The class content is great and she is a great lecturer, however her midterm was filled with unfair, trick questions and the average was a 73%. I don't believe she genuinely wants her students to do well.

The ratings and grade distribution you're seeing are from when the class was online, do not go based on those if you are taking this in person. Unless you want to ruin your GPA, don't take this class with McEvoy. Lectures were excruciating to get through and the professor was reading off the slides with little to no explanation of mechanisms (which is a huge part of this class) and when students would ask questions during class, she would never have an answer. The workload is little, there's one assignment due in the beginning and you can work with a partner. The midterm was cruel and unusual punishment and didn't test our knowledge on important topics at all. The professor gave us 0 direction for what the final was going to look like and provided us with a "study guide" with nothing useful on it. No practice questions, no key concepts we should know, and literally nothing valuable. The class average was a low C and everyone was pissed off afterward. I'm an upperclassman already in the HBS major, so this is a weeder class that I'm required to take. If you're Pre-HBS, take this with a different professor, and if you're not Pre-HBS, why would you even consider taking this class?

Take this class if you want to ruin your gpa. This was this first in person section for McEvoy and it was a disaster. She offered online open response exams during covid and then made ridiculous exams in person. The class averaged a C-/D+ and she does not care. She seems to see this as an ego boost making her exams ridiculously hard. She offers no support, revisions, or any chance to even talk about the exam. My upper division courses are easier than her class. Do not take this class with her as she does not care about your grades or simply being fair.

You have been warned.

This is legitimately the worst professor you could ever take for this class. I kid you not, the testing format was the most absurd system I’ve ever seen. I composed of almost all multiple choice, and every single question was ‘Select all that apply.’ The worst part of this system was, if you didn’t select all (eg some of the correct answers but missed one), you wouldn’t receive credit for the entire question. Legitimately, the average grade on the exam was a 66% and everyone was screwed. This wasn’t just me, as someone who studied their butt off and got 100% on the FRQ’s which only accounted for maybe 30% of the test, this did me no good. I still didn’t do well in the class because of how horrible her exams are, and how unengaging she is in lectures. Take this class with another professor, I promise you it’s worth your mental health.

Don’t rely on the grading distributions, as these were all recorded during covid. The average grade in her class during my quarter was a B. Don’t recommend, literally harder than most of my STEM classes.

the class is very interesting but very hard. The unit exam was 10 times more difficult than expected and asked questions we had never heard of. the average was a D and yet there was no curve. I took this because I am HBS but I would recommend taking it with a different professor. the class is interesting tho

Please give this class a chance! It was genuinely one of the best classes I’ve taken so far at UCLA and is very much interdisciplinary for people who don’t like science, and are looking for a science GE to take (think social issues like redlining, prison industrial complex, etc combined with healthcare). Prof. McEvoy was a great lecturer who mostly repeats, then expands on the slides. Yes, the first exam was unnecessarily hard (especially the mc, oh my). But Prof. McEvoy definitely recognized that and not only held a exam review session, where she gave several unfairly worded mc qs back and some students free response points back (even though my TA explicitly stated they were not doing regrades before this) but also gave 5 extra credit points on the exam for students who attended the next lecture. They heard the student’s complaints about the multiple choice and made the second exam all free response, with 3 ec for lecture attendees again. This was the first quarter the class held exams in person, and it showed—it doesn’t mean that it’ll be like this for the next class.

Lecture attendance isn’t required as the audio is recorded. They did give extra credit to only lecture attendants though.

The breakdown:
55% 2 exams
20% final paper
25% participation, 2 assignments

For the written portion of the exams, I highly recommend skimming over the readings and slides, and making a study guide that explains how the examples given in the readings tie to some of the core concepts of each unit. For the multiple choice, review the slides!! Some questions were super specific, however Prof. McEvoy’s slides were clear and wrote all the info you needed. She was also really kind about any questions related to course content and logistics. Hope this was helpful :)

Not to be pretentious or a know-it-all…but I honestly think this class is pretty easy and really really interesting. You learn a lot about antibiotic resistance and why feeding it to animals is a thing/problematic at the same time, and right now we’re learning about heat and it’s super cool. I will say that the past reviews are a little bit inaccurate—you don’t need to go to lecture at all because 1. they’re recorded (without video though—just audio) and 2. they literally just read off the slide. I don’t know about Venkat, but McEvoy definitely does. If anything, just go over the slides on your own and skip the recording to a part whenever you need some explanation. And not all of the readings are necessary—they repeat pretty much exactly what’s said in lecture, with a little extra information. I just skimmed through a lot of them and skipped the ones I deemed unimportant. The weekly assignments are super easy, just about like 200-300 words (I forgot how long) and discussion is just based off of attendance, with you being allowed to skip 1 as a buffer.
I will say that a lot of the questions on the Unit 1 Exam were very specific about things she brushed over for like 2 seconds during lecture and dedicated half a slide to, and the MCQ was kind of mean (2 of the above. Not even ‘A and B’ or ‘B and C’—just 2. seriously?) but it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. I’d say this class is really insightful and worth taking.

this class is hands down one of the most genuinely interesting courses i've taken at ucla. i took this for HBS as a prerequisite but i truly really loved it. Professor McEvoy was an engaging lecturer with clear slides and i learned a lot about antibiotic resistance. Many of the readings seemed to overlap at times, but they were very important to participating in discussion and getting those points. In most cases, I would do half the readings and I got the gist of it (you don't need to read Island of Dr. Moreau sparknotes is fine). Professor Venkat was equally amazing!!! The heat & society unit was truly so fascinating and I actually really enjoyed the readings. It was such an interesting topic that I had never learned about before.

The class breakdown is mostly participation in discussion sections, 2 unit exams that were open note and available all day, and a final paper in the structure of a congressional hearing testimony. Since there were 2 weeks where discussion was cancelled bc of holidays, we had mini assignments that discussed the readings within 300 words. There were other options like a mini podcast or visual map but writing was easiest for me. Overall, this class was so cool and really solidified that I wanna be an HBS major!!

Took this class in winter '22 along with Dr. Venkat. Dr. McEvoy is great and I enjoyed all that she had to teach! The course is split into two topics: antibiotic resistance and heat and society. Super interesting stuff! Both are great lecturers and they make the class simple to follow for examinations and whatnot if you take thorough notes during lectures. There is a relatively light workload and make sure to participate in discussions because it's 20% of your grade. Lectures are also recorded. Great class!

I enjoyed the material of this class, but honestly, the exams were pretty tough due to the time limit they gave us. You have to take detailed notes in lectures as the exams tend to focus on the details at times. There are two exams: Unit 1 and Unit 2, and I would recommend studying for both of them.