Selling the textbook:
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/**********032866/

The exams for this class are very difficult and require a lot of studying and a good understanding of the material. However, lectures are super engaging and fun. This class also requires a lot of participation in section for a variety of projects. This is good backup for other easier GEs.

Professor Phelan was an extraordinary professor. I did not consider myself a 'science person' until professor Phelan completely changed my perspective. He was very engaging and his content was so interesting- which is a very hard this to maintain doing online school. other than the class itself, we was a very approachable and friendly person that helped me relate more to the professor and interact more.

Prof. Phelan is an amazing lecturer and super funny guy in general. The class was asynchronous and he posted video lectures every week that he intentionally made shorter than the allotted class time. His videos were very engaging and entertaining, and he does his best to explain biological concepts using examples in popular culture or just interesting examples in general. At the beginning of every week he hosted a 15 minute live session to engage with his students and go over the week's breakdown. The textbook notes are a lot of work and very time consuming, but I'm honestly not sure if you even have to do them to do well in the class. I don't remember the exact grade breakdown but we had a midterm, final, participation during section, weekly quizzes during section (lowest grade dropped), weekly problem sets (not too difficult), a problem set group presentation, and a group debate (sounds daunting but was actually pretty fun). He also offered an extra credit music video project. The midterm and final's multiple choice sections were not very difficult. The long responses on both exams were a little confusing and had a bunch of parts, but not too bad either. I took this class as an easy science GE (I took IB Bio during high school) and would highly recommend to any non-STEM majors.

Due to covid, this class was asynchronous which means that Dr. Phelan recorded weekly lectures, posted them to ccle along with weekly problem sets and one of the questions on those sets served as quiz at the beginning of discussion. That means that your quiz question was given a week before the actual quiz. Dr. Phelan was extremely engaging in his lectures which were very clear and during his office hours he showed how much he cares for his students. He uses books which he wrote himself so they are very good resources. Personally, I almost never read the book, but still managed to get an A range on the midterm. I think the final, which I received maybe a C on, was what dragged my grade down to a B (along with some of my discussion posts which weren’t the best). However, considering that I did not read the book and fell behind on lectures, I think a B+ was a good grade. I also think it goes to show how interesting the class was! This class will have you look at your life in different ways. It was definitely one of my favorite classes last quarter so I would definitely recommend it!

The only bad thing I have to say about Dr.Phelan is that he took very long to respond to emails. One of them never got a response, but the man is probably busy so :)

LS 15 with Jay Phelan, aka The Notorious J.A.Y, was a good time. He is unfathomably good at lecturing. He makes students excited about biology. This is far from the biology that goes "Mitochondria = The Power House of The Cell", the class is learning the mechanics of evolution and genetics and how those two things play a large role in human behaviors. And to be fair it's pretty fascinating, with units about food preference and digestion, kindness and altruism, drugs, hormones, DNA fingerprinting, and even culture. You come to learn that all of those things are constrained by evolutionary biology. Be wary, THIS CLASS IS NOT AS EASY AND LIGHT AS EVERYONE MAKES IT SEEM. There are weekly homework and quizzes (just one question from the homework), and two very dense, curved exams that require a lot of studying. Some of the material is also quite technical for a class that is meant for non-life-science majors and can be challenging to master. Skimming the textbook is best, honestly, he gives you most everything you need to know in lecture (take notes), many complained that reading the Textbook and Mean Genes was kind of useless. I had Nichole (Andrea) Evans as my TA, she was super sweet, caring, and easy-going, my favorite TA thus far at UCLA. She also did a fantastic job clarifying some of the more confusing parts of the course. Thank O' mighty, thou most divine Jay Phelan for including extra credit for this course. I would not have gotten an A without it. This class is pretty popular, you will probably have to enroll using your first pass. Material is interesting, Jay Phelan is funny and a pleasure to talk to during Office Hours, this class takes a bit of work but is a good GE nonetheless.

SO if you're looking for an easy STEM GE...this is not the class for you!!!

don't get me wrong, this is an amazing class: it's engaging and the material is super relevant to life - I definitely got a lot of conversation starters out of this class. based on the material alone, I would highly recommend this class. it's hard to imagine anyone not getting some good stuff out of it.

but, as many people have mentioned, the tests are HARD. and this is coming from someone who took the class online (where the tests were open note/open book and we had extended time). I studied for weeks for both the midterm and the final and oof...rough! it's definitely possible to get an A on both, but it required wayyyy more work than I would have ideally put in. the multiple choice questions can be pretty specific and the short answer questions require a lot of time/work/specific wording; you'll probably be working until the very end of the exam time. phelan is very helpful in giving out a list of review questions before both the midterm and final - these review questions are HUGELY helpful in helping to prepare for the exams, I cannot recommend completing all of them (and thoroughly) enough. definitely the best way to study imo, all I did was answer these questions over and over again lol. make sure to ask your TA for feedback on these answers since they're the ones who'll be grading your exam

personally I didn't find either textbook too helpful. there's a lot of reading required for this class and it's pretty dense. phelan covers things well in lecture. what is life is pretty important if you want to answer the multiple choice questions on the test properly tho - as mentioned before, sometimes those questions are really specific and are only mentioned briefly in the textbook.

not sure how the class is normally structured, but during COVID-19 the class was point-based, with almost weekly quizzes (lowest quiz is dropped), grading for these was a bit harsh but overall useful in helping you prepare for the short answer questions on the test. we also had a debate worth 40 points (not graded too harshly but definitely helps to prepare thoroughly). participation is pretty important, we also had to do discussion board posts every other week (each DB post is worth 30 points, so make sure you do them!!).

there's a fun extra credit opportunity towards the end of the class where you make a music video/movie trailer based on a course concept. it was really cute and the teaching staff were pretty generous in terms of the amount of the extra credit they give!

overall: a really great and interesting class but NOT an easy one - you'll have to work hard to keep up and score well

I AM SELLING THE TEXTBOOK ""What is Life, 4th Edition" PDF VERSION FOR $5. Text me at ********** with your zelle info and email. You only need this textbook so you can do well in this class. This is a great class and is interesting.

Phelan was such an engaging professor to learn from. His slides and course material is coherent, and he shows up to lecture very prepared. I would recommend taking this course!

Text me for the physical textbook, Fourth Edition "What is Life? A Guide to Biology with Physiology?"
I am willing to meet up in Westwood/ship out!

**********)

Phelan is a great professor that makes his lectures and material very relatable and applicable to real life. He's funny and engaging and genuinely wants his students to do well. There are quizzes in discussion each week based on a problem set of about 7-8 short answer questions, and then the quiz is just one of those questions, exactly as it was written in the problem set, no tricks. So if you can memorize the answers to each question, you'll be set on the quiz. Midterm and final are long and take the whole time and graded pretty tough BUT he curves a LOT so it doesn't matter at all. Pay attention to the examples he uses in class, they usually end up on the tests. He doesn't test you on meticulous details, mostly overall ideas. If you need to take a science GE and aren't normally a science person, take this class!