Strongly recommend the cluster with this prof. In my opinion, she was the clearest professor I've had so far at UCLA and a terrific lecturer in this cluster.

As a non-bio (or STEM) major, I've been able to follow and understand all of Prof. Rensell's lectures to the T. They are clear, concise, and the learning objectives and structure of her lectures help people follow along and know exactly what knowledge we need to learn for the final exam.

Terrific professor!

This class has been very interesting so far as we have focused on COVID-19 and GMOs. We do have weekly readings which are long and have to be annotated. However, everything is pretty manageable and has been very engaging. Professor Rensel is a great teacher in making her students truly understand the content. Overall, I have found this class to be manageable for my first quarter and I would recommend to take it.

Overall this cluster is a bit misleading. I thought it would be more about the biotechnology aspect of life, but it is a social analysis class. It comments on adequate access to these biotechnologies which involves a lot of reading so be aware. This class is easy and if you complete all of the assignments, then this class is an easy A+ in my opinion. Here are a couple pros and cons of the class and more specifically Professor Rensel.

Pros:
This class is very easy if you do the work.

Professor Rensel does a really amazing job at breaking down tough scientific principles about biotechnology.

Professor Rensel is always available to talk after class and she does a great job communicating to her students. It is very clear that she cares about her students.

Cons:
This class does have some readings to annotate twice a week. The readings are not outrageously bad, but I probably spent 3 hours a week reading and annotating the readings.

Overall thoughts:
Overall, if you enjoy the concepts of biotechnology AND society then take this class. Specifically, professor Rensel is a great professor in my opinion who provides a plethora of resources for students to succeed. There is also a GMO game which needs to be worked on outside of class. This was not too time consuming, and if you have a great TA, like I did, the discussion work and GMO game become very manageable. The tests were quite easy in the class, and even if you are not a good test taker, there are several other categories that dilute your grade.

To preface my review, a cluster is a team-taught general education course for freshman. I will also leave reviews on the co-professors for this class.

Dr. Rensel was a wonderful lecturer, who always made her topics (relating more to the biological aspects of the course) enjoyable. Her test questions are always the most reasonable on the test, and her grading is straightforwards. It is sometimes easy to put off her assigned readings if you get bored easily.

Overall, if you're interested in biotech, bioethics, or are just an engineer hoping to knock out all their GEs in one fell swoop, I would highly recommend this course.

If you are going to take a cluster, take this one!!! Interesting material, lenient grading considering almost half your grade ends up being made up of participation in the discussions, the GMO game, and homework readings (all of which you should get 100 on if you are keeping up with the basic work). The work load is pretty manageable, we have readings but they are pretty short compared to other clusters. Midterms and finals are sometimes slightly difficult but very fair and clear. Also 1% of extra credit is offered by doing pretty basic extra work
Rensel is the best professor in this cluster. She is super clear, organized, friendly, and just makes her material a lot more straightforward than the other lecturers.

I thoroughly recommend this Cluster course. Professor Rensel is very knowledgeable and kind; the format of the class is very conducive to a student's life, combining weekly assignments with larger projects. The material of the Cluster is fascinating, dealing with topics from STEM that relate directly to society, a marriage that is very engaging and was novel to me.

Hands down one of, if not, THE best professor I've had for fall quarter here in UCLA. Her lectures are very very digestible and easy to comprehend, her slides are very concise but complete with all the important points you need to understand from each topic. She is also very engaging in her lectures making it very easy to pay attention for the whole duration of it. She is always willing and open to questions in lectures and/or office hours. + a bonus is that her topics in the cluster were very interesting to look at! Definitely recommend this professor.

Professor Rensel was my absolute favorite part of this class. Her lectures covered some pretty challenging biological concepts in a very straightforward way, although this may be difficult for non-science majors. She was super friendly and helpful in office hours, and genuinely cares about her students. Her readings were the shortest and the most to-the-point compared to the other professors, and she really prepared us well for her portions of the tests.

I took this cluster because it is one of the few that satisfies not only 4 GE requirements, but also fulfills the Diversity and Writing II requirements. Overall, Dr. Rensel is a very engaging professor who is always willing to clarify concepts, answer questions, and provide extra help outside of class. There is one midterm each quarter at the beginning of the fourth week, and the information is very straightforward and mirrors the learning goals and outcomes provided in lecture almost exactly. I would highly recommend this class to any freshman who wants to get a lot of GEs out of the way!

I am going to agree with many of the people on BruinWalk with my assessment of Dr. Rensel. I thought she was a great professor and and even better person. I may be biased in that I prefer science professors, but she was better than all of the ones I have had before. Her lectures were as straight forward as possible, and she helped all students understand. She led the review sessions and did a great job answering questions. She also genuinely cared about how the students did, and her tests were fair. Overall, she did a great job!