IGNORE ANY NICE COMMENTS

Simply put she is awful, and you will be sorry if you take her.

Professor Halpin was not a very good teacher. I mean all she pretty much did was read off what she had in her slide shows which I thought was pretty pathetic. It would be nice if she would've gone in depth more. Also, the labs were a waste of time, and the T.A.'s were harsh graders. It's seriously not an English class and at least if we are grasping the material, it's logical to base the grading on that. Ok her midterms and finals were the worst. GO TO LECTURE. She excludes things on her slides and you need to write those down for your refernce. Also she makes you memorise alot and half the things aren't even on the test which sucks. GET HER PAST EXAMS. Will helo trust. Well at least for the midterms. Also, I find it a waste of money for her to make students buy an online access pass that makes studetns answer questions whci count as attendance. IDC if it was 20 bucks I am a broke college student!! And seriously if a students wants to miss class that's on them to get the material or not. Like whats the point of that. Well any who, just study your ass off for her finals and midterms which are a killer. Most people I knew dropped the course. I think the reason most people dislike her is for her grading policy and her hard exams. If you can avoid the course, then do so and take another better professor.

Wow there are some pretty dramatic people below. Very immature. Neither the course nor the professor were bad. In fact, the professor was a very good speaker and the material was interesting.

Halpin is the worst professor I have ever had. She is super unfair on the midterms and each multiple choice is worth 4 points. She also set a one worded short answer to be 6 points. I mean..really? She stumbles every lecture even though she just reads off the slides. Everything is based on lecture so the book did not help that much. The labs are pointless and the in lab assignments are boring and useless. You basically walk around the room looking at printed out powerpoint slides and answer questions that you can't even find on the slides... the first 2 weeks have lab hw that is essay format and make sure you have an easy ta because mine graded so hard. on the tests, don't bother counting on partial credit because when I basically put a synonym of the answer I got NO CREDIT. She always asks 'is there a question?' annoyingly when people are talking and once shut the door on a student trying to get into the classroom from the front because she was annoyed. You have to memorize so much stupid taxa and there is a lot... she says she will curve if the entire class average is below 75% but that is rare since she makes the class out of 1000 points so it is super hard to get an A. DO NOT TAKE HER.

by far the worst professor i have ever had in my entire life. save yourself. DO. NOT. TAKE. HER.

honestly, she's not horrible but just be prepared to memorize everything to the last detail. her slides are important but you should also use the textbook. her slides are extremely general and when she gives the exams, the small random details will come from the textbook (from a random caption on a picture or something like that). it's not a hard class per se but you need to dedicate a lot of time to it. so don't take it with any other time demanding courses. the labs are a joke. they're worksheets not real reports and you pretty much walk around the botanical gardens looking for leaves and write stuff on a worksheet.

Courses taken: LS1, EEB100

I had professor Halpin for LS1 her first year of teaching, and then took her for EEB100 in winter of '12. I had a choice of this or Psych 118 (comparative psychobio). I wanted to take something more bio related, so, ignoring the warnings on bruinwalk, I stupidly decided to take this class.

Let me just say, Halpin is not an educator. She's not your friend. She does not like you, doesn't care about your grade, your education, or anything else. She's interested in getting through her lectures as fast as possible. You can tell that she feels only disdain for the students she's teaching by: not offering a realistic regrade policy, not letting you see the multiple choice you missed on exams, not responding to emails, having the exams graded by outside graders & giving them back to you 4 weeks after you took them, awkwardly asking 'is there a question?' over and over in lecture when she wants students to quiet down, etc..

Honestly, think twice before taking this class. What should have been a normal, interesting bio class turned into a frustrating snorefest. After 5 terms of getting straight As, this might be my first B.

You have been warned.

Once upon a time, there was an LS1 professor at UCLA named Dr. Halpin. She sucked. The end.

I'll tell you how to get an easy A in this class. Go get the old exams from her class because she rarely change the questions. Memorize all of those questions and the right answers and you're set to get at least an A- on the exam. Don't be stupid and memorize all the lecture slides because you'll be wasting a lot of your time. The test is not curved, so if you don't do this it'll be harder to get an A.

I took EEB 100 and LS1 with Halpin. People need to sack up and appreciate the fact that all they have to do is memorize her slides to do well on her tests. While this was admittedly difficult for LS1 due to the large amount of material, the ecology half of EEB 100 was just a rehash of LS1, with 1 or 2 new topics thrown in. I've had 2 other teachers require the same clicker, so I can't single her out for having to pay $40 when I would have anyways - plus they are easy points in an uncurved class. While she isn't the easiest teacher for LS1 if you aren't capable of sheer memorization, the ecology portion of EEB 100 probably couldn't have been easier. About a quarter got an A on the test worth 45% of the final grade (you get to make an 8.5x11 cheat sheet which you can just copy her entire class on). It's definitely reasonable to get an A in her class if you put enough effort in.