Pires is a good lecturer and knows the material very well. In lecture there are always lots of clicker questions, but she gives you 2 free days, so if you have to miss a class its okay. The assignments are pretty much the same every week and include readings in the textbook along with videos and animations. There weekly graded quizzes, but they're online and you get a couple tries, so its easy to work with other people and get good grades. Pires also offers a little extra credit if you do pre-class worksheets before each class, which I highly recommend because the material is very helpful too. In the discussion there are graded worksheets, so its good to go to all the discussions. Pires is a good professor, but her office hours are pretty terrible. She is often condescending and can scare people from asking questions.

Flipped classroom which isn't my favorite. In class was mostly clicker questions and could be unclear.

She's fine. LS7A is flipped classroom so the professor isn't as important in learning than in most classes.

Really enjoyed her personality and her way of explaining information. Helped get through the denser material during lectures and made you feel glad for coming to lectures. She is generous on extra credit, which helps, and her "hard" test problems are those she explicitly goes over during clicker questions during class or those that we are given the answers to during discussion. Was a great class. Hope I can take another class with her later in the LS series.

I felt this class was pretty difficult being a first-year University student. A lot of the material was jam-packed and went through so quickly that it became difficult to understand at times. That being said there were extra credit points for doing pre-class assignments and points for doing the readings so you definitely had some wiggle room on the midterms. I also feel like her office hours were somewhat helpful but only if you want further information.... she won't explain a whole concept to you. I learned a lot of the information needed for this class from being in a PLF and from my TA who was amazing!! Overall this class was difficult if you had no previous AP biology experience and just having taken a regular class in high school is not going to help you.

Dr. Pires is a very interactive professor. She provides everything a student may need to succeed in this class -- extra credit assignments, small homework assignments that can boost your grade, and review sessions before midterms and finals. You read and complete worksheets before class so that you have some knowledge of the material before the actual lecture. The lectures are also bruincast.

That being said, LS7A squeezes a lot of information into a short time period, and so it can be easy to become overwhelmed or fall behind. I would recommend not only going to her office hours, but going to your TA's office hours for a more in-depth explanation on confusing topics. I would also recommend forming study groups early on; they really help when midterms come around.

This class was pretty tough because the exams are true and false which require you to understand the concepts at an insane level. I don't agree with the previous reviews regarding the "easy" level of the exams.

LS 7A with Deb was my favorite class Fall quarter. She was a funny and engaging lecturer, and always posted slides and lectures online that were helpful for studying for exams. Reading and completing the pre-class assignments took little time and were necessary for lecture. The midterms and finals were fairly easy, and she offers pre-class worksheets as extra credit. When taking LS 7A, definitely choose Deb!

I think this was a class that if you put time into studying you got back the grade you deserved. The assigned readings and practice exams, as well as the clicker questions, are a good review for the test and Deb gives you a lot of material to prepare for the midterms and finals. I would say that your TA matters and that you spend your discussions completing graded worksheets under their supervision and with their help. Deb and your TA's are there for you and at least my TA was always happy to answer my questions.

Debbie is a really engaging professor and like the other reviews say, her class is a "flipped classroom". You purchase the textbook online and read all your material before class and take review quizzes. The amount of material varies, but it usually took about 1 hour to read and annotate everything. After each week, you get online practice exam questions, which are what I think was the hardest part of the class. The textbook is also used for LS 7B and 7C, so it's worth purchasing for an entire year.
She doesn't use a curve to grade, so every point you get matters, but you do get 10 easy extra credit points by doing a pre-class worksheet, which is honestly really helpful for reviewing. She said that she does curve however, if the class average is below 75%, so in this case, a curve will only help you.
Another thing that might affect this class is which TA you have. Each week, there's an 8 point discussion worksheet that needs to be filled out during discussion. It can be helpful to have a nice TA, otherwise you could lose points that were otherwise easy to get.
Other than that, this class is very manageable and the professor is very helpful and approachable.