It's really too bad because I took Epi100A because I thought it would be a straight forward and interesting course. I think it usually is, however NOT with Dr Heck. She is one of the most inconsiderate and disorganized professors I've had at UCLA. It's blatantly obvious that teaching is just her side gig and that she's employed elsewhere as her main priority. She responds to emails extremely late or not at all. Her class expectations were extremely vague and did not stick to the syllabus. Her quiz/exam questions made no sense- sometimes there were long run on sentences, grammatical errors, and sometimes incoherent. She stopped following the syllabus about halfway through the course when she changed up one of our quizzes. Then she decided in week 8 to randomly cancel a take-home quiz that would have aided everyone's grade. Because of this random cancelation, she made our final exam worth a higher % of our grade, which only stressed everyone out. The most annoying thing she did was this: on the syllabus she had "final exam date TBD" so when week 8 rolled around, many students were emailing her trying to figure out when our final would be, since we have busy schedules and this class had been fully asynchronous all quarter. She dodged emails or responded with vague answers. Then on FRIDAY of WEEK 9, she dropped on us that we would have a proctored final exam and we would have to attend it live during the time frames that she chooses. I was pissed because I work full time and she really acted like it was no big deal that she was giving me a one week notice on the date and time of my proctored final. Over 20 students even signed an email asking her to please consider a 24-48 hour window for the exam or consider making it take-home. She showed no empathy and didn't budge. Aside from her utter disorganization, she wasn't even a good teacher. Her lectures were all over the place and it was impossible to know what was important to know and what was just extra info that she thought was cool. There was no real structure in the course which made things more stressful. This class could have been so cool and relevant to the pandemic, but this professor honestly ruined it. I'm not sure what my grade even is yet, I doubt she'll get them in by tonight's deadline because that's how unreliable she is. I would not take another class with her, and I wish I had taken this class with Dr Hsu.

This was listed as an asynchronous course, but do not be fooled: There is a lot of group work. This is not an individual course in my opinion. There are about three to four group homework and one GROUP PROJECT at the end of the quarter. On week 10, these were the assignments due: An individual homework, group homework, group project, group project review, and a final exam. The lectures are not that great, the homework is vague, the professor doesn't seem to care about the lectures. I was so excited to learn about this course, but I have lost all interest. Oh also, as the other comments mentioned, this course is asynchronous but the final exam is proctored, so keep that in mind. There are only a few time slots that she gives you options for. If you care about learning at all, you will NOT learn anything in this class and it will just frustrate you.

the lectures are deceptively easy and the hw just hits u like a truck. the quizzes cover topics that arent really in the lect too