I really enjoyed my time taking this class! I would definitely take this class again even though I do agree with the person below me that it is a lot of work, but I do think Dr. Larison is fair with her tests and she is very kind to her students.

Workload:
Very light, you only have to post on piazza and reply to 1 post for participation. You also have a presentation on 1 group project but most people did very well on this. She also lets you miss 3 lectures, and she drops your 3 lowest quizzes (or keeps them, whichever gives you a higher grade).

Field Trips:
There are 3 out of class day field trips (one during a Saturday) which are fun and one 3 day camping trip. You are allowed to make up these field trips if you can't make them! To make up the camping trip you need to do a whole day birding trip (7-8 hours) outside of the LA county and another half day one that can be in LA.

Labs:
Were fun with Dan! The practical was harder than I thought and consisted of birding, bird relationship with their ecosystems, etc. but he did offer a 10% credit for uploading your birdlist on eBird which was very generous.

Midterm:
The midterms were difficult in the sense that there was a lot of information in all the slides and you should memorize everything, but she will focus on certain slides more than others and those are the ones that you should really focus on (i.e. diagrams). The midterm was easier because it was just terms and definitions. If you go to office hours and ask her if you should know ____ she will tell you so you know what to focus on!

Final:
The final was definitely harder than I expected in the sense that it focused more on the experiments of the items went over in lecture and the specifics of the experiment however the slides mainly focused on the experiments and in lecture she spent a lot of time on the experiments and not so much the definitions and so I went over the experiments.

Overall:
Study what she focuses on in class! This class is doable and it's possible to get an A- you're just expected to put work in. It's a really fun class and worth the effort!

This class is not really worth it unless you truly, deeply love birds and already know a lot of background information on them. Most people get a B.

Mainly I took this class so I could go on the camping trip, but everything else was not worth it.

The exams are HARD. You legit have 300+ slides for each exam. Like about 5-6 Powerpoints that are 70-100 pages each. Each have random diagrams, experiments, vocabulary, random bird facts, paragraphs, and you are expected to memorize EVERYTHING. If there is a random microscopic photo of a feather on ONE slide out of 300, that might be on the exam and worth 10% of your grade.

Some classes have a lot of slides/info, but the professor provides guidance on what to study, like a study guide. Larison does not provide anything. You are left guessing on what to study. You can ask her, but she will provide vague answers and you are left guessing what vocabulary and diagrams are important (answer: all 300 pages of it are important to her.)

Furthermore, she switches things up without telling anyone. The midterm focused on vocabulary and diagrams, and there were no questions on the experiments in the lectures. So studying for the final, I chose to focus on vocabulary and diagrams and skim over the experiments. What was on the final exam? 90% OF THE POINTS CAME FROM EXPLAINING EXPERIMENTS IN GREAT DEPTH.

She seems like a nice lady, but honestly, I would not recommend taking this class or another class with her. You work very hard for little pay-off. This was one of the EEB classes I've studied hardest for and I got a B-. Judging from the grade curve from past quarters, she does not seem to like giving A's.

Dr. Larison is a fantastic teacher who is eager to share her enthusiasm for birding with her students. While this is not necessarily an "easy" class (there is a pretty good volume of information to learn), her birding field trips, approachability, and willingness to teach made this my favorite class at UCLA. I picked up birding because of this class, and it is a hobby that I've really enjoyed these last few years.