Gowaty is a terrible teacher. I just realized that a year after taking her class, I never gave her a review. I highly disliked her. Though the material is incredibly interesting (I loved it) her class setup doesn't reflect that at all. A large portion of your grade is dependent on the TA's grading of your weekly 2 page papers, but my TA hated my papers. I felt like I followed the prompt thoroughly, but after discussing my paper grades with him (which were always graded late, so I didn't know I was writing my papers poorly until my third paper was due), it wasn't that I didn't follow the prompt, it was that I didn't follow what HE wanted from the prompt. So he'd literally say that you could ignore three quarters of what the prompt was saying as he wanted you to focus on just one sentence and base your paper off that, which was why my grade was low. In other words, your grade is completely subjective. Our tests were also terrible. On our first test she gave us a question she never went over in class. She refused to take it off the test even after a majority of the class got it wrong and requested her to remove it, because she said we should have learned it for our LS1 class. Well, most of us were juniors and seniors, so if we did learn about it, we learned about it 2-3 years ago making specific recollection of things not emphasized difficult. More than that, however, I am confident to say that we never learned about that material covered on the question in our LS1 class. Suffice it to say, she preferred to maintain her pride and blame the class for getting the question wrong then admitting that her test was flawed. The overall class average on that test was poor. Also, when someone brought up an opposing viewpoint to hers (that was based on sound evidence), she would say things like "so what?" and look down her nose at them them. I remember actually laughing when she said that, because she sounded so condescending I couldn't help but laugh from disbelief. All that said, I actually do consider her a nice person. Her class layout is online lecture, in class discussion. But her views are completely tunnel vision, and in a class where she encourages us to express our views with her, I think it is more fitting to say she would like us to discuss opinions, as long as they're hers. Perhaps as a guest lecturer her experiences would be highly valuable, but as an educator, her class layout is messy, her pride makes her students feel disrespected, her tests are ridiculous, and that is not even including my opinion of her TA. She did once have someone in her lab come in and talk, though. He seemed cool. Now, a year later, I can honestly say that as much as I loved the material and thoroughly immersed myself in it at the time, I cannot recall a single thing about what I learned in that class.

I forgot to add a few things.

Be aware that Dr. Gowaty's class is a little unorganized. There's no textbook for this class. Instead, there are a bunch of articles for each theme, which can take a week or two to cover. The list of articles is highly intimidating because it is typically 5 - 10 research articles, and they are not separated by required or optional. Instead, you have to infer from her lecture presentations which are necessary to read, or you must ask the TA for guidance. Even then, it's a lot of reading because these are often DENSE research articles that she wants you to read through with a fine tooth comb.

In my opinion, paying attention in lecture is more important than doing the readings. Her lectures go over all the important points in the readings. Unfortunately, her lecture slides are cumbersome and her lectures themselves are a little unorganized. It's up to you to figure out what is really important to know for the exam. Don't fret! It's not too hard if you pay attention during class.

All in all, I never did the readings except for the ones pertinent to the assigned essays, I paid attention to maybe 75% of the lecture, and I ended up with an A-

I highly recommend this class. It is thus far one of my favorite classes. Dr. Gowaty is sometimes a little intimidating, but her class really guides you into become true scientists (as cheesy as that sounds). In class, Dr. Gowaty challenges paradigms (ex. natural selection) and forces you to see the flaws in many of them. It definitely teaches you to really question everything.

Note: Dr. Gowaty does not have typical office hours. If you want to talk to her, you will have to make an appointment at her convenience and you will Skype her. It's nice because it ensures 1-on-1 conversation and it saves you the trouble of trekking to campus.

The class consists of 5 short essays, 2 exams, and a presentation.

The essays generally revolve around what was taught in class and what you read from the assigned articles. Definitely talk to your TA about how to go about structuring your essay. If you don't, it's hard to do well on all of the essays, especially because you have to be super concise and to the point in your essays.

The exams aren't too bad. Most people do well on them. The TAs will go over what to expect on the exam. If you follow their suggestions, you should be set.

The presentation required us to make a script for a video similar in nature to Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno. We turn in the script and present a "pitch" for the video to our discussion section.

Professor Gowaty's class was really fun! You have two midterms, four mini writing assignments, 2 homework assignments, a group project, and no final.

While it looks like a whole lot of work for ten weeks, it's completely doable! The writing assignments are mini "essays". You are given a prompt and you answer it, citing either articles given in class or outside sources to back up your thesis. If you are a little unsure on how to structure your essay, talk to your TA. My TA (Charlie) was super helpful when it came to answering questions.

The two homework assignments consisted of reading an article and answering some questions. They weren't difficult questions--all the answers were found in the article.

The group project consisted of critiquing Isabella Rossellini "Green Porno" (I won't spoil what it is--google it on your own to find out!) What most people wound up doing was picking one of her videos and critiquing it using the information we had learned in class. Again, it might sound pretty daunting but it was a pretty easy project.

I did really well on both midterms. What I would do was take notes of everything she said in lecture. To study, I would go back to my notes and focus on things she kept repeating or things that she heavily emphasized in class.

And, like stated above, there was NO final for this class. :)

I really enjoyed Dr. Gowaty's class. Sure, she might have some unusual classroom rules (she invites you to not come to class wearing perfumes or smells on your clothes, which is hard given that a lot of us like to wash our clothes in nice smelling detergents; she doesn't hold in person office hours), but she was one of the few professors that made an honest effort to get to know ALL of her students. She would invite and encourage everyone to skype with her at least once during the quarter. I did skype with her and it was a very worthwhile experience. If you take this class, make sure to skype with her! She will remember you in class and who knows, maybe that will be to your advantage later. :)

She also offered our class an extra credit assignment. You had to watch some bird migration documentary and write down a list of proximate vs. ultimate questions.

I ended up with an A in the class. This has been one of my favorite classes here at UCLA and I definitely recommend it!