Dr. Sharmila is an extremely nice professor, but this past quarter was a challenge. She's always positive and high spirited (which was nice for an 8AM), but the problem was that this was her first quarter teaching this course. She often over-explained concepts that were very simple to grasp (for example, calculus derivatives), and it just confuses the class. She loves to use the iClicker for participation, and if you ask a really good question, it will be used as a class discussion.

The class concepts are not what you should be worried about because honestly, you should be good with a basic understanding of calculus. Beware of the labs for this course. The labs consist of computer coding that grows increasingly difficult as time goes on. Go to TA office hours as frequently as possible to get the best grade you can. Luckily, everything was equally weighted (20% for hw/midterm/lab, 30% for final, 10% for participation) so overall, it gave you good wiggle room. I got a C on the midterm, a D+ on the final, and still managed to get a B in the class because of my labs and homework.

I believe someone below commented, take the Life Science 30 series, but don't take it with Venugopal. I agree. The math itself seems like it should be easy and straightforward, but somehow it ends up being very convoluted with her. She is a nice lady but she can't really teach. My TA was a far better teacher than her. My TA was Long Nguyen, if he's available again I would recommend him, he was very helpful. The labs are quite confusing and stressful, the TA had to run around and explain everything to everyone the entire lab section. But the TA will help you finish the lab if you go to office hours and you're not tested on the labs, so just make sure you get them done even if you don't understand them.

She is a very nice person, but does not know how to teach. The lectures get cut off everytime because we run out of class time and she says she will review it next class and never does . You can go to her office hours but it does not really help.The course should not be diffucult, but she makes it so .

take LS30 series but never take Venugopal, trust me.

Dr.Venogupal is an absolute disaster. She cannot teach for her life. She is not organized and her office hours are note helpful at all. The TAs did save my butt in this class with the lab though. The class and the topics are pretty straight forward (once you read the textbook). Do not take this class.

Professor V is a nice person in general. However, she cannot teach. Her slides are difficult to understand because her explanations are all over the place. She lectures directly from the textbook, word for word. Her midterm and final does not have extremely difficult material but due to the lack of knowledge/teaching in lectures, it appears extremely hard. Half the material on the final was not covered in review sessions. She made review sessions during class times (ex: 10 am and only went over one problem out of 10) Overall, I feel as if the class is very simple itself however she does not do a good job at explaining the concepts and all the tests are conceptual. Labs are pretty difficult after the first couple but TAs/UAs are willing to help at office hours. Did not enjoy this class at all.

Dr V is really nice but her lectures are not. I've heard that she is really good in her other class. But I don't recommend taking her for LS 30A. Her explanations were not clear and tests were hard.

Wow indescribably poor at giving lectures. Final exam was a disaser, she kept changing the numbers and parts of questions DURING THE EXAM. Did not stress what to study and during her reviews was often incorrect in her own answer choiced and methodology. Thank goodness the TAs could sympathize with us during the labs.

Professor Venugopal is a very nice person but she is unclear in her lectures. She is also difficult to hear at times. The labs that are due every week are difficult but the TAs and UAs are very helpful and have plenty of office hours. The math doesn't seem like it should be hard, but she does a poor job explaining it. I feel like the tests would have been easy if I was given a proper explanation.