This class turned out to be a lot harder than I expected due to the unexpectedly difficult tests. I 10000% mean it when I say that you HAVE TO write literally everything down from the slides onto the cheat sheet to do well (and even though I did I still couldn't score 90+ on the exams). Tbh, I don't even know what I could improve on to get a better score -- the exams are not cumulative though which is a plus. Every question wrong easily racked up points, and with the class only being out of 340 points (100 per each of the 3 exams + 40 for easy homework), it's very easy to drop down letter grades. Not too sure how strongly the curve was though since I got about 83% overall but still ended with a B (so the curve didn't help me at all). Overall, I don't recommend this professor unless he changes how harshly he grades or the grading structure since it is quite difficult and involves a bit of luck in getting an A.

He lets you use one side of a 8.5 x 11 piece of paper as a cheat sheet during exams. The way the exams are built and graded clearly reflects why he does this as the tests are entirely free response and test to the smallest detail. EVERYTHING he says in lecture that is included the learning objectives has the potential to make it into the test, so make sure to basically write all the slides on there. With each exam I made my cheat sheet more and more just copy and paste from the slide so my explanations directly mimicked his when answering test questions and this helped me recover my grade as I did better each time. There is a lot of content and I had to review some concepts a lot of times to really understand what was going on too.

Overall he is a really nice guy who I feel explains things really well. On top of that he is very receptive to all questions and is very approachable.

He did end up curving the class too so even though the midterms were tough, It is not as bad as it will seem midway through the quarter.

I think he curved the class a little because raw grades wise, I got an 86.91%, but I ended up with an A-. Like other people mentioned, most of the grade depends on 3 exams, and although everything is not cumulative, the grading is very harsh on exams. I actually didn't know there was a guessing penalty, but to be frank, I think the professor and TAs were inconsistent and harsh in grading. You could literally get 0/4 on certain questions even if you had a good general idea of the question, and that added up really quickly. They don't give back exams - they have exam sessions where you can look at your exam for a certain period of time and ask questions, but for the first midterm, it was so chaotic. It was like 100+ people in one tiny conference room, and I felt like I couldn't ask questions or even look at my exam carefully. The second midterm review session was slightly better, but they had around 20-25 students for 15 minute blocks, and it felt very pressuring to look at your exam in such a short period of time. I think the professor is nice, and I don't think he's necessarily a bad person, but he pretty much read off of the slides. My advice is to cram every single slide onto your one-sided handwritten cheatsheet because he asks the most specific things ever. Like on midterm 2, he asked a question that was so specific about some dude who analyzed a crystallized virus and what was the name of it. The only reason why I got it correct was because I wrote it on my cheatsheet. On midterm 1, I scored an 82.5 (mean was a 74.88), midterm 2 I scored a 78 (mean was a 79.27), and on the final I scored a 95 (mean was a 90.51). I honestly think they graded nicer on the final because there wasn't an exam session for it. The homework is just to write a couple of sentences on what you found interesting and what was confusing, so that 10% of your grade is free points. I don't want to be mean, so I'll just leave it as I think the main issue with this professor was the harsh grading and lack of clarity. He does post some sample exam questions, but they're more straightforward compared to the real exams.

This is the first review I have ever made on here throughout my 3 years at UCLA. This course is exam based, 2 midterms and 1 final which are all equally weighted at 100%. There is no textbook, no discussion worksheet, no extra resources other than an optional textbook, which according to the professor just elaborates on certain concepts. There is 1 weekly assignment that consists of 2 questions that ask “what was your favorite thing we have learned and what was the most confusing”, it doesn't contribute anything towards our learning. According to the implications on the assignment description, these are used to help the TA know what everyone is confused on and therefore go over these concepts, however, it is never revisited. Discussions are ~1 hour, my TA Lang somehow gets her section done in 10 minutes or less, to the point where all other students stopped showing up after the 3rd week, I was 1 of ~5 students who remained, and each time it was useless, as she truly just reads off of 5 of the Professors slides and does not do anything more. Professor Soroosh provides weekly learning objectives per lecture, which I study each week, however in no way does he teach these learning objectives yet expects us to apply them on exams. All the information we are provided with are his lecture slides, yet the learning objectives go far beyond what he teaches. Therefore my question is, is Google supposed to teach us? Are we just supposed to look up each learning objective and memorize it for the exams? Because he certainly isn't teaching them. I attend the PLFs and honestly, he is the one who teaches us some of these things because the professor certainly does not. He tooka subject that I love and made me feel like it was impossible to succeed. I know university is not supposed to be easy, but a professor should not shape his class for it to be impossible for you to prosper. Soroosh allows us one side of paper as a reference sheet for exams, considering that the only learning resources we have are the lecture slides I fit every single lecture slide on my cheat sheet and more elaboration that i can find, questions that he asked us had zero previous mentions on any of these slides, and half of the information he did talk about, was not even on there. Once again, I'm just confused as to whether he is expecting us to teach ourselves these learning objectives using Google and then applying them to his exams. Both midterm exam averages were Cs. Considering i spent 2 weeks studying his slides and objectives. His method of instruction and evaluation is discouraging. As this is the intro class to MIMG, he has set us up for failure. Your goal should not be to weed students out of a field, your goal should be to help them comprehend material and grow, help them love it even more. I love the course material, however he is setting a very negative experience. He has a very much I don’t care attitude, which makes it difficult to want to attend his office hours or ask questions, he is very judgemental; not all of us come with the same background knowledge and are at a disadvantage compared to other students, so it would be appreciated if he would answer questions kindly and not in a manner where the entire class laughs at a student for asking a genuine question. I somehow flippin managed to get a 99/100 on the final, which shocked me because i truly expected another D. Yet I still managed to get a C in the class, which once again just shows his horrible method of grading. This class made me secure that I want to stay within the MIMG major, as the content is super interesting, however this method of evaluation is insane, and I don't think it was curved.

