Lectures: He takes attendance for his lectures, which is quite unfortunate because if he didn't, I would not attend a single one. He goes really slow and covers the bare minimum compared to the information in the course reader. He's a funny and nice professor, but his lectures bored me and I often listened to music during them.
Tests: Everyone stresses memorizing your course reader and you'll do fine on the midterm. I took that literally and memorized everything. Do not do this lol it's a waste of time. While you should focus more on the information in the course reader than from the lectures, the midterm really wasn't as thorough and specific as it was made out to be. I didn't take the final because he made it optional (due to coronavirus and online classes). There were 2 online quizzes that you had the weekend to do and they were 5 questions each and you could just use your notes on them.
Homework: There's no homework, just reading the course reader. I would keep up with this, even though there's no hard deadline.
Labs: The labs were every other week, which was really nice. There were lab quizzes but they were based on things you did that day, so you didn't need to prepare ahead of time.
Overall: Take this class! It's an easy GE and actually really helpful if you want to learn about health/fitness.

Generous professor. Lecture attendance is mandatory. I personally didn't go a lot, but it did make the readings from the course reader easier to understand so would definitely recommend going to class. DON'T FALL BEHIND ON READINGS. Falling behind just makes it a lot harder to cram before the midterms/final (or maybe might be just me because I suck at memorization). Labs also take attendance, but they're pretty easy and helpful for the project. My TA (Aref) was very helpful, would definitely recommend. Labs are scheduled for 1 hour and 50 minutes, but don't usually last the entire time. Lab quizzes are given at the end of the activities. You have about 25 minutes to do them, but it is plenty of time and pretty straightforward. I got full points on all 3. Project can be done in an all nighter, but would definitely recommend starting at least a week before the due date to not stress out as much. Workbook can be done in a few days, doesn't require to read the entire chapter, but definitely should to understand the content. Overall, doable class if you do your part in putting in the effort.

I love Esdin. He's so sweet and funny and the class isn't very hard if you read the course reader. You can afford to skip lectures as long as you don't let it tank your attendance grade. I probably attended 80% of the lectures, and read the course reader through before the midterm and final. Overall, the class is interesting and not too much work.

If you want an easy GE, take this class. This class has a really low time commitment and you do learn a lot of valuable information here. If you are already into working out, fitness, dieting, etc., then definitely take this class: it'll make this already easy class easier and keep you motivated in achieving your goals. The most important thing about this class is to take it one bite at a time. Complete a workbook chapter per week and start the lifestyle project early. The professor really emphasizes that this class isn't one that should create any stress and it's absolutely true. The professor himself is really sweet, caring, and kind. The only bad thing about this class is you have to be there at 9 AM, but being in class that early wasn't even bad because both the material and professor Esdin were really interesting! Do yourself a favor and take PhySci 5 with Professor Esdin.

This class is very applicable to not only life, but to other classes in the LS realm. I feel like it added and increased my knowledge of previously learned topics. Esdin is an AMAZING professor and I would recommend taking a class with him while at UCLA. He makes lectures engaging and very easy to follow along. I appreciate how much he understands his students needs and concerns. I have never had a professor who was so easy at explaining difficult concepts. Tests, labs, homework, and project were very manageable and not boring!! This class truly made an impact on me.

This is a review for LS 7C, which has the same content as LS 2. Much of what can be said of Dr. Esdin is said in the review posted below. He is a good professor who knows what he is talking about, but his exams are super hard, despite being only T/F or Increase/Decrease/No change sort of questions. You have to understand the material at a conceptual level (if I increase this, how will it affect this mechanism)? Make sure you don't lose points to launchpad activities or clickers, because you want to maximize the amount of points you would lose on exams. Discussion worksheets are also a must for review, because similar questions pop up on the exam.

Overall, Dr. Esdin was very accommodating with the transition to remote learning. LS7C is so much more interesting and genuinely applicable than LS7B and I definitely enjoyed learning about the content so much more. We covered topics like body systems, cell communication, CRISPR, etc.

Although LaunchPad as usual is annoying, I found it to be much less of a chore compared to 7B. The last few weeks were mainly video lectures (which you honestly don't need to watch because they don't relate to what's covered in the actual lecture). Since classes were entirely online for this quarter, we still had 2 midterms, each of them with a FRQ portion and a MCQ portion. All are open-note. I feel that they made the MCQ portion easier than you would expect for typical LS7C exams, but the FRQ portion could be challenging (the answer key is very specific and the TAs could grade hard). Discussions are mandatory as usual and submitted on GradeScope.

For studying, I would definitely recommend going to CLC sessions – the LAs are all incredibly helpful! Take advantage of your LA's knowledge in discussion section as well, they're often more willing to guide you through the answers :) Also take advantage of CampusWire, it's a great resource and other students' explanations are always really helpful!

Took this online because of corona. Easy to understand and interesting to learn. Lots of stuff to turn in, but not time consuming. Dr. Esdin was also super nice about the virus and the protests and ended up giving everyone 100% on the final. Even without that though it is an easy class that can be super impactful on your life. Would recommend to anyone

I took this class as a GE because I heard it was easy. Esdin is honestly a great professor, based solely on the fact that he was incredibly understanding of everything going on with Covid-19 and BLM. It is great to see a professor who actually cares about the well being of his students. I did really bad on the midterm so I decided to take the class as a P/NP, since I was already set on getting A's in my other classes and I didn't want my GPA to lower. Since Esdin was so accommodating to the events that are going on in world, I ended up passing the class with an A-. I do recommend taking the class because it teaches you so much about nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle.

I took this class online bc covid19 and the overall experience was pretty good, although I thought it would be easier bc of what previous reviews have said. Nevertheless, this class exposed students with lots of useful information on diet and exercise, something that I would carry on and remember for life. The class consists of lecture quizzes, lab quizzes, lecture participation assignments, lab assignments, lab participation, diet and fitness project, and a midterm and final. He posts prerecorded lectures, but labs are in real time. Midterm was slightly difficult because of 5 short answer questions, but final was 80/80 for everyone because he was accommodating due to BLM. For the exam you really need to study every single detail in the course reader because the exam is super in detail. Anyway, I totally recommend this as a GE; it's not hard to get an A, just do all the required work and study hard for tests!