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Review:
Prof: What’s more to say about Pflugel? Everyone has always wondered whether this person actually exists. The lectures very very slow (and mandatory now), but everything is pretty much determined by your TA and what happens in your class is done in your lab. Just show up to lecture read the lab manual during the class preferably before the lecture to make sure you know what’s going on to a certain extent, but they explain most of it during the lab so don’t worry too much about it. I suggest reading the lab manual and trying to understand the concepts because then you’ll do less studying for the final. For the final, really try to understand the major concepts in each of the labs. A lot of the questions were in the lab manual or stated in lecture. So understand the reasoning behind why you are doing what you are doing.

Class: The class is an overall fun class. It’s really laid back with a lot of quizzes (prelab, inlab, postlab). Some of the labs are really fun some of them are very tedious. Most of the work you do will be in the lab. There will be scientific writing assignments you have during the duration of the quarter. They are a lot easier than you think so don’t be too intimidated by them. Just try your best to learn the content, not just for a grade, after all that’s why you are at university. Do that and you should get an A.

This class was the easiest class I have taken at UCLA. It is such a great class. The lectures are really boring, and sometimes the labs are too, but it's an easy grade. I found the writing assistants/TAs the most helpful. I thought that some of the directions are hard to understand, but there are online office hours that are helpful to go to.

Honestly, I have never been a fan of the lifescience department, especially with classes that go with the lifescience 7 series. There is always a ton of work, and a ton extra stuff you have to do that requires a lot of time commitment. However, compared to the last 3 quarters this class was extremely doable. Professor Pfluegl is so nice and his lectures are right to the point, with many centered around the writing assignments which is the bulk of the work in the class aside from the labs and the final exam. The final exam was probably the hardest part of this class, but because there are multiple parts and chances for revision it wasn't awful, just time consuming and sometimes tedious. The labs take a lot of time and you usually have to complete a lab worksheet as a group which I wasn't a fan of, but other than that the writing assignments are not as difficult or time consuming as I thought and are fairly easy to do well on if you follow the rubric exactly.

This class is really easy, and if you're taking it, you probably have to. Dr. Pfleugl is great, so I recommend taking it with him. He's very understanding and offers a lot of support. The class is structured in a way that makes it difficult for you to fail as long as you try. I highly recommend the writing center for the writing assignments. One thing I will say is that this class took me much more time every week than I thought it would, which sucks since it's only three units. The grading is a bit unpredictable since the writing assignments are entirely peer-reviewed, but I did not personally have any issues. Overall, a solid class with a good professor and material that isn't mind-numbing.

Overall, LS23L was a pretty easy class. All you really had to do was skim the lab manual before lab, do the pre lab, go to lab, take an in lab quiz, complete the lab, and complete the post lab after. However, all of these were only about 4 questions and very simple or straight from the lab manual. The only time-consuming part of the class was the 3 hour labs and the writing assignments which we had 3 of spread out through the quarter. For the writing assignments, as long as you follow the rubric exactly and complete all your peer reviews and finish the reflections, you are basically guaranteed full points even with a mediocre essay. You do have to do peer reviews after each writing assignments which can be time consuming. Other than that, everything you need is on BruinLearn and lecture attendance was not mandatory but I didn't find them very useful since they were recorded, were just reminders, and summaries from the lab manual. Everything you need is in the lab manual. The final was very doable and gives you a lot of room to make mistakes and make up points. He also structures the class where you can miss a certain amount of each assignment and not have your grade affected. Should be a guaranteed A!

Overall, this class was quite easy. We never got the opportunity to meet Dr. Pfluegl in person since he would do Zoom meetings every week for lecture, but he seemed extremely sweet and approachable. Everything is posted on Canvas, and although the format and amount of assignments can seem a little overwhelming, it's very manageable and easy to understand once the first two weeks are done. Labs were also pretty easy and very guided, and my TA was very helpful if my group and I were ever confused.

The writing assignments are the only time when I'd say the workload is a little heavy, but the rubric is very clear and there are also writing office hours offered the week before it is due. We did not have a midterm, but we did have a final which was quite doable. Grading is very lenient as well, and similar to the 7 series in that you can miss an assignment in pretty much each category and still get full credit.

Since this class is a lab, you show up once a week to do some lab that you were given info about the week prior and get started. Mistakes happen, and you don't really get punished for that. My group was really nice and the projects were usually pretty fun! My favorite was looking at cells under the microscope, including blood cells, neurons, skin cells, etc. The last lab was a make-up where you can get back any points you missed and get full credit in lab section (assuming you missed fewer than ~15 points during the quarter). The final exam was 40 questions (I think) in 45 minutes and it def wasn't enough time, but the second part of the exam was with the group (which we did on zoom) in which we review the questions and answer them together. We have like 2 days to do it, and though I don't remember the final grade, we did well enough!

I really enjoyed this class especially with the labs being back in person this spring. This class often feels overwhelming at first because of all the tasks that are assigned however the work is very manageable and the work is not graded harshly, there are a lot of points available to earn. The final was straightforward and you got two attempts with the same questions (your score was averaged between the two). I recommend taking this course with Dr. Pfluegul!

This class is fine and an easy A/A+ if you keep on top of your work. If you're already in a lab or have research experience, some of the experiments may be repetitive, like the ones involving gels or bacterial cells. Your lowest assignment in all of the weekly activities is dropped which is nice. However, your lab experience/how easy your weekly labs are are HIGHLY dependent on your TA and how they run/grade their section.

The writing assignments are kind of a pain. If you familiarize yourself with the example they provide and write based on the rubric, they're fully doable in a few hours though. When you're evaluating your peer's texts, I would highly recommend giving them a 9 or 10, regardless of how good the actual quality is, as that's what most people give and you don't want to be an outlier. There's also a group project which wasn't too bad, but a little tedious to coordinate every week.

Some of the experiments with the goldfish and human physiology weren't as interesting IMO, as I like molecular bio stuff a lot more. But overall, this is a decent class. A lot of the lab lecture content is repetitive so you can get away with just skimming the slides if you want, and maybe reading the lab manual.

The final wasn't too bad, as long as you do the above and have a good understanding of each lab (being able to explain them to someone else is a good starting point).

Overall, not a bad or hard class if you're efficient.