This professor is honestly one of the worst I’ve ever had. His teaching is all over the place—he introduces topics in an incredibly disorganized manner, jumping from one concept to another with no clear order or structure. On top of that, he often taught things incorrectly or left out key details. The TA even clarified that certain information was wrong or missing, but told us, “Just remember what the professor taught,” to not get points off. He’ll promise that he won’t test on details, but then ask for a specific name of a bacteria.

The grading system was beyond frustrating. He marked off entire questions for missing tiny keywords that were not alluded to in the question, even when the answer was l correct. For example, he’ll ask “what happens when there are bubbles in bread, answer briefly.” Everyone I spoke to wrote “secondary fernentation” which is what he meant, but everyone lost half points for not specifying the specific bacteria, that he did not cover in class (I went back and watched the lecture). He also implemented a ridiculous guessing penalty, so if they think you guessed, they’ll just take full points off.

I had multiple exams graded incorrectly, and after regrades, my score went up by an entire letter grade. It was clear that his grading was arbitrary and inconsistent. The final exam, despite being just as difficult as the midterms, had an average that shot up to an A, which only further demonstrated how manipulated and random the grading system was. Nevertheless, the grades still average to a B-, so half the class will probably end up with a C or some sort.

If you want a professor who teaches with clarity, consistency, and fairness, this is *not* the one for you. His sarcastic attitude, disorganized teaching style, and unfair grading made this course a nightmare. He really needs to humble himself and reconsider how he’s approaching this class because right now, it’s all about his ego, not the students' learning.

Overall, I do not recommend taking this class unless it is required for your major and/or your grad school. The content is interesting and manageable. My main issue is the grading since 90% of your grade is based on exams. The questions on the exams are specific and you'll feel good about answering them yet Soroosh's very particular rubric is a GPA killer. Fail to mention one thing on his rubric? Well you'll get marked half off. The TAs are ruthless with grading. As someone else mentioned, most people thought they did well on the exams and felt blind-sighted with the rubric. You can write the same thing as someone else just worded differently and the TAs will grade very very different. Super subjective grading. Not worth your time.

This course was very interesting. It made me affirm my choice in my major (MIMG). However, there is one gripe I had with the course: the exam grading. Before every exam, I thought that I had mastered each of the lectures covered. For example, for the first exam covering lectures 1-10 (each exam covers different lectures, final is also not cumulative), I thought I was pretty prepared to handle the exam. Lo and behold, I got the average score, which was a 72 out of 100. It doesn't help that your grade is totally dependent on the exams: the grading is based on three exams, all worth 100 points, and 40 points for the homework (which was super easy). Same is true of the second midterm (79 average). So, although the course was incredibly interesting, the exams were just so harshly graded, and your grade essentially depends on how well you do the exams.

I thought that this course was successful in almost every area. It was paced very well, the content was presented in an interesting way, the homework assignments were approachable, and there were several opportunities for help. The course did lack in one specific way: the exams were graded extremely harshly. I have talked to many people, and most of us felt that we performed very well on the exams, but our grades did not reflect this. This was incredibly frustrating because there was only 1 hour allotted to looking at and discussing exams, and if you could not make this time frame, then there was no way to see what your mistakes were. This was a very unfortunate part of the course that was discouraging and took away a lot of its merit in my opinion.

Prof. Soroosh is a rare breed of thoughtful, engaging, and understanding. His passion for his academics is unwavering and appallingly clear. Though I'd never consider a degree in any STEM field, Soroosh had me on the edge of my seat while learning about immunology and bodily systems. He has the unique ability to turn otherwise dull subjects into compelling eloquence. He's an incredible lecturer and honestly deserves more recognition.

Dr. Soroosh is an amazing teacher! He is super down to earth and funny, and he genuinely cares about his students. He is a great professor because he is passionate about research and the MIMG department in general. I had him for 180A and B and loved my experience. He helped me a lot with my public speaking by giving knowledgeable insight and making class a safe place to make mistakes and learn to be better. He also teaches MIMG101 and is gonna teach LS7C in the future so I highly recommend him! If you want to be his favorite, mention how much you love Coldplay or the Golden State Warriors.