Read the book before lecture, make sure you work to understand lecture material after each class, do the study questions as you go to every lecture, go to discussion - it's optional but the worksheets aren't online and you can go to any that fits your schedule, do to LA review sessions - their worksheets are helpful. I'm selling old biochem quizzes - it should be the same format as current quizzes - for $5 and my old protein assignment - I got a 32/30 - for $5 and $8 for both. Text me at **********

TLDR: Tienson isn't the best but the grading scheme is generous. If you need the material for future classes / applications then I would not take her.

Preface: I have written this review under the pretense of being as realistic as possible and waited until everything was complete before posting. (In other words, I wanted to take the time and separate myself from the emotions of finals, etc. to help future students if Tienson is still teaching.) For me personally, I find professor reviews at times to not be entirely accurate; doubly so in a class like biochemistry where it is mostly pre health students. (Note: I am a pre health student myself and am writing from my experience in undergrad.)

I ended up doing well in this class but I don’t think my understanding of the material was as good as it could’ve been. I also think it was more difficult than it needed to be (relative to other like courses) not because of the material but because of Tienson’s teaching.

Teaching: I found the pre-recorded lectures to be very lackluster and Tienson doesn’t really connect concepts to each other that well. (E.g. she will teach but won’t revisit / reiterate things that well for students to “seep” in the material.) Another reviewer described learning in this class to be something along the lines of “death by shoving problem sets down your throat” and I would agree as I’d be screwed otherwise. Unfortunately her teaching poses to be a massive issue in this case since you’ll likely find things in the problem sets that she hasn’t taught but still expects you to know. For example, some of the data sets for Michaelis Menten would be in different units - which you would think should be converted to like units - but Tienson never taught us that and tons of confusion ensured in the problem sets (all examples in lecture were for the same units). In hindsight, I feel like my understanding of biochemistry is like a lego structure that has a good 40% of the blocks missing because I sort of understand everything but don’t have all of the detail (concept-wise) to say so in confidence.

Learning Materials: The one gripe I have with Tienson is that she doesn’t provide answer keys at all for the study worksheets which IMO would’ve helped A LOT given the subpar lectures. I would’ve understood if it wasn’t released before a certain time in the week (for students to actually watch the lectures) but not at all was a bit of a huge stretch for me. I did not end up doing them and focused mainly on the problem sets since IMO it wasn’t worth my time to do them if I wasn’t able to check my work. The Achieve assignments were a mix of relevant and non-relevant.

Rubrics: The rubrics were definitely a bit questionable at times but it was still possible to do well in-spite of them. Were they as bad as some people stated? In my opinion, I don’t really think it was that bad (although it was definitely pretty ass compared to every other professor I've had in undergrad) as I wouldn’t consider myself to be very precise and still scored a lot of partial credit. With that being said, a lot of how I feel about this topic is in part to the generous grading scheme (i.e. you can still do well if you bomb the exams) and so I would’ve felt differently if that wasn’t the case.

Regrades: The policy of capped regrades is still true and there was a limit of 5 regrade requests total for session C6. I did not think this was much of an issue given the point cushions (e.g. only 100 of 120 points is counted) so I don’t have much comment. With that being said, the TA’s for this quarters class were horrible and would frequently make mistakes to the tune of many people complaining (a first in my undergraduate career) as correct answers would be marked incorrect (e.g. I had multiple answers marked wrong in one HW assignment when they were within the accepted numerical range) but this is a YMMV situation.

Exams: I mean eh? I scored 71.5% and 78% on my exams and did not think they were that bad overall. They were definitely a tad difficult but that is to be expected with a 24 hour window open-book exam. I personally did not think that most of the questions were bad (in fact most were pretty clear), however, there were definitely vague questions at times. How vague? I worked with a biochemistry doctorate (and former biochemistry TA) this summer to study and even he’d be confused at said vague questions when we’d review.

Grading Scale: The homework and other assignments made up 60% of the grade with 40% for the midterm + final exam. The non-exam assignments had buffers and allowed an OK amount of lee-way. With my score of 71.5% on the midterm (and four extra points), I only needed a 75% on the final to scrape by with an A-.

