Grading scheme for *****LS 4*****:
Midterm - 125 points
Final - 250 points
Class participation - 37.5 points (5 lowest scores dropped)
Discussion quizzes - 35 points (2 lowest scores dropped)
Online quizzes - 37.5 points (3 lowest scored dropped)

Professor Pham:
This class was done in a "flipped classroom" way. We had to watch lecture videos (which did not feature Professor Pham, but another guy) that were previous podcasts. Then before each lecture we had to complete a three question multiple choice quiz on CCLE. And then in lecture we mostly went over clicker questions along with some more review of content. My lecture was MWF, but the other one was TR and they had two midterms for some reason while we only had one. Professor Pham was in my opinion a really great professor. He's actually really hilarious and really cares about his students. His accent is not even that bad to be honest. May be jarring at first but it's really easy to overcome. In lecture he is pretty entertaining and is really understanding. I really liked having him as a professor.

TA Ashot Papikian:
We had discussion sections once a week for like a little over an hour. They were structured differently between each TA, but we did a discussion quiz for the first 10-15 minutes of class and then went over a series of questions from the textbook. My TA was a little bit dry, and no one was very participatory, but he was generally pretty helpful. He's a little monotone but you can tell he tried to help us as much as he could.

PLF Juliana Smith:
If you're in AAP and Juliana is a PLF, I highly recommend having her. She really helped hone in on the concepts of the course and gave a lot of great examples with extensive explanations for the answers. She is very nice. A little bit awkward, but a really great educator. I feel like I owe a lot of my success in this class to her.

Midterm grade: 113/125
So I went into this midterm really really confident. I understood all of the concepts and went over a handful of past midterms (Pham provides literally all his past midterms on CCLE) and then went over the answer keys for the rest of his past midterms because I got tired of doing them. Pham does a lot of the same or similar questions, so it's pretty essential to go over his past midterms. I fucked up with the instructions for one of the questions, which is why I got a lower grade than I expected.

Final grade: 231.5/250
The final was a little bit more difficult, but not by much, because it covered a lot of the material from after the midterm and a little bit of material before the midterm. It was still manageable if you studied his past second midterms and practice final questions. Again, the questions are to be expected based on what he gives you. So study the past questions and you should do well.

Class participation grade: 37.5/37.5
The clicker questions during lecture were not graded on whether you get the answer right. It was just counted as credit if you answered at least 50% of the clicker questions from that lecture. The number of questions varied from a few to a lot. The lecture slides were posted before each lecture, so I just retyped them. It also included the clicker questions, so I completed those before class as well. I think it's a good idea to really try on clickers as much as you can, because they're good practice.

Discussion quizzes grade: 35/35
Each TA made their own quizzes for their discussion. I heard that some TAs gave really hard quizzes, but Ashot made really easy ones, so it was pretty simple to get full credit on them. The quizzes consisted of one question from the book. If you want, you can do all of the assigned problems in the textbook, but it's not graded or required. Since my TA's quizzes were easy, I didn't need to do the book problems beforehand to do well on the quizzes.

Online quizzes grade: 37.5/37.5
Each pre-lecture quiz was three-multiple choice questions on CCLE. Sometimes the third question was just an opinion-based one and not graded. But you could try on the questions as much as you want, but you will be graded accordingly based on how many tries it took you to get the right answer. These were pretty simple if you watched the lecture videos carefully and took good notes on them.

Overall grade: A
Overall, I'm a big fan of the flipped classroom method. I thought it was really helpful for me to watch the lecture videos at my own pace where I could rewind as necessary, And going over a lot of practice problems in lecture were also really helpful. I find it much more efficient and effective than trying to squeeze all the content in 50-minute intervals.

Pham is literally the most frustrating professor I have taken. He puts incorrect information on practice tests, and if you put this information down on the actual test, he marks you down and insane amount. His accent is very hard to understand, even though he is nice he is not a great teacher.

Pham is a nice guy, he really is. But, he has an accent that's extremely hard to understand and during class he goes back and fourth between slides a lot so it's really difficult to get his point. And, the workload is so much with Launchpad activities, and those aren't even on any of the midterms/finals. The questions on the tests I feel were very unfair because they were ALL true/false and the ones that weren't were worded super confusingly.

Pham is great as long as you are able to get past his accent. He repeats important content over and over again so if you miss it the first time, you should be fine. Tests are very fair, and if you memorize whats on the slides, you'll be set for the class.

LS4 Summer 2016

"Take him during the summer." These are the words of my TA and I can see why. He graciously provides SO MANY PRACTICE TESTS and it is so clear that his tests were noticeably easier during the summer. We skipped a few topics and he told us that because we had less time, we would not go in depth in some questions (for example, he would give a "two gene" mapping problem instead of a "three gene" one; this may mean nothing to you, but it's shiz like this that made me, and the rest of the summer class, crazy (with joy). This man cares. His accent is a little rough, but it's honestly not something that should deter anyone. He goes slowly enough during the summer to guide us through problems that are similar to the exam. TAKE HIM DURING THE SUMMER. I don't know my grade yet, but I have no reagrets (hah).

Pham is the best professor in ls I've ever had. Yes he has a strong accent but he teaches so well. When you get familiar with his accent, you will enjoy his lecture because he makes you think about biology. It's a lot of memorization but he makes you understand before memorizing. He gives you a big picture in class, explain the process. Your job is memorizing after you understand. It's not that hard. I hope people won't hate him just because his accent. He has so many other good things that can make up for his accent.

Dr. Pham is so great. I really don't understand why people hate on him so much. Yes, it can be hard to decipher what he's saying at times, but he is aware of that and makes a conscious effort to repeat important things 2-3 times per lecture and in office hours. And since he is aware of his strong accent, I sincerely think this class would be way harder if he didn't have such a strong accent. I studied for this class everyday and did well- no matter what professor you have, that's what it comes down to because it is ALL memorization. It really isn't a difficult class, and Pham simplifies things greatly. I have never taken a science class here where I have felt as prepared for the exams- he makes it so easy to do well if you're willing to put in the effort! He is such a nice and caring professor, I wish people would forgive his accent since he has so many other great qualities.

LS3

So Dr. Pham is really a nice guy. He has a lot of office hours, and is always willing to help. However, he is a really bad teacher. He has a very thick accent and his English is sub par. I thought his accent wouldn't be a problem when I read bruin walk the first time, but trust me it is. Often times you are left clueless when he is explaining slides, and even basic, material is made confusing because of his lack of communication skills. I studied a lot for his class, and did well however his tests were always unfair. I really liked Pham as a person, however he just isn't a good professor.

I took Dr. Pham for LS3 instead of Dr. Pires and I regretted it once I was in week 5. This guy doesn't teach very well. The first five weeks, he was very slow and no one paid attention. The last five weeks, he was very fast and no one could follow him. His class is heavy on exams which are heavily based off of previous exams. If you memorize the questions and answers to previous exams, you have 70% or more of the upcoming of the exam done.
Dr. Pham makes biology more rote memorization than anything. Better to take Dr. Pires. Her tests are fair and take a bit more thinking. Preps you up for LS4 much better.

I took LS3 with Pham over the summer during session C. I thought he was a very fair teacher. His accent is a little hard to understand at times, but he basically just reads straight off the power point. His tests are straight from the slides so you really don't have to read the book. It can be tricky, but the class definitely wasn't as hard as it could have been. He gets 1 or 2 short answer questions from the practice midterm he posts. His short answer is where most of the points are taken from- he looks for key words so make sure you memorize the names. This class is more vocab than anything and is really doable.