LS3

I loved Professor Tamanoi! I thought he was very entertaining and a good lecturer. He was unintentionally funny all of the time, which made class fun and easier to follow along with. I thought his test questions were fair and he usually stressed the important parts in class, but sometimes there would be some random things on there you'd have to know from intense studying. It's really important to have a good TA to help reinforce the concepts. Like any LS class, it is a lot of information to know.

I would totally take Professor Tamanoi again, he is so sweet and easy to talk to. Definitely recommend!

COURSE TAKEN: LS 3

Dr. Tamanoi is one of the funniest, and most intelligent professors I have come across at UCLA. His jokes were incredibly hilarious, but most importantly he was very enthusiastic about what he was teaching, making the subject interesting (therefore bearable), and entertaining. He truly has a passion for the study of DNA and proteins.

I would recommend not only taking notes in class, but also listening to the podcast to ensure that you have written down everything he mentioned during lecture. Additionally, I would invest in a white board and start writing and rewriting every diagram, phrase, sentence, etc. This will help with the memorizing process.

Another reason why I would recommend Tamanoi is because he gives two midterms, but only the highest score of the two is taken into consideration for the final grade. #yas

Also, his office hours were expectingly helpful. He did a flawless job this quarter. You go Glen Coco, I mean Professor Tamanoi.

Oh oh!!! There was just one unexpected setback, which ended up not being such a huge problem. He ended up reducing the credit worth of the clicker points by more than half, meaning you had to do better on the final, but it wasn't THAT devastating. It made like a .5-1% difference (at least for me).

Good luck Ya'll!!

XOXO Gossip Girl,

Just kidding it's Gary :P

Final Grade: A+

LS 3
Final Grade: A+

Tamamnoi is a decent lecturer (7/10) who explains concepts fairly well and has some sense of humor, although he sometimes made the class laugh unintentionally.

My advice is to memorize his slides, just like in any LS class. I hate making flashcard, so my advice is to write the lecture slides on scratch paper and repeat this so that you can memorize the slides in preparation for the exams.

He only counts the higher of your two midterms, which is nice of him. The midterms were a combination of multiple choice and short answer (e.g., identifying structures, giving one or two word answers, writing the proper sequence, etc.)

However, some questions were detailed, so cover everything when you study except the really large tables, extremely complicated pictures such as protein binding maps/diagrams, and anything he says he will not cover.

The final was all multiple choice and the TAs at least wrote a significant part of it, if not all. Despite this, the questions were mostly fair but some did require thinking (experimental questions).

You don't need the book for this class, but Bruincast is necessary to succeed so you can write down anything you miss during lecture

Discussions are mandatory, so just go to get full credit.

He did clickers, but due to tech issues, he kind of gave up and let everyone have full credit

Average for the exams were between 75-80%, and by memorizing the slides, I managed to do well.

Some people believe Tamanoi is boring and terrible, but I disagree. Although he is no Esdin in terms of speaking style, Tamanoi gets the job done at the end of the day and is knowledgable about the material. I found LS 3 and molecular biology to be far more interesting than LS 2 just in terms of the subject matter. I recommend Tamanoi, and just be sure to go over the Bruincast, stay on top of lectures, go to Wikipedia (or even the free Scribd copy of the textbook although I prefer looking online) if something still does not make sense, and memorize his slides well

LS3
Tamanoi completely changed the format of his midterm and final this quarter, making it nearly all multiple choice questions (with a few short answer concept questions). The average for the midterm was about an 80%, so he said that he was going to make the final much harder, but the average turned out to be 76%. It seems like he made his class significantly easier this quarter from previous quarters according to this site. This being said, he is not the most engaging professor. I often found myself dosing off in class and I had to study hard for the tests to do well. Discussion sections are mandatory and are very helpful, as they basically summarize the lectures. Tamamoi was definitely the easier of the two professors teaching LS3 this quarter.

Had Tamanoi for LS3, and he's got to be the worst LS professor at UCLA, he does not use a book, so his class is solely lecture-based. Tamanoi's exams do not measure your understanding of the material, instead all they measure is how well you've memorized some obscure details somewhere in the corner of his slides. I would not recommend taking LS3 with Tamanoi to anyone, unless you think you'll enjoy memorizing over 600 slides for the final exam.

I had Tamanoi for LS 3 and he was one of the better professors I've had at UCLA. His lectures are interesting and Tamanoi intersperses pictures of his family, dog, and funny random facts and attempt to incorporate them into lecture. He is very knowledgeable in the subject. I got an A+ in the class solely because I knew how to prepare for his one, crucial midterm. There are plenty of nay-sayers, but Tamanoi did a great job and is very fair. Just don't wait til the night before to cram, it's as simple as that. I didn't use the book, I just made a study guide on major terms and processes DIRECTLY FROM THE SLIDES. Tamanoi is very fair in that if material is not on the slides, it will not appear on the test. I got a 145/150 on the midterm from understanding the material after memorization. The final was definitely harder, but this is UCLA and there are no tricks to his test. Take him for LS3.

I took LS3 with Tamanoi. He pretty much bored me the first day, but it got better after that. He goes pretty slowly for his lectures, and you may think that helps. However LS3 contains a TON of material that you need to memorize really well. There is only one midterm so don't screw up on it. I got an A in the class by making my own study guides of the lectures. This however prevented me from studying a couple slides that I thought were unimportant but showed up on the final. I only used the book to clarify on certain topics, so you technically don't need the book.

As for the tests, they aren't terribly long. All the questions are short-answer or terminology-based. For the final there were even some questions with one-word answers that were worth the same as the questions with 3-sentence answers. However, they are extremely detail-oriented and require you to have basically memorized the slides by heart.

Also, as long as he talks about it, he wants you to know it. Some slides have charts or tables that he glosses over, so you're fine with that. But some slides seem even more insignificant, like the one discussing relaxed circle and supercoiled SV40 DNA. If you're making a study guide, just write down everything so you'll have seen it at some point in studying.

LS3 is the hardest out of LS1-4 no matter which professor you take it with. So in the end the professor doesn't extremely matter. Tamanoi is quite nice in that respect since he doesn't move as blazingly fast as others do. Even though the class runs for 1:15 per lecture, he'll finish a few minutes after the hour. Have fun.

I had Tamanoi for LS3. Tamanoi seems to care about his students as he seems very earnest. I personally didn't like the way he lectured because he seemed to go off topic sometimes, which made me tune him out while in class. I didn't use the book at all, and I just studied off the lecture notes. The tests were fair and are generally not multiple choice, which I think is a good thing. He tells his TAs to look for key terms when grading. I heard him saying that his tests seem to becoming easier the more times he teaches the class. His exams don't tend to stress on the details as he discusses the lecture, but the big picture and implications. He also likes people to learn and understand the methods and applications of LS3, but not as much as Pires, I believe. I got an A+ in the class.