Overall Workload: I think the overall workload for this course was pretty fair or rather, it was to be expected for an upper-division STEM pre health course. Again, my approach mainly focused on lectures and reviewing the problem set answer keys + breezing through the filler so YMMV. (I.e. if you worked smart and noted what was important then I did not think it was an issue; no condescension intended.) I do not think one would have enough time to do the problem sets in full and so that is why I swapped to reviewing the answer keys only.

Would I do this again? I don’t really know since it was an easier A than expected given the reputation of biochemistry but my baseline understanding is the most subpar it's been in any pre health STEM course. (I graduated with a sGPA of ~ 3.8 and I strive to learn the concepts rather than fully memorize so I'd consider myself an OK baseline here.) Namely, I feel that I am missing key details to some concepts to truly understand and feel confident in what I have learned. This class also “burnt me out” after I experienced a second wind from my last in-person class of undergrad in a previous session. (I was a visiting student from Berkeley and started 153A during the finals week of my last summer session there.) That being said, I have no need for this material in the DAT and I would definitely take another professor if you’re a premed and need biochemistry for the MCAT.

What I would recommend:

I noted that some people said to rewatch the lectures and well… in this iteration of the class I wouldn’t recommend it. Namely, I ended up just taking more thorough notes post MT1 and focused more on 1) old grade scope exams (super important to note the rubric and how Tienson wants you to answer in-depth) and 2) the problem sets since the lectures left a lot to desire. However, I am more of a learn by doing type of person so perhaps this approach may not work for everyone.

For the homework, definitely join the GroupMe (if present) to make your life easier and check the homework with a massive group to maximize points. The achieve assignments are pretty much irrelevant filler and ditto with the small quizzes so I wouldn’t give them much thought.

i don't even know where to begin. with an ungodly amount of work for a summer class, bad teaching that never connected any topics together, and insane exams, it's difficult to know where to start! i don't understand why she likes to make her students miserable. i feel like she should take a hint if all these reviews are saying the same thing and there's no improvement. just don't take her is all i have to say.

She is the worst professor and lecturer I've ever had at ucla. I've done well in every chem/bio course, and i've always liked chemistry. She has done the impossible and made the subject insufferable. A 3.0 is a generous rating for her. She is the worst of the worst. the day she stops teaching, students will have a better understanding of biochem.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. This professor is so terrible! Her lecture videos make no sense, she assigns an ungodly amount of work, and you will not come out of this class understanding biochemistry. She grades so hard expecting us to know every little detail about what she teaches. She even expects details in our answers that we never even learned?! How are we suppose to know? I have to teach myself biochemistry despite taking this class for the MCAT now. I wish I had taken it with another professor.

She grades the homework (30% of your grade) after you take your midterm (40% of your grade) and provides no feedback. When going through the practice exam answer key in her office hours, she fully acknowledged being aware of typos in her key without sending any communication, emails, announcements, or informing ANY students outside of office hours about the countless mistakes she makes nonstop. On top of that, she loses her train of thought in her video lectures and office hours and goes "uhhhh, ok" and does not properly explain anything, even during her office hours (which she cuts short). She's a straight walking embarrassment for UCLA.

Now that I have completed this class after 6 grueling weeks I feel good about writing a review:

Would I take this class again? No.
Would I do this during the regular quarter? Also no, although I am thankful I didn't have to take this class with this professor during the quarter because it was tough. Granted I was working while taking it, but this class was killer.

Busy work wise there was a lot, but it wasn't unmanageable I don't think. You really had to apply yourself and force yourself to watch the lectures and not get behind. The minute you start procrastinating on practice questions or practice exams or even homework you're kind of screwed. It is extremely difficult to catch up again purely due to the workload and the sheer amount of content. Dr. Tseng was pretty disorganized, and that's being extremely fair. I see room for improvement, especially because of the asynchronous format I think she probably learned a lot from A sesh and will improve for C sesh, such as quality of lecture, amount of busy work, and length of exam.

