I will not sugar coat things and pretend like this class was a breeze, but that is just how biochem is. Even though most people were struggling throughout the quarter, it is mainly because of the content of the class, not the professor. Professor Gober was great! He is a funny and charismatic guy who is constantly making jokes in class in order to keep us engaged. I found that attending lecture live was super helpful for the first 6 weeks of class. Taking notes during lectures for these weeks was manageable. If I missed any information, I would just rewatch the recording later in the night. Additionally, we had so many biochem geniuses in the class answering very good questions and clarifying very confusing topics. Honestly, the chat and in-class community helped a ton in the beginning of the quarter. However, once we started metabolism, this class got scary. Again, none of this is Gober's fault. There was just a TON of content to cover in just three weeks. At this point, I stopped attending the live lectures and began to just watch the recording after. Gober likes to use slides with many pictures and very few words. As a result, it is VERY important to take note of the things he is TALKING about. This is where the recordings came in handy. I could just pause things when there was information overload, take my time to catch up, and get back to continuing the lecture. My experience with the TAs was also positive. They are there to help you! They all provided super good reviews of the week's content. We also weren't restricted to the discussion we enrolled in. We could attend any discussion led by any TA each week. This flexibility was super helpful and it also gives you the opportunity to basically have multiple review sessions of the material with multiple TAs each week! Also, the textbook was my lifesaver for this class. It did a great job of clarifying the stuff that went over my head in lecture! My biggest pieces of advice for anybody planning to take this class is to just pay close attention to what Gober says during lecture and to be very specific and concise on the exams. Unfortunately, the tests were unforgiving if you were too vague. There are always keywords that the TAs are looking for when grading; you could explain the concept very well, but if you missed the keyword, you automatically lose points.
I know this all might be scary, but this class is doable if you work really hard! I just want to share the advice and info I wish I had before starting this class back in October.

Super chill guy, I loved taking this class with him. Normally I am not a big fan of biological science courses, but I found this class to be super engaging, even with the online lecture format. Gober lectures using slides, and writes down important notes on the slides. His lectures don't go super in depth, but they cover pretty much all the important points you need to know for his exams. I also found that reading the suggested textbook was pretty helpful when studying for exams.
Also another thing that makes this man the GOAT, he literally will tell you exactly what topics each question on the exam tests on the Friday before the exam. This means you get a question by question study guide for free on every exam. He also made the final no-harm in light of the events happening towards the end of the spring quarter. The exams themselves are pretty reasonable (he did make the final very hard because it was no-harm). They aren't hard conceptually, but the grading can be somewhat nitpicky. Make sure to include the key terms they want. If you don't include the specific key terms they're looking for in your answer, you'll get marked off even if you technically answered correctly and explained the topic.
Lastly, this class is super light on the workload. No homework, no quizzes. Just two midterms and a final. I found that just attending lectures and then studying before each test was sufficient to do well, so you don't really have to put much work into this class other than studying for the midterms and final.
Overall, I think Gober is the man to take 153A with. He makes the class about as easy as it gets.

Professor James Gober is one of those professors who tries to hard too be funny (he's really not). His lectures are alright I guess.

Despite that, I HIGHLY recommend for everyone to take this class, especially over Tienson. I took this class my spring quarter, and my roommate took this Tienson's class while I was in Gober. The difference in the amount of work and content we need to know between the two is quite big. Tienson is much harder, due to the fact that there are weekly quizzes, worksheets that need to be completed to understand the material, and hard tests. Because of the extra material they need to learn and the weekly quizzes, students in Tienson tend to understand the material better, simply because they have to put more work into the class.

Gober's class is based on the following: 2 midterms, 1 final, and a 10 point extra credit, along with a 4 point extra credit question on the final. There are no weekly quizzes to keep you in "check." Most of the worksheets are busy work that don't need to be completed, espeically after the 2nd midterm (the first few worksheets should be completed tho). I swear, literally every single question on Gober's exams were drawn either from his old midterms (check out the bruin test bank), or pulled from his worksheets, with a question or 2 that Gober made up himself. Best part? For his review session, he will pull the midterm out in front of you, and read off the questions you need to know. As long as you frantically write everything down, look for the answers on chegg or course hero or the class worksheets, you're pretty much set. Going over his slides are also a must.

