This class sucks. Karen has us watch prerecorded lecture videos in addition to watching her in person lectures. A lot of the lecture videos she made us watch were made by random dev bio YouTubers. We also have exams scheduled right after Halloween and thanksgiving. She also made us take an exam at the end of week 2! When we were taking the exam, she realized that she forgot to print two pages of the exam. She yelled across the lecture hall at a TA telling him to print the missing pages. It was so hard to focus on my exam amidst all the commotion she caused. Her temporary solution was putting the missing exam questions on a projector, but it was impossible to see since so many questions were missing. When Karen realized that this wouldn’t work, she had us walk to the front of the room to look at it until we finally got the missing pages with 10 minutes remaining. She decided to give us an extra 30 minutes, but we had to finish the exam outside. There were literally 240 students sitting on the ground taking the test in their laps. She also has no office hours and is never available to speak with students outside of class. She gave me a BS excuse to get out of speaking with me. Avoid her class, and her in general!!!

This is so far my favorite class in UCLA and bats are a really cool topic. However, the tests are quite frequent, and there is a lot of stuff to remember. I recommendation is to make flash cards after every class about the terms and learning objectives.

Grade component: midterms * 3 (on week 3, 6, 9) + poster session (on week 10) + discussion attendance + deep dive paper + 2% extra credit from attending assigned seminars. Nothing assigned on final week.

Professor Sears is an excellent professor. Her lectures are organized, her exams are fair, her homework is reasonable, and she delivers content clearly. The course piques students' natural curiosities by inviting guest lecturers. She also went above and beyond to ensure that her students were still receiving a good quality education amidst the TA strikes, holding office hours despite being exhausted; extending deadlines; and modifying the final exam and project.

Overall this class was very interesting and challenging. The class consists of three exams that are non cumulative. There is a lot of content to learn between exams and can be challenging to study for them. I found studying early and understanding the vocabulary helped me prepare well for the exams. Discussions were relatively easy points (just easy worksheets we’d turn in). We had a group project at the end of the course that was a bit challenging given the last minute changes due to the strikes but that was overall pretty manageable. I definitely recommend taking this class with Sears! She tried her best to accommodate us all through this rough quarter. The course material is really interesting and has been my favorite material learning at UCLA.

Exams are basically just memorization of lecture content (random genes and what they do, obscure details from guest lectures). Prof. Sears definitely tries to help you learn and get you engaged in the class, but ultimately falls short in her attempts. Not a horrible class, not great either.

I came into this class thinking it would be manageable after reading the previous reviews. However, I was completely shocked and frustrated at how different this quarter was. To begin, the tests were ROUGH. The first one was decent but definitely not easy by any means. The second one was one of the most difficult and confusing exams I've taken in college. It included so much content on guest lectures, which was difficult to make sense of. The third one got moved online due to the strike, so it was manageable. The lectures aren't necessarily bad, but the exam questions are so much more complex than her slides. On top of that, the discussion section activities were time-consuming and not useful in my opinion. I was hoping the final presentation would make up for all the difficult assignments, but I scored lower than I had hoped. We have no way of knowing why we received the grade we did on the presentation as well. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this class unless it goes online or something of that sort. It was very stressful and there wasn't much of a curve to compensate for all of the difficulties (both inside the class and on campus) this quarter.

This class was very interesting and engaging. I really enjoyed the material and the guest lectures were always informative and always sparked my interest in the research the professor was doing. Class had 3 exams instead of midterms or finals. I really liked that because none of them were cumulative. Instead of a final there was a group project that was simple and straightforward. Despite the strike and one hectic midterm, the professor was accommodating. She went online and even made our group project digital instead of in person. Overall, the class was on the easier side and I would recommend it to anyone who wants an interesting and easy upper div. The other reviews should not be a reflection of the class. I think they need to have a bit more self reflection themselves.

The strengths of this instructor were that when I spoke with her, she seemed like a nice person. Also, her own powerpoints were organized and clear. However, it was hard to get a hold of her at the beginning of the quarter. Her office hour times were unclear/not available until the middle of the quarter. Something I did not like was how she uses lectures from other developmental biology youtubers. I would get it if the class was still taught online, but we are back to normal, especially since she makes us take in person tests. It was always so hard to know what to write down for those youtuber lectures because I did not know what she would quiz us on. Therefore it took 2-3 hours to watch one 30 minute youtuber lecture. Also, she makes us do too much busy work. The deep dive paper she had us write took too long. The group presentation also took too long. They both do not enhance the course material, it just feels like busy work. Also, the tests were a mess to say the least. The questions were not reflective of the actual material, you had to think about what she would think. Completely arbitrary. During the first test, she forgot to print out the two last pages for my version of the exam. She made everyone with that version go to the front of the classroom and look at her projected slide for the question. It was completely ridiculous. She was also yelling to her TAs across the hall to print out more pages. The TA ended up getting the pages at the end of the class. She let us stay for an additional 30 minutes but we had to take the exams outside the hall while sitting on the ground. The sun was also very bright and it was hard to see the paper. She ended up giving us 1.75 points of extra credit for one multiple choice question she thought was unclear. This is despite the fact that she created a chaotic environment so it was very hard to focus. The second exam was better but she was not even there to proctor. I had to ask the TAs questions and they did not seem to understand the logic behind her questions. It was so bad. She needs to stop making test questions so arbitrary since these tests are back to normal and in person.

I honestly think the discussion sections were just excuses to add more work to this already difficult class. The discussion section did not expand on the course. Instead, it felt separate. The assignments were too long and difficult. I spent way too much time on them. Hayden going on strike did not help things. I understand that he wants more money, but him going on strike really affected my learning. I do not feel like I am able to learn as much because I cannot ask him questions and KAREN does not answer my questions either because she is too busy for me or something. I think the strike was a disservice to us students. Hopefully the teacher realizes this and gives us some extra credit.

The only real strength that this professor has is that she made this class online in the end (but exams were still in person). She did have many weaknesses. First of all, she had us watch random developmental biology YouTube videos and expected us to understand every aspect of the videos. She also invited guest lecturers to speak to the class and the topics they talked about were way above everyone's heads. Despite this, her exams contained a lot of questions related to these guest lectures. Her normal lectures were just meh for the most part. She was also never present to answer questions. She would always take forever to respond to emails, and sometimes she would just not respond period. The exams were difficult and I felt like the questions asked were too specific for an undergraduate class. Her conduct during exams was also poor. For the first exam, she forgot to print pages and had us all go to the front of the classroom to see the questions. She wasn't even present for the second exam and I couldn't ask questions. She also has a weird obsession with in person exams. It's really weird. She needs to change the way this class is taught.

The TA Hayden has a lot of weaknesses, chief among them being that he decided to go on strike in the middle of the quarter and never spoke to us again. It's a disservice to us students, especially considering that I pay a lot of money to go to this lowly state school. I wish I went to Cal.

Sucks