LS2 was a huge step up from LS1 with Professor Kane (about 50% A's). I absorbed so much knowledge in this class in just 10 weeks. This is one of the "weeder" classes for pre-meds in addition to things like the Chem 14 series. You are basically moving through a chapter of material every couple days. There is MANDATORY attendance. At first, I was bored by Professor Schein's lectures and only half paid attention. However, if you closely pay attention you'll realize how helpful having a foundation is when it comes to reviewing the material later for quizzes and tests. Also, I found Schein to be somewhat funny due to his constant encouragement for us to repeat key words and phrases after him, his occasional nerdy jokes, and the tone of his voice. With that being said, this is one of the toughest classes I've taken at UCLA, and I honestly thought I might get a B+ going into the final. The grading distribution is harsh, with only 21% of kids getting an A- or above, so your grade is very dependent on how others in your class perform. For the first time, I truly worked hard in a class, paying attention in lecture, participating in discussion, and studying multiple days in advance of tests. If you are ever confused about something, you should address it immediately as a lot of the concepts indirectly or directly compound themselves. I didn't go to office hours at all, but he is extremely approachable and passionate and wants to help you learn; I clarified concepts by talking to my TA in discussion, who was excellent.

Overall grading of the class:

2 Midterms and Final (100 pts each, 300 pts total): 50 multiple choice questions each. These are noncumulative but really test your application of the concepts. However, if you want to get an A in this class you should try to memorize all of the slides as there are a handful of questions which test you on small details from individual slides, often times precise statistics. For example, to study for the final I simply read through the lecture slides 2 times per day, starting about 5 days before the final. I got 84 on the first midterm, 94 on the second midterm, and 90 on the final. I found the final most difficult but got my worst grade on the first midterm, probably because I didn't study as much as for the other exams and thought I understood things I didn't. You have to perform well on exams (relative to others) to get a good grade in this class. Averages were in the 65-75 range, which I believe is good for a B. You should shoot for at least 85 on each exam if you want to guarantee at least an A- in the class.

Discussion (10 pt quiz each week x9 + 2 pts x9 for attendance, 108 pts total): 12 points each discussion. You get one drop in case you can't make discussion once or do very poorly on a quiz. I would shoot for 9s and 10s on the quizzes. I got 87/90 quiz points in addition to all of the attendance points. Discussion can make or break your grade as well if you're on the border for exams. Some TAs have harder quizzes than the others and don't communicate the material as well as others. I got lucky and had a great TA; quizzes were straight out of the lecture PowerPoint slides (I've heard some TAs pull questions from the textbook which no one really reads even though it is recommended), and she was able to clarify a lot of things I was confused about. I really enjoyed coming to each discussion and felt like it was worth my time. I would highly recommend her if she TAs this class again, Madelin Andrade.

Clickers (34 pts + 15 pts, 49 pts total): Like I mentioned at the beginning, this class requires attendance for about 10% of your grade. Each class, there are usually 2 or 3 clicker questions throughout the lecture that are graded on accuracy. It's not a big deal if you miss a few here and there because there are way more than 34 questions throughout the quarter. This allows you to miss some lectures as well. A lot of the questions can be answered if you were paying attention to what he was just saying. Some were based on your expected "skimming" of the material before lecture; you don't really have to skim, I just opened the PowerPoints on my phone, and a lot of the time the answer to a question could be found on the next slides. There are also 5 "must not miss" lectures during the quarter that total 15 separate points from the regular clicker points. These are also graded on accuracy (which I didn't know), and you can only obtain these points by going to the 5 specific lectures. Do yourself a favor and don't automatically lose points by missing these classes. The distribution of questions is uneven (one lecture had 4 questions, one had 2). Really try to get the "must not miss" lecture questions right because each one is a point toward your grade. I missed one of these questions.

Movie (5 pts total): Professor Schein gives you two chances (you can go to either date) to view the film An Inconvenient Truth, which follows Al Gore during his lectures across the country on global warming. The film is pretty unrelated to the class but conveys very meaningful messages, and I found it enjoyable despite not thinking I would. You get 5 points for clicking in at the end of the movie. Previous reviews said he tests you on the contents of the movie, so I ended up reviewing some of the key facts presented during the film. However, there were no questions on An Inconvenient Truth on my final. If you want to be safe, I would look through past reviews to see what kind of questions he's put on there in the past.

Overall: LS2 is a class that you need to keep up with on a weekly (and maybe even daily) basis to succeed in. The weekly quizzes kept me honest with my learning of the material throughout the quarter, but when it came to exams, I felt like I already knew the information and was simply reviewing it. Definitely focus on things from a macroscopic point of view, in addition to memorizing small details from the PowerPoints if you really want an A. Schein is all about pathways and orders and, of course, the concepts. He'll often times on tests take a concept but then ask you to apply it in a way different than how it was presented in the PowerPoints. For example, on the final, one question asked what the purpose of ADH (anti-diuretic hormone) was. We had been told that it raises blood pressure, reduces osmolarity, and makes aquaporins in the collecting duct more permeable. However, the answer to the question was "increase solute concentration in the collecting duct (or urine)." You had to know the mechanism and structure of the kidney to solve this.