Between Tiensons and Gober: if you're taking a lot of classes this quarter and want the easier class go with Gober. If you want to work hard, be responsible for learning more content, and have a bit of a grade threshold (from the weekly quizzes), go with Tienson. I would recommend Gober, simply, because he is the easier professor.

Anyone who is complaining about Fall 2020 probably thought Gober was an easy A but forget that he's teaching biochemistry. While he is one of the easier professors, this class is not an easy A ESPECIALLY during the pandemic. It's biochemistry, it's what is expected. Gober himself is a great professor and allowed us to drop Midterm II due to grade discrepancies if we chose to do so. He is also really funny and keeps you engaged during class as much as he can because honestly, biochemistry is tough and it's easy to disengage when you're lost. I honestly loved his lectures and didn't mind rewatching them because of his little jokes here and there. Some of the other reviews by my peers were a bit rude and disrespectful, so I am here to leave a positive review! Alexa and Chris were my main TAs I went to and were amazing! I recommend going to their discussions or just watching the recordings.

The only issue I had with the class is that he made the midterms a bit more difficult due to it being open notes. However, we were only allotted a certain amount of time so there was no point in it being open note since there is no time to look at notes, therefore I would think there would be no need to make the class more difficult than an in-person course. The way to perform well on these exams is to not fall behind. Attend live lectures and mark in your slides where you missed stuff. Rewatch it later at night when he posts the recording, and TYPE your notes. Typing your notes saved me on exams because whenever I forgot something really small, I found what I was looking for more efficiently than flipping through papers. Write down every phrase he mentions and try to do it word for word because they are particular on key terms. There is a fat curve for midterms!

Take 153A with Gober!! His lectures were engaging and he made zoom lectures less painful. His exams are hard, mostly because the grading is super strict (need to have super specific wording) but he does go over the topic of each question before the exam.

I don't remember ever going to class and not laughing my ass off. He is the funniest professor I've ever had and this helped me a lot in focusing during lectures. I learned a lot of cool stuff by Dr. Gober. He doesn't just go over the standardized lessons, he also talks about applications of biochemistry which was so cool. I truly enjoyed his class to the point where I looked forward to the next lecture. For me, reading the textbook helped but I know that for some of my peers, it wasn't so helpful so try it out and see for yourself. Discussions were wack, not gonna lie. Some TAs would present incorrect information so I was better off rewatching lectures than going to discussions. Also, the practice exams that the TAs gave were irrelevant to the class exams so don't waste your time on them. Office hours were lit. Dr. Gober is down to earth and does his best in making biochemistry as less evil as possible. What a guy. Take him!!

I took this class online, and I have mixed feelings. There is little work outside of lectures. There are problem sets but honestly those were not helpful for the exams. I like how we could attend different TA sections. I only attended Alexa's section. After taking the first midterm, I realized I haven't been very efficient in my exam prep. From what I experienced, in order to succeed in this class, you must transcribe the lecture notes, again TRANSCRIBE the lectures. The exams want specific phrases mentioned maybe once, twice, or not even in the class (maybe briefly mentioned by the TAs) or is somewhat expected of you to know. I was lucky that I didn't get marked entirely off for a problem. Even then these little points that you miss on each problem for not having the very specific phrases down add up. Being in the Groupmes made me realize that our grades may more or less be based on luck. Sometimes, the way you write something can mean the difference between two letter grades depending on whether the TAs approve of the way you phrased something. Furthermore, Gober gives us a run-through of the entire exam the Friday before and also gives us ~major~ hints throughout his lectures. I would highlight/mark those, and just dwell on those concepts and extract as much as you can on those concepts so you can spew them all out during the exams. Overall, I think this class might seem chill because Gober always seems chill and the curve seems pretty generous. (A = >80). However, to get a good grade requires a lot of work and hours upon hours of watching and taking notes on those lectures in my case. Our grade is made up of those three exams I got a C+, A- on the midterms and A- on the final to get an A.

