Overall, this class was a VERY interesting class. I LOVED it!!This was my first MCDB class at UCLA and this class made me decide to stay as MCDB major! As all the other people say the averages for the midterms were pretty high as a science class. However the class is not easy. I think the study tips for this class is to review the lecture material before the next lecture so you don't get fall behind.

He will ask you a lot of detailed questions from the lecture notes on the midterms. You won't need a textbook for this class unless when you have hard time understanding the concepts.

Also the articles are on interesting topics as well. The reports are not that difficult but you have to understand it quite well for the short answer parts of the exams.

Since our 2nd midterm average was high, he made the final pretty hard comparing to the midterms. 140 multiple choice and 4 short answers.

I'm sure everyone will enjoy this class since you get to learn about a lot of developmental defects and mechanisms of those. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

His accent isn't THAT bad, it just takes a little getting used to. He's a little boring, but everything he tests on is in the lecture slides, you don't need to buy the book. The class averages for the tests are high, and its important to study and understand there reason behind each technique and experiment. The papers in the discussion weren't too bad, as they were relatively short, read it as you would read any other science paper, the report basically asks for all the important parts of the paper (hence the bullet format) Despite being boring, he cares a lot about students, and is at times kind of humorous

I personally, did not do well in this class no matter how much I studied, but I do not blame this on the professor. He may have a very strong accent that is hard to get by, but he is friendly and endearing. If you are struggling in the class, he is approachable and will try to help you out. He even admits this class is supposed to be better than Lyons, so he wants his students to do well.

I'm asian, and I had a hard time getting past his accent, as I noticed all others did as well. I could see less and less people coming to lecture and falling asleep in class. But, I agree that sitting in the middle, towards the front, and away from anyone you know, you can get past his accent better. Make sure to print his slides in color. So many of his explanations make sense, with the color slides. It's more expensive, but it'll for sure help during lecture. The book isn't necessary in this class, even the teacher agrees not to waste your time on the book as there is a lot of material to memorize. However, I found the book helpful with only the concepts that were confusing. It walks it step-by-step. And also, the readings that correspond to each lecture, are usually only a few pages, unlike other biology classes. So it really doesn't hurt to read.

There are articles and reports due every discussion. I found these very difficult, as the papers are very dense and use a lot of terms that many people can forget since taking LS3. I highly suggest taking a couple of hours to read the articles and writing the reports (3 hours). Just because they grade these very closely, they're picky about giving points. And if you're asking a previous class member for their reports to help you out, be prepared, because he changes a few papers every year. The review quizzes that occur before every exam, are open note. But you should still review before, because they are actually kind of hard and there is a limited time to flip through all of those slides.

The midterms and finals are all multiple choice and a few short answers. There is always a short answer question on a paper you have read in discussion. Except perhaps on the final, I didn't encounter a very detailed question on a paper. But make sure to review papers before the exam. The multiple choice is usually about 50 questions, with 2 short answer. The final, however, is about 150 questions and 4 short answers. So be prepared for a dense final. It is cumulative, but is focused more on the third half of the course. With not so detailed questions on the first 2/3ds of the class. The class generally does well, as the averages were around 74% and 79% respectively. Although those are good averages, the class is difficult.

He has an accent but after a while you get used to it. His class is pretty interesting, you don't really need the book. For exams all you need to do is make sure you understand EVERYTHING he goes over in class because thats the only material that he will test on so just study his lecture slides. He has lecture notes on the class website and those help if you don't understand the slides. Pretty easy just a lot of memorizing.