This class really changed my perspective on biology. Look, I'm still not a huge fan of science but Phelan made its boring parts fun. He's engaging and makes watching lectures easy with his prerecorded vides (which felt like watching youtube videos). I was able to maintain a good grade in the class considering I did all the reading and took notes on his videos, but it's not just an easy A. You will need to study for the exams. They aren't insanely difficult, but his questions come from both materials. All in all i genuinely had a fun time learning in his class and Phelan really knows how to put on a smile on your face. I recommend taking it for your science GE as it actually does provide you will some useful knowledge. (Also, get the pdf copies of the books not the hard cover)

I loved taking this class with Professor Phelan. This course was quite manageable and easy to keep up with if you pay attention with the lectures and study before exams. He gives helpful material and a clear layout of each week. He was a great professor for this course, and worked hard to make sure every student was prepared and learning. I would recommend this GE to anyone who needs to fulfill it and wants a more general science GE.

I am conflicted about this class and review. While taking this class, it was easily the best course I've ever taken, high school/college combined. It was the very first STEM class I felt engaged and motivated in, and the only one I felt successful in. I scored 100% on every quiz, did the extra credit, scored well on the midterm, etc. Fall quarter I had been severely sick (going home every weekend, etc.). I was still recovering in Winter quarter. At the very end of the quarter, I had a flare up and fell severely ill, right at the time of the final. I got a C. Going into the final I had almost (if not) an A+. This one test dropped me to a 92.9%. On the point scale out of 723, I was 1.5 points away from an A. It is very out of character for me to email teachers asking for a grade alteration, but in this case I felt it was necessary. Anyways, my grade wasn't changed, nor did I get a response. I get it. Big picture, I guess it doesn't matter, but because I was bed-ridden for 4 months during fall quarter, my grades suffered a bit and I needed every A to help my GPA, so this was a bit of a sore reality.
Overall, Professor Phelan is still one of the best professors I've every had, and did really love his class. It just made me sad that I didn't feel like my work was reflected in my grade.

First, I want to say that this class was much harder than I anticipated. The reviews led me to believe that it was much more laid back than it actually was. There were moments when I genuinely thought I was not going to succeed, despite trying my absolute best on assignments, quizzes, exams, and extra credit opportunities. As a student who does not enjoy math and science classes, I was hoping (based on the reviews) that this class would be less taxing in comparison to other STEM classes I have taken. At no point in the class was I confident that I was going to end with an A. I did everything I could to get an A: communicated with the professor and TA, did the extra credit, watched all the lecture videos, read and took thorough notes on all the assigned readings, etc. Even so, I wasn’t sure about my grade until the very end of the quarter. Don’t get me wrong, Professor Phelan is an AMAZING lecturer. I thought he made the content very accessible and digestible. I just had a hard time with the content itself.

Quizzes: It is definitely worth your while to do the entire problem set before the quiz and answer each question thoroughly. The quizzes are graded pretty harshly so it’s good to be prepared with a good answer.

Exams: The exams had both fair and difficult questions. I would highly recommend going to the review session and taking notes on his responses. The specific questions he goes over during the review won’t be on the exam, but they do help with understanding the material if you are lost.

Debate: For the debate, be sure to pick a topic and reach out to your group early. It was very clear who came prepared for the debates and who didn’t, so it was easy to pick winners in that case. Supposedly, the winners get extra credit but my team won and we did not receive extra credit so I’m not sure if that still happens.

Discussion Posts: I don’t really know what to suggest for the discussion posts because my grades for them were all over the place. I would suggest writing as much explanation as you can for your response. I think you get extra credit if you respond to other people’s discussion posts, so that’s something worth doing!

All in all, take advantage of all extra credit opportunities, and don’t be afraid to approach the professor/your TA. Good luck!

Disclaimer: Took this class during Covid so this class was all online.

Prof Phelan is a very helpful and caring lecturer at UCLA. He presents his lectures passionately and you can tell he wants his students to actually gain something from this class that can help them not just in school, but in life as well. In addition, he feels very relatable as he includes funny stories about his life and never makes the topic seem boring.