Overall it was manageable class.
Since other reviewers explained how he teaches and what went on during fall 2020 (dropping 2nd mideterm and all that stuff) I'm just gonna write about few advice for future students taking this class.
Since you are going to be taking it online, he knows that you'll have the notes handy, so he's gonna ask you about the things he TALKED about that's that directly in your lecture slide pictures (if you haven't taken notes of what he described) so if he takes time explaining stuff, pause the recording write every thing down so that when asked about it, its right there with you.
Focus on the slides where he tells you is going to be important (during the review session right before the exams) and go back to the recordings of when he originally describes them and make sure you took notes of the things that he mentioned.
Yes the grading is picky, if you were asked to describe a tiger and you described all the features of the tiger except its finger nail you get marked the whole question (20points) off. Even though you described all the other parts of the tiger correctly...so if you are not sure, don't write it, its better to get points off for no mentioning the finger nails, instead of getting the whole question wrong because you wrongly described the finger nails. (hope this analogy made sense)
There is going to be a groupme chatroom, ask your peers they're gonna be smart wise asses that are going to be helping you out. i was one of them. i actually learned a lot while trying to help them.
So if you study smartly you'll ace this class. how to study smart? focus on what he tells you is going to be on the exam (what he SAYS, write down notes!) and also study everything in the lecture lol.
good luck

Gober is a good lecturer and makes biochem more entertaining and relatable to real life. He has a generous curve. His tests come from what he says in lecture. He was accommodating by letting us drop the 2nd midterm after discrepancies in grades. The 1st and 2nd lecture had the same midterm taken at different times and the 2nd lecture scored substantially higher. Many people were mad that he didn’t let us drop the 1st midterm as well but the 1st midterm did not have the same discrepancies since the two lectures had different tests and the same average. So that’s probably why you’ll see people with bad reviews even though the final was very generous and straight forward and even had extra credit

Biochemistry is definitely a tough course so regardless of the professor, it is going to be challenging and time-consuming. This is my first quarter at UCLA as a transfer student (bio major) and this class could definitely be overwhelming. Dr. Gober is indeed very funny but I personally thought that the lectures were slightly disorganized and unclear. I would HIGHLY recommend rewatching the recorded lectures as his tests are very lecture-based. Write down tedious details he mentions and also note down REAL LIFE EXAMPLES OF BIOCHEMISTRY that he talks about in the lectures. He is going to give those as the extra credit questions on the final. The textbook is a plus but would say not necessary - would recommend watching AK lectures on YouTube for supplements (they were very helpful to me). Another thing to note is that this class only has two midterms and a final for the final grade. The weight of each test is enormous so definitely start studying early and score well on these tests. Since there aren't any other assignments given in the class, I would recommend using those times to really digest the materials for the class - watch recorded ZOOM lectures, study groups, YouTube, textbook, etc. The tests are graded very harshly as the grading syllabus is VERY VERY VERY SPECIFIC on what they want... It's like they want you to answer the question in one sentence but the grading rubric has like 3-4 points that they wish to be within your answer. TA's insist that they do not want to know every single detail of your knowledge on that specific question but the grading is done as if they wanted you to mention all those tedious things. I think the grading system was the main reason that haunted the test performance for the students. You have limited regrade requests and honestly, the regrades can go either way based on your answers so use them if you think it is a fair game. The tests are also held during class time and you have 50 minutes + 35 minutes for downloading and uploading exam = 1:25 for the final. The midterms are very tight on a time limit so I would not rely on the open note system of the online format and study as if you are taking the exam in person. YOU WOULD NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT TIME TO LOOK THINGS UP IN YOUR NOTES. However, you will have more than sufficient time for the final so the average for the final will be much higher than the midterms. The midterm averages were around 67% and the final average was ~83% for our course. Dr. Gober also curves the class so I believe the borderline for an A was around ~80-81% at the end. I didn't have any resources for Dr. Gober's past exams but having those will REALLY REALLY INCREASE your chance of doing well in this class as test questions are reused.