Maloy is a fantastic professor. He is extremely accommodating and understanding. As for every LS class, you have to purchase LaunchPad, the online textbook. If you buy it online, it gives you the option to buy it for one year. LaunchPad is pretty easy points, and although it is a lot, you should only pay attention to the learning objectives. We had an individual portion and then a group portion for the exams, which was extremely helpful. You have to answer why you changed your answer if you choose to do so during the group portion. Maloy himself is a wonderful professor. He has so much passion for this subject, which makes it way easier to stay engaged during lecture. All the lectures are recorded as well, but you have to attend to receive participation points via iClicker Reef.

Maloy was a great professor! He was understanding of the needs of students and kept his lectures very informative and engaging.

He structured the midterms and final to be first done by yourself and then second done with a group and then averaged those two scores which was really nice.

Overall would very much recommend taking it with him.

Highly recommend taking genetics with prof. Maloy! Everything is extremely clear and the exams are very doable. Pay attention in class and the pre-class quizzes, then you'll ace it. A great upper elective!

Professor Maloy is an excellent lecturer; concepts are always clearly explained and applied(in fun and interesting ways too!). I highly recommend getting questions answered directly in class either by raising your hand or using the chat function. Prior to an exam, it is really helpful to review Launchpad PEQs, Clicker Q's, and to attend the Problem Solving Sessions that the professor administers. I also found doing the LA worksheets to be very useful as well as reviewing learning objectives that were on the weekly slides. Launchpad for me was beneficial in learning the details of the course topics, and lectures would solidify the bigger picture and how to apply those concepts. Discussion Sections for this class were also really great for elevating understanding. Overall, just stay on top of your work and don't miss out on participation points and getting to solidify your understanding during group phases of exams(and you'll enjoy it)!

107 was by far the easiest science class I've taken at UCLA. Material is incredibly straightforward even without remote learning, and exams had this group phase portion which made grading really chill. This class should not be 5 units. Maybe they do that to standardize LS 107 with the 7 series, but it's more of a 3 or 4 unit class at most. Minus three or so concepts in the middle of the quarter, I didn't really learn anything new. The only thing that took up time was pre-class videos, and you can play them at 2x speed.

Take this class!!

There are a lot of reviews about this class being tough, and maybe that was true before, but Professor Maloy was EXTREMELY accommodating during the remote learning transition.

His lectures were reasonably engaging, especially since the clicker questions (graded for participation, not correctness) forced you to pay attention. The online textbook and activities were a bit tedious, but they are very easy. You read through the textbook, do some brief quizzes (many of which have multiple attempts available) and you get participation points. It tracks your progress, and a lot of people lost points here for no reason.

Aside from the easy participation and clicker points, discussion worksheets were fairly simple and our TA went over everything in depth at the end of each session.

Exams were designed for our success. You completed the exam individually and then worked as a group to compare answers. If the group decided to change an answer, you simply filled out an answer change reasoning form to show that you actually understood the concept and learned. Then you'd be graded on your corrected collaborative exam (as well as your participation with the group.)

Even if this class were in person and more difficult, I'd take it again because Professor Maloy is a great instructor who genuinely cares about his students.

I took this class with Prof. Maloy teaching the first half of the class and Prof. Zamudio teaching the second half. Overall, the class was not too bad, but the tests are somewhat tough to crack. There is a lot of workload each week, with a bunch of pre-class review questions, reading guides, a discussion section assignment that is completed in section, and practice assessments of learning to complete. However, there is a decent amount of extra credit offered in this course, which makes it easy enough to get an A if you just do all the required work. The tests (AoL's) are split into two parts, with an individual and a group phase. At the beginning of the quarter, you are put into learning pods with a few other students and this is your team for the quarter. You take the first phase (by yourself) on Canvas and it opens up Wednesday of week 4, week 7, and finals week, and it is open for the entire day with 2 hours for the first two tests and 3 hours for the last two tests. Then, for the next two days, on Thursday and Friday, you can talk with your group about your answers and use your textbook and other class materials. You then submit an identical test on Canvas where you are allowed to change your answers, but you have to submit another document that details which answers you changed and why you changed them to get full credit. Each phase makes up 50% of your overall score for that test. Everyone complains about this class because the tests have a lot of ambiguous wording, which is true. The best way to practice for this would be to attend office hours and problem solving sessions in which you can expand your knowledge on how THEY want YOU to think (though I was able to do well without this). Additionally, you are able to drop a few assignments if you have to miss them, but, if you complete all your assignments, this works out to having a point buffer in case you lose points on a few assignments. You can miss three lectures (lecture participation and attendance is expected), two weeks of discussion (discussion participation is also expected), a week of pre-class review questions, one week of practice assessments of learning, and a week of reading guides. If you are able to master this format, you will be able to get an A in the course.