Class Breakdown:
Midterm Exam (MCs and SAQs)
Final Exam (MCs and SAQs)
Discussion Section (Weekly)
- Participation
- (Group 1-3) Debate
- (Group 1-3) Problem Set Solution Presentation to Section
- (Single SAQ) Quiz (5 quizzes; lowest score dropped)
Discussion Board Assignments (5 Posts; Not including responses to other posts)
Extra Credit (Music Video/Movie Trailer-Promo)

- Overall, I really enjoyed the class and the prof was pretty flexible and accommodating to the students as much as he could. Asking for our opinions (ex: to stay online or go in-person for the 2nd half of the quarter) and gave two options when to take the final exam. The format during this whole quarter was asynchronous in that the lectures were (very high-quality!) pre-recorded videos, a "week ahead" short zoom at the beginning of the week to discuss that week, and office hours that was on zoom and then in person later on. He also held an online review session before the midterm and final to give questions similar to what we would need to know on the exam. So make sure to write down the questions and answer it on your own to study!
- The material itself was not too difficult as a good chunk was content you would have learned before in AP Bio or a similar class. The new content was not too complicated at all either, so as long as you took pretty good notes on the lectures the exams were easy to pass. For the midterm and final, I found the time given for both exams was enough as long as you managed your time. I used up all the time, but by then I was mostly editing my SAQs at that point. The final was harder than the midterm for me, so try to score higher on the midterm to buffer that final. Although the class is curved at the end depending on how low the class average is. The quizzes like others said before, is one question from the (not graded) homework Problem Sets given every week. So as long as you did all the questions beforehand, you can basically copy and paste your answer making it hard to mess up. You have to do one debate and presentation in this class, but I don't think they grade it that harshly, just try to get it done early. Discussion posts are usually around one paragraph.
- I definitely learned some interesting tidbits from this class that could apply to real life, although I would not exaggerate to say it was life-changing. I found this to be an easy prereq and GE especially since it was online, but you definitely need to put in some work to balance all the assignments and a bit of studying. There are two textbooks with this class, personally I did not extensively read the books, and only skimmed it to answer some questions for the PSets and before the exams. I also had a couple of friends in the class and section to study with, and made doing the debate, presentation, and EC way more fun so that helped a lot with this experience. Lastly, if you do end up taking this class which I recommend if you're looking for a good GE, I highly recommend to go to office hours for questions and just to talk to the prof!!

Honestly, I was a little surprised to get an A- in the class. The material is really really basic (think high school intro biology). Like we went over the basics: punnett squares, evolution, etc. You can read the other reviews of the grading of the class, but I just wanted to say that I guess the class isn't as easy as you'd expect (esp considering that the material is easy). I'm not sure if it was just the graders on the midterm/final being picky, but like I always got really good scores on the MC and then the free response they'd take off points for the smallest things.

Absolutely loved this class. I am not a stem person at all and took this as a GE and I learned to literally love bio which is huge for someone like me. I forced all my friends to take this w Phelan after I took it lol

Prof Phelan is one of the best lecturers here. He is so passionate about the subject and that is contagious. Honestly I used to hate biology but I loved every minute of this class. By far my favorite class at UCLA. Prof Phelan is so enthusiastic, sweet, funny and relatable that you love listening to him.
The class basically explains certain human characteristics and why things happen in certain ways by using evolutionary biology. For eg why are humans more drawn to foods that are loaded with fats and calories, why is it that we are more likely to help relatives than non-relatives, why are people more willing to donate when they get badges etc all explained using genetics and evolution.
Please take notes of the examples the professor discusses in lectures as several questions in exams are about specific examples or require you to write short answer responses explaining the answer by using certain examples. When prof Phelan talks about some animal as an example in lecture, pls instantly note it down and highlight it.
This class was easy for me because I took it in Winter 2022 when things were online and exams were open-book however my notes were very extensive and I needed to turn to them to answer pretty much most questions.
The class requires some work and time but you will enjoy it and love what you learn.
This is one of those classes where I used to talk with my mom every week about something cool I learned in lecture though the content taught in the first 3 weeks is not that interesting however the content in the second half of the class and quarter is very fun and interesting.

Never read the textbook or studied and ended with a B (def a me problem!) LOVED Jay he's an awesome guy who cares a lot about his students. We got "problem sets" each week with 7 questions on average and one question would be chosen at random for our weekly quiz. There were also two group assignments within the discussion. Tons of extra credit opportunities. The class was formatted to where we watched the (very entertaining) lecture videos on our own time and we would meet once a week for 10 min to discuss what we need to do for "the week ahead" (attendance for this was optional.) I would recommend this class and professor to anyone but don't tell yourself getting an A will be a piece of cake! reading the textbook is apparently necessary to get an A lol

WE STAN JAY PHELAN IN THIS HOUSEHOLD. He was truly a fantastic professor who clearly put a lot of effort into this class even though the lectures were online. He really cared about making it interesting and provided fun opportunities for if you went to the weekly "week to come" short lecture (I won a dozen Diddy Riese cookies from him). The midterm and final are long but they are not hard and almost all the information comes from his lectures (a few came from the textbook which wasn't a hard read anyway). The projects in the lab section were good if you had a solid group. And he provided a really fun extra credit opportunity at the end of the quarter where you could make some kind of video about one of the topics in class. Overall, if you want a good life science GE or this class is a prerequisite, I strongly recommend this class.