My advice for this class for those who are taking it C sesh: It sucks, and I really hated my life while taking this and also 1 other class at the same time, but you will be SO HAPPY when you get this over with. Make sure you don't fall behind, go to ALL the office hours if you can, especially the TA ones and go ham with asking questions. Do not wait until a few days before the exam to start the practice questions. There are a lot of them, and they are very close to exam questions so make sure you complete all of them every week. Achieve is not so important, but the practice exams and questions are the most important. Make sure you leave time to ask questions about them in TA office hours before the exam to work out any kinks. The exams are tough, and they really make you think. I think the exams were the hardest part, but if you study and don't panic it should be fine. There's lots of buffer points anyway, so you can afford to miss points on the homework. Make sure you check the homework with TAs or on a groupme or something.
You can do this and it might be hard, but you'll finish and be so relieved you're not doing this with 2-3 other classes at the same time!

Professor Tienson Tsneg is the worst professor I have had at UCLA. I am taking her summer course right now and the course is not even done, but I am warning you to drop when you have the chance. First off, she explains concepts horribly and does not mention specific details that are necessary in order to understand the concept itself. Also, her homeworks and exams are awful and she expects you to have telepathy and read her mind as to what she wants you to answer. The questions are worded horribly and do not make any sense. Seriously, most of the time you do not know what she is even asking. Additionally, the grading is awful and unfair in my opinion. She requires very, very specific answers and you have to be exact with what she wants. Even if you answer the question and it is technically correct, you will still get a 0 because it was not worded how she would answer the question. HONESTLY I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN A BRUINWALK REVIEW BUT SHE IS SO BAD THAT I TOOK THE TIME TO DO SO. AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Professor Tseng is teaching this class currently for A-sesh and C-sesh this summer 2023. For context, I am writing this review during A-sesh and the class isn't even over yet. When I say drop this class if you have her, I genuinely mean it. She might be the worst professor I've ever had at UCLA, let alone the worst teacher I've ever had in my life. I'm convinced UCLA just hire anyone who wants to get paid at this point, because there is no way she is teaching at one of the highest ranked schools in the world. The material itself isn't that bad, and luckily, I'm currently studying for the MCAT so the biochemistry that I learn from my other textbooks are far more useful, but I feel sorry for anyone who actually is going into this expecting to learn anything from her.

Her exams and her questions are awful, like they are so bad, they are so ambiguous and so unclear, that you could spend 30+ hours a week studying and you'll still be like what on earth is she asking me to answer right now. The grading scheme is pretty fair, which is a saving grace, you can still get an A even if you bomb the two tests. It's just highly demotivating taking this class with someone who doesn't care at all, her OH are completely useless, her answer keys to her practice exams are also useless, and her answers are nothing like the specific rubric that she expects us to write down. How are we meant to know the kind of answers she wants, if she doesn't even post it herself on HER answer keys. The whole class is honestly a joke, honestly if it wasn't an impacted course I would have dropped it by now, but for those taking this class over C-sesh, do yourself a favor and just take it over Fall with another professor, it's really not worth the stress.

Like I said, the material isn't even bad, but you're just going to feel so demoralized with her tests. I'm honestly the kind of person who enjoys tests because I like learning material and testing myself with how well I know it, and I've been that way with all the other STEM classes here at UCLA. This course will actually make you want to stick pins in your eyes.

This is my first ever review on Bruinwalk and I literally decided to make an account just to write about her. Usually, I too will ignore Bruinwalk reviews because I always believe that I can do better and if I try hard enough I will get a good grade. But with this class, it's literally just impossible to even understand what she even wants from you, so if you still want to take it with her after reading this, honestly you're hella brave and I respect you, wish you the best of luck! Hopefully you'll prove me wrong, but be warned, it is impacted, if you're feeling even a little bit of doubt, drop as soon as possible so 1. you avoid the transcript notation 2. you get the summer session refund, it's a joke that I paid for this course.

Would not recommend at all, if possible please take this class with another professor.