𝐏𝐌 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 (𝐰𝐞 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞) 𝐭𝐨 @𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐬@𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥.𝐜𝐨𝐦

I took the lecture that was taught by both Professor Maloy and Professor Braybrook. Honestly the professors are both gems, but the course is difficult. You have weekly Launchpad readings that take a long time, but they post reading guides on CCLE. If you just take notes on what is on the reading guides and skim through the rest of the Launchpad readings, you should be fine. Since it's a flipped classroom, you are expected the learn the material before class and come to the lectures ready to apply the concepts you learned. You can miss a few clicker questions, but they do count for participation and are extremely helpful for the midterm and final. For all the midterms and finals, we had an individual and a group portion, and our final score was the average between the two scores. Maloy and Braybrook hosted problem solving sessions before the midterm and final, where they gave us practice problems and we could work on them individually or in a breakout room. Maloy and Braybrook are great lecturers and explain concepts very clearly. They are very approachable and patient, and they will answer any questions you have at the end of lecture or during office hours. If you need to take this class, take it with either of them

THIS MAN IS A KING. 100% RECOMMEND. Professor Maloy and Professor Braybrook (he co-taught with her this quarter) were honestly the perfect professors for my first quarter and I will very much miss them while taking 7B. Both professors were very engaging and knowledgable about the subject; I think their lectures were the only ones that I didn't mind going to because they taught very well and answered every question thoroughly. Maloy and Braybrook's chemistry is so amazing, so if you're lucky enough to get a class with them, you are set.
TAKEAWAYS (this was written while classes were online due to COVID, so anything may change when going back to in-person classes):
LAUNCHPAD READING: Ok this is the only downside of the class. Every week you have to do about 2-4 hours worth of reading/video lectures/video animations/review questions (if you are taking notes at least). I personally took notes, but this could be a waste of time. The minimum you have to do is skim the reading, skip the video lectures and animations, and pray that some angel posted the review question answers on Quizlet. Most of the reading is not worth studying in depth but can provide a good overview of what is going to happen in the lectures for the week.
LAUNCHPAD EXAM QUESTIONS: These were pretty helpful, so I recommend taking these more seriously than the assigned readings. The midterms and final were kinda framed like these questions. What's kinda scary is that some questions on the midterms and final had questions that had content that were on these questions but not in the lectures, so its useful to use these to study.
LECTURES/CLICKER QUESTIONS: These are probably the most important resources you get in the class. Due to COVID, lectures were on Zoom, recorded, and posted on CCLE (the slides were as well). You gotta attend lectures so you can do clickers, but considering these are Maloy and Braybrook lectures, you shouldn't dread attending. To study for the midterms and final, you HAVE to go over the lecture slides (all the content you need to know are on these slides) and clicker questions (very similar to questions on the tests). The clicker questions emphasize what you need to know for the midterms and final.
DISCUSSION: I had a great TA (shoutout to Maddie) as did everyone else. What matters, however, are the worksheets you have to submit. I actually forgot these weren't graded on completion so I got a few 50% on some of them (oops). But these can be very usefully when studying for the exams.
MIDTERMS/FINAL: I heard a lot of people struggled with these tests, but if you study smart you can do very well. What I did: reviewed Launchpad Exam Questions (NOT THE READINGS), reviewed lecture slides and clicker questions, reviewed discussion worksheets, and attend the problem solving sessions that Maloy and Braybrook organized. The saving grace: individual and group phases. I wish every STEM class adopted this method of test taking. There are two phases: an individual phase (where it is "closed-book" and you take the test on your own) and a group phase (you have two days to discuss the test with a designated group of students and you are allowed to change your answers on the test); each phase is worth 50% of your overall exam grade. This relieved a lot of stress and actually helps you learn the topics through collaboration and discussion. Piece of advice: please don't memorize every detail about cellular processes (they will provide diagrams of the genetic code, cellular respiration, etc.); the exams are very application based.
Overall, this class was pretty great and the professors were amazing. I would honestly take this again. So far the LS7 series hasn't ruined my love for bio. Lastly, please read the syllabus because everything is on there (it was kinda annoying when someone asked a question that could be answered by the syllabus).