So, you don't know what class to take. Its been 20 minutes now and you're still scrolling through bruinwalk wondering:
"Whats a FUN GPA BOOSTER?"

This one! It's easily the easiest class i've taken thus far and, here's why:
(1) The content isn't very difficult-- the most difficult thing you will be given is a project, a project where you must assess your own health. Yes, it's kind of boring but, truth be told I did it in 3 days lol. Nonetheless, you're probably wondering: well, how are the tests tho? My friend, the tests are essentially given to you if you just: (1) Go to the lectures and, (2) take the quiz at the end of each chapter of the course reader -- I kid you not, some of those questions will be reworded on the exam. So, I recommend just finding someone to do these with so you get that A+.

(2) He genuinely cares for students in his class. This guy actually noticed who and when students did and did not go to class, he wasn't mean at all about it, in fact made a few jokes about it :P Furthermore, if you are taking this class because you are genuinely curious about how to be healthy, I guarantee he will take the time to hear you out and answer any questions or concerns regarding your or your loved ones health.

(3) This class is about how to be healthy. Regardless of where you came from, what you believe in or who you are, you are bound to have some questions about how to be healthy. This class answers those questions. This is easily the only class where memorizing a lot of the content is actually useful as it will literally help you and your loved ones all throughout your life.

So, it's up to you to choose whether or not to take this class. Regardless, have a wonderful day and, if not: life.

Do not take this class if you have/have had an eating disorder! One of the major elements of the class is a final project in which you have to record everything you eat in a week and calculate its nutritional value, which made friends who have suffered in the past fall into old habits.

I felt this class was a little misleading. Content was basically biology, very boring and the only real physiology component was the project which actually was interesting. Professor is a nice guy but the questions on all the daily quizzes, biweekly quizzes, midterm, and final were awfully worded. Felt I understood all the material but constantly had to guess on all the vague questions. Class is overall manageable and a light workload, just not interesting and annoying based off the questions.

This was such an easy class to fulfill the life science GE. It's basically like ninth grade bio but easier. Professor Esdin is so considerate of the current time, and clearly just wants people to learn something from his class. There are weekly quizzes, the lowest one was dropped, and a final project which takes in total about 4ish hours, but if you spread it over the quarter it should be fine.

Pros:
Very doable, no homework, tests are not proctored, slides are helpful, but not posted.
Lecture participation quizzes are easy and keep you from falling behind. Exams are multiple choice, and information is easily found in the course reader/lectures.

Cons:
You have to buy iProfile and the course reader which are kind of pricey, and iProfile pretty much sucks. I'm not even sure it works right because according to my diet analysis I'm deficient in everything and should basically be dead. But that's beside the point.

If you have any interest or background in nutrition and/or exercise, this class will feel pretty boring. The information is pretty common knowledge in my view, so I'm not sure if all the people who said this was life-changing just didn't take biology in high school or needed a refresher. Still, would take again, as it was reasonably interesting enough and an easy A.

***COVID-19 REVIEW***
I recently took PHYSCI 5 with Dr. Esdin and had a very positive experience! Dr. Esdin is an incredibly passionate instructor. His extensive knowledge about the course material is evident. He does a great job verbally breaking down the content into simpler ideas by repeating key points in lectures and coming up with helpful analogies. The required course reader is basically an outline of the recorded lectures, but it does cover some specific ideas that aren’t mentioned in lecture, so I would suggest you read it and take notes on those points in case they pop up on a quiz.

I feel that Dr. Esdin structured the class very well because although the class was asynchronous, you couldn’t actually fall behind; we basically had a 12 hour window to watch the lecture each day and take the participation quiz which kept me accountable. Those quizzes were easy points, so as long as you take good, detailed notes on the lectures, you’ll never miss a question.

In terms of the grading in this class, points were distributed among smaller assignments. We had the daily participation quizzes, 5 lecture quizzes, 5 lab quizzes, a midterm, a final, and the lifestyle project. This definitely decreased my stress levels and made sure that I took the time to master the material. The phrasing of the questions on the lecture quizzes and the midterm were a little subjective/misleading at times, so I feel that was the reason why I lost points, not because the material was difficult. The lifestyle report is easy, but very tedious. I’d recommend not waiting until the last minute to start it.

In terms of the bi-weekly lab sections, I had Alice as a TA and she was great! She did a nice job explaining concepts that would be tested on lab quizzes and giving feedback before turning in the lifestyle report.

