and answer questions. These papers are VERY hard to read and their conclusions in discussion are very controversial and ambiguous; I was so happy there were no questions in Final from these papers. Also, I like this course because he gives a LOT of extra credits for doing home works. I STRONGLY recommend this course for everyone.

This was Dr. Kochegarov’s first quarter teaching at UCLA; therefore, I wasn’t expecting him to come in and be the best MCDB professor in the department. I’ve had a couple of new professors throughout my time at UCLA and there is always an adjustment period for them; however, it didn’t seem that Dr. Kochegarov needed one. Although it seemed that he was using another professor’s slide, he continued to display an extensive understanding of everything he talked about using those slides and tried his best to explain the concepts. This class also uses six research papers to supplement the topics being taught in class; however, since this was Dr. Kochegarov’s first time teaching he decided to omit them from the final exam. To add on, Dr. Kochegarov’s finals were very fair and only asked questions from topics he discussed in lecture, there were no tricks or attempts to confuse the student. Additionally, he allowed students to receive extra credit on the final by doing homework. The grade breakdown for this class leaned heavily towards the final and midterm 2; therefore, it was important to do well on those tests. Overall, if any of my friends asked me about Dr. Kochegarov I would tell this exactly what I have written above and would tell them to take the class and try their best, because in the end if they ended up getting a bad score it wasn’t because of Dr. Kochegarov but because they didn’t study hard enough.

I would highly recommend taking this class. Andrei cares about his students and clearly outlines what he expects of students. There were 6 take home quizzes, which would require one to read a research article. The research articles can be difficult to get through initially, but the discussion sections help guide you through them. His tests are reasonable, there are no trick questions, and everything can be pulled directly from the lecture.

Alright, I'm going to be completely honest about this class and the professor:

The MCDB department threw him into this class with like 1-week notice, and I feel like it's their fault for any problems that this class had.

He really is a nice guy, but the class wasn't really taught like a traditional MCDB class, and it didn't really follow his syllabus. The syllabus said 'the majority of exam questions will come from the papers'. The final exam had no questions from the papers we had to read. But in general, he was really fair when it came to exams (for the two midterms he gave the subjects he would test for like 90% of the tests).

I think the main problem I had with the class resulted from my TA who sucked, but in general the professor was fine. He had a bit of an accent but you get used to it really quickly.

It was his first quarter teaching at UCLA and I'm pretty sure if he fixes the few issues and makes the class clearer from the start, he'll be a great professor.

He really makes sure that he is available even outside of class to answer questions and is eager to help! He makes the course interesting and you can tell that he genuinely cares about the students.

This is the best course that I took! His lectures were clear and interesting and he makes difficult and complex materials very easy and understandable. He also makes lectures interactive asking a lot of questions to keep your attention during the long class. He genuinely cares about students and was always there to help me. He knows the material front and back and does an incredible job of teaching it. Seriously, turned a boring class in to something really interesting.

165A is generally a challenging course but Dr. Kochegarov makes it very easy. He doesn't require a textbook but his slides are sufficient for the class. There were two midterms and weekly quizzes. Midterms were not that difficult given that Dr. Kochegarov prepared a comprehensive study guide that was extremely helpful. He also gave extra credit that not only helped our grade, but was also a really helpful review and the concept in covered in the extra credit resurfaced in the final. His lectures were organized and well prepared, and he provided clear explanation of the material. Given that it was Dr. Kochegarov's first experience of teaching at UCLA, I think he did exceptionally well. I highly recommend this class and professor kochegarov.