Big fan of Esdin. His lectures were super interesting and engaging. He made learning a lot about particular diseases easy and manageable. The biggest difficulty I had with the class was with exams. Sometimes he would provide quizzes where I felt I could have benefited from a slightly longer
time. His exams were also difficult in the sense that he has a bank of questions and sometimes the questions correspond to details he never mentioned. Because of that you really have to grind for your grade. Workload was super manageable. The paper was interesting and doesn’t require too much time.

Dr. Esdin is probably one of the best lecturers at UCLA! This class is pretty fast paced, but it's basically
a continuation of 111B. A lot of the material should honestly just be review if you take this class the summer after finishing the PHYSCI core series. However, even if you're taking this at the end of your senior year, it should still be manageable. Dr. Esdin is great at teaching the material and is very clear at explaining topics. He also loves to try and make the lectures entertaining so the lectures aren't too boring to get through. However, the lectures are not recorded unless he specifically says he'll post a video after class ends (so make sure to come to class). The exams were somewhat difficult but were multiple-choice and online. There is no homework, but there are 5 quizzes based on papers that you read (similar to 111A/111B) and 2 lecture quizzes. There is also a research paper (8-10 pages) assigned week 2. He gives everyone their topics randomly and its due on the final week of class. The paper is pretty chill and I personally thought the research was actually pretty fun! Overall, the class is really insightful and applicable to real life. Its really interesting so take this class if you actually want to learn something cool and if you want to have a pretty chill summer.

Professor Esdin has been one of my favorite Professors at UCLA. This class in particular was invaluable as it covered very applicable lifestyle interventions to combat the cumulative/progressive nature of cardiovascular diseases. The subject matter was personal and engaging and his lecturing is definitely a strong suit. Readings and material was all relevant and the class was overall pretty awesome. I'm a bit partial since metabolism, diet, exercise, etc was already interesting to me, but I commuted to this 8am class (~1hr) and always felt interested. I think had the Professor been different that wouldn't be the case.

Dr. Esdin is one of the best professors at UCLA and I thoroughly enjoyed taking this class, even if it meant I had to wake up at 5 AM to get there by 8 AM as a commuter. I think the material is the most directly correlated course with real-life application and learning about how these diseases are caused and managed really enlightened my perspective on my own life. Overall the class consists of weekly (5 in total) research paper quizzes, 2 lecture quizzes (read the questions carefully, I have made dumb mistakes), 1 final research paper, a midterm, and a final (not cumulative). The workload is manageable if you are only taking this class, I studied about 2-5 hours a day, and 10 hours a day before exams, and did relatively well. Paper quizzes are occasionally loaded with DENSE questions but can also be full of easy ones, all depending on which end of the question pool you get. The research paper is on a subject he randomly assigns to you, and the goal is that he wants you to learn the most from the paper rather than just regurgitating to fill up the word count. In its entirety, you will enjoy the class and Esdin definitely makes the lecture worth your while (he's a funny guy!). The best recommendation would be to keep your 111B notes for the Cardiovasc and Liver/Kidney modules, they will be useful. Hope this helps!

Dr. Esdin is by far one of the coolest professors you’ll get in the PhySci department. He is clear and knowledgeable on the material, which makes grasping it easier. He makes everything you learn about apply to real life situations which really helps with peaking your interest in the class. Not to mention he’s funny and doesn’t let you get bored with the info. Esdin is also pretty understanding and if the class seems tired he lets you go early and posts the remainder of the lecture as a video on canvas. The exams were tough (34 questions, 50 minutes) because at times it didn’t feel like there was necessarily one clean answer, but if you study well and know your stuff you’ll do well. Our midterm average was an 85%.

Even if you’re not interested in the class I’d say take it just because Esdin is great.

I learned a lot of valuable information that can be applied in real life. Professor Esdin is passionate about teaching this class, and it shows through how he presents it. The test is difficult, but one can do good on it if they study hard. I will recommend this class to anyone who is interested in learning more about how their lifestyle and dietary choices can impact the development of chronic diseases.

Dr. Esdin was very accommodating during the remote summer session and he always had our best interest at heart. There were a lot of quizzes (lecture quiz and a separate quiz based on a weekly paper) and daily participation quizzes. The final paper was pretty extensive but he gives you an interesting topic and enough time to do it. The exams were tough; we were allowed to use our notes but it was not helpful for the exams. Overall, this was an amazing class and I highly recommend!

PS 136- Cardiovascular Exercise

Fantastic class. Esdin taught this during Session A of 2013. After going through the 111 series of physci, this class was a huge relief in the sense that the topic was extremely interesting and engaging and the class was taught by a great professor. The class covered very relevant information pertaining to cardiovascular disease progression and how exercise and other factors can decrease your risk of a cardiac event.

Lecture topics included: Atherosclerosis, Lipid Metabolism, Diabetes. The grading scheme was like 30 pts participation (attendance), 150 pts midterm, 100 pts for a paper and 150 pts for a final. something like that roughly. the tests were hard, not going to lie at all. I was shitting bricks after the midterm because a lot of it was blank boxes where he would write up a condition or a situation, and you'd have to define it and write an effect. he writes a hard midterm and final so that the class has a nice grading bell cuve. the final paper was very extensive.. It had to be a specific topic of your choosing and 3-4 pages in length, SINGLE SPACED, with at least 10 original journal references.

TIPS:
1.go to office hours. I can't stress this enough. I think it's pretty much a necessity in every phy sci class but just do it. his lectures were at 9-11am MW, and his office hours were usually 8am Wed, but suck it up it's worth it.
2. pick your paper topic early and do not try to write it all in one night. it took me pretty much one full weekend and two all nighters to write mine, but i could've been more efficient.
3. keep your notes from the cardiology part of 111B
4. he says the final is culmulative, but he really just means all the material builds on itself (it does), but he'll really just be focusing on the material after the final.

He says he averages the class around a B-, but I did average on both the midterm and final, got 93/100 on the paper, full participation and ended up with an A. Have faith! this class is definitely worth taking! and buy a used course reader! it's just filled with scientific articles that he doesn't change

Took Dr. Esdin for the exercise class. When I first saw this class on the course website, I didn't think it would be that bad; we're learning about the benefits of exercise right? ... NO, this class is pretty intense and there is a LOT of material covered in 6 weeks (Summer). The class is basically about how a bad diet can affect your health (atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, etc), and we learn how it is affected at the physiological/molecular level. The details get pretty intense, especially when you learn how atherosclerosis develops.

In addition, there is a diet/health analysis paper (3-4 pages, single-spaced) due during finals week, 3 homework assignments (short quizzes), and two exams (midterm/final). He also gives you 20 scientific journals to read, which takes forever, but manageable if you read like 5 per week.

I really liked this class and learned a lot of valuable information regarding diet and exercise, but what sucks about this class is that it's curved (just like any other physci class). So it gets harder to get an A when you're competing with the rest of the class (about 60 students). The grade distribution is like 25-35% As, 30-40% Bs, and 30% Cs or something like that. If you're going to take this class, make sure you don't get rocked by the curve. Also, it's good to take this class after taking PS111B since some of the materials overlap.