LS2 Review
AVOID this guy. He is angry at himself and therefore cannot teach. The only thing he knows is insulin/pancreatic B cells. H is NOT approachable. He should retire and stop ruining people's grades. The worst part of this class was the combination of Cooper with Flugle. Terrible combination. Avoid Cooper,either start caring for your students or go home Cooper. OK? bye

THIS IS AN LS2 REVIEW NOT A PS 198C

LS2 is definitely not the easiest class on the block but when it came to taking the class (the first half of it that is) with Cooper I found it to be pretty interesting. There were many times during lecture where I would be lost due to the fact that some material is brushed over but simply looking over the slides of that day would fix this for me.

Your grade will be based on two midterms as well as a final. The class is usually curved on the basis that the top 15% of students will receive some form of an A. As for the difficulty of the exams, I would have to say they do require a good mastering of the material but Cooper, and Fain, do not really tend to try and trick you on their exams they simply make sure you know the material. The material covered on the exam is greatly based on the in class power points but do not twist this and assume you don't have to read the book. The book is really helpful in explaining certain concepts that might not be so clear in lecture so it definitely is worth putting in the time to read it.

Personally I preferred Dr. Cooper's segment of the course. Even though Cooper does incorporate as many anecdotes into his lectures as Fain does, Cooper still manages to keep the material interesting as much as he can.

My overall experience with the class was good although at times I really did not like the amount of time I had to put in to reading the book for the sake of understanding particular concepts.

I scored within the top 10% for the first Midterm, top 5% for the second midterm, and top 4% for the Final so my grade came out to an A overall. The class is definitely not impossible just do not let all the reading/reviewing pile up because the material covered is extensive and can get difficult quickly if you are not prepared.

Hope this helps

Course Taken: Life Sciences 2

I took LS 2 with Dr. Cooper and Dr. Fain. Dr. Cooper, in terms of exams, is the easier one of the two. His multiple choice questions are straight forward and as long as you know the general concepts, you'll be able to get them. His free response questions require you to know the concepts well. The question is usually in the form of a laboratory experiment and its results, and we must use the concepts we learned in class to explain why these results were obtained. Dr. Cooper's lectures can be a bit dull sometimes, but everything you need to know for the exams are basically on the lecture slides--you don't really need to do the reading for Cooper, but nonetheless the text is a good supplement to the things he talks about. I find Cooper repeating a lot of the same concepts over and over again in class (he especially loves talking about insulin for some reason, so really know insulin well), but it really helps the material stick to your head. I didn't find the review sessions too helpful unless you had questions to ask because it's in the format of question and answer. Overall, Dr. Cooper was a really nice guy and a pretty good professor. I really didn't like the class because there was so much material to memorize. I like applying concepts rather than just memorizing something and have no idea how it works. However, I did come out of the class learning a lot, and I really recommend Dr. Cooper/Dr. Fain. They were great!