Overall, I believe that PHYSCI 5 will end up being one of the most relevant courses I will ever take at UCLA. Dr. Esdin is an awesome professor who really cares about his students. Getting an A in this class is totally doable if you put in the work. More than anything, the class will change your outlook on diet and exercise for the better.

This class was entirely online and asynchronous for this quarter. The class was comprised of lecture quizzes, lab quizzes, attendance quizzes, labs, lifestyle project, midterm and final (optional). To be concise, lecture is straight up out of the course reader. Professor Esdin goes over the main takeaways from the course reader for an hour. I personally liked the idea of the labs, but gauging your own health using them was somewhat inaccessible for me. We also were not required to do conduct test trials. The multiple choice questions in this class were really, really easy but sometimes vague and confusing. It was sometimes difficult to identify what exactly it was asking. My TA took about an hour and a half for each lab/section meeting. Taking the final was optional because Professor Esdin granted everyone an A due to the effect of BLM. Academics aside, I wouldn't recommend this class to people struggling with EDs because looking at your iProfile may be triggering.

I love Professor Esdin. He is very smart and coherent and made learning super fun. Overall, it's a very easy class, but you learn a lot of practical knowledge. Only hard parts of getting an A is making sure that you study for the midterm and the final (midterm is slightly harder), but as long as you get a B on those, I think you can end up getting an A if you get 100 on all the little quizzes and participation, which is relatively easy.

Selling fall 2017 course reader along with the workbook and iProfile, text me for pricing **********

People be writing some mean reviews.

I don't care what people say, it's not a hard A. It's about 90% effort based. Grade breakdown is as follows:

631 total points. All points are weighted the same.
55 points for lab/lecture attendance. You just need to show up for 9% of your grade. Even better, you can find friends to sign you in (maybe do a rotation between a few people, and you show up for maybe 10 lectures the entire quarter).
100 points for the workbook. It's really not a lot of work, maybe 15 minutes per week, and you get full credit for full effort (as long as you answer most questions decent enough).
100 points for your project. Takes about 6 hours to hammer out, and as long as you follow the guideline you'll get full points.
6 points for filling out myUCLA professor/TA eval.
40 points for "lecture" quizzes. 2 quizzes 20 points each. Supposedly based on lecture material but it is actually straight from the course reader, all super easy. You don't even have to you read and you can look through the course reader to find the answers.
30 points for discussion quizzes that probably aren't even graded. Another free 30 points. Probably less effort point for point compared to filling out the eval.
150 points for midterm, 150 points for final. Not cumulative. About 45 questions in 50 minutes, all multiple choice. If you read one or two chapters at a time to stay caught up, and then read it again before each exam, you should be totally fine. I didn't quite pay attention in lecture, I had maybe a page front and back of notes in the last 6 weeks; reading the course reader sufficed. Most people walked out of the exams within 20 minutes (this includes double checking work). There's some people saying you have to memorize every single thing on the course reader. Not completely off the mark since the exam questions are pretty specific. Either you know it or you don't. But let's consider your situation though. You're aiming for an A. Assuming you've already gotten 331 free points (TA literally says that you should get full points on everything else as long as you do it, and he's absolutely telling the truth), you need to average 80% on each exam. Some statistics for the midterm: the mean was 79% and median was 81%. For the final: mean was 78%, median was 83%. Pretty much the average student gets an A in the class. And let's be real, the average student in a 400 person lecture probably doesn't go to class or read the course reader.

Grading aside, this class is actually pretty interesting and relevant to most people. There's tons of people who go to De Neve and pig out, and even more who go to BPlate thinking they eat healthy and way overinduldge on peanut butter and spritzers. The class is all about raising awareness about lifestyle diseases and providing a solid knowledge base so you can make informed choices in your life. It's probably more relevant than Ethno or Scand.

If you're looking for an A, this class is for you. The difficulty of this class is probably a 2/10. Workload is probably 15 mins a week, plus a single 5-10 hour project depending how slow you work. Perhaps the hardest part of the class is signing in every lecture at 9AM for participation.

Professor Esdin is very passionate about this class and cares about his students understanding the material and taking this knowledge with them after the quarter ends. I had this course online and definitely had an easier experience than usual due to the world circumstances, but I really did enjoy listening to this professor and learning the content in this course. Definitely an easier GE course at UCLA, but also a valuable one. Complete the (decently light in my experience) course work on time, and review notes before quizzes and tests and you'll have no trouble getting a good grade.