My breakdown:
Exams: 268/300
Discussion: 105/108
Clickers: 48/49
Movie: 5/5
Overall Grade: 426/462, A+

If interested, I'm selling the loose-leaf textbook required for this class, “Life” by David Sadava, 10th Edition (most recent), for $60.00. However, this is not the custom version with Launchpad Access that is listed on the UCLA Textbook website. It is just the entire loose-leaf textbook. You may purchase it at your own discretion.
The textbook is in almost-perfect condition.

Please text me at: **********
Still available (9.5.17)

1. He'll say that you shouldn't take notes in his class, but tbh that's a lie. 10/10 would recommend printing out your lecture slides before class and using them to take notes.

2. Don't worry about the clicker points. As long as you go to class and only miss a few lectures you should be right on track. The questions are generally not that difficult either ( the answers were usually on the next slide).

3. 10/10 would recommend Leon Luong as a TA. His quizzes were very doable and he sent out his lecture/textbook notes after every discussion.

4. Join a PLF if you can bc it'll be very helpful to have the topics explained to you more than once as schein speeds thru most of his lectures.

5. Schein will go over the first half of the material that he says will be on his midterms very slowly but will rush through the last of it. Make sure to stay on top of what he covered before so you can just go over the new stuff before the test. TRUUSSSSTTTTT.

good luck!

1. Schein tests more on memorization rather than understanding concepts. Look at the other reviews to see questions that he's used on exams before and they're usually about minute details you have to memorize.

2. The textbook is not required. Schein tests purely off of his lecture slides. The book is a good aid to refer to in case you don't understand a concept, but I wouldn't read it "for leisure" or skim it for forty minutes like he tells you to do.

3. Weekly quizzes aren't bad at all and the TAs usually make questions off of the chapter in the book so this is where the book comes in handy sometimes.

4. Clicker questions are overall pretty easy. You can miss up to eight and still get a 100 participation grade for clicker questions.

5. Like the other reviews say, before the tests just go through his lecture slides and make sure you know everything they cover.

6. Go to his office hours! Schein is incredibly intelligent and really wants to help his students succeed. He also makes it a point to remember the names of everyone who consistently go to his office.

Schein is an excellent lecturer! But his class takes up a lot of time and work. Like a LOT OF TIME and WORK. So if you are looking for a class to half-ass in.. I wouldn't recommend this one, especially with this professor.

I took his LS 2 course in conjunction with LS 89. LS 89 is a really, really easy A and I would recommend it for most people even if you aren't in honors, like me. Basically, you get an A for this 1 unit class if you go to 10 seminars and write a paragraph about what you learned.
LS 2 was much harder for me, but the material is very interesting and my friends and I all enjoyed taking it with Schein. Schein is adorable and really cares about student learning. His exams are all multiple choice and very difficult though. You have a quiz every week in discussion and have 2 clicker questions per lecture. I struggled throughout the course but have gradually improved, and I think I will end up with a B- or B in the class (current GPA is 3.78). Professors Phelan and Pires also taught this course, and I think Phelan is the most effective teacher out of the three. I would also recommend that anyone taking this course watches the lectures again before the midterms and final because it is so helpful. Good luck!

Ok professor. tries to make class not boring. Focus on lectures definitely!!! just study what he lectures on! I used the book as a reference and read the material that he lectured on to deepen my understanding. his office hours are helpful. he assigned an additional book but that wasn't necessary. i stopped reading it. got a B in class. discussions helped.

He genuinely cares about the subject & wants you to learn. The tests can be a little frustrating in that they occasionally ask irrelevant questions rather than focusing on bigger concepts but the tests are easy enough. He is fair & cares about you doing well. He may be a little tough & call people out in class. Some people take it offensively, as though he enjoys picking on kids. He can come off that way. I just think he wants you to pay attention because his tests are based off the lectures. His lectures are interesting, he covers the topics well. He is the best science professor I've had at UCLA thus far. No trickery. Straightforward. Dedicated.

As a disclaimer I took his m180 honors course on Polyhedrals and applications, which is by far one of the most eye opening courses I have taken at UCLA and I recommend it to everyone regardless if you are majoring in the sciences or not. Schein is an amazing professor and scientist. This guy seriously tests you, but at the same time motivates you to excel. Throughout his course I began to think more analytically and critically, which is a skill set that is invaluable in any field you go into. This man really cares about what and who he teaches. Disregard all the bad reviews, they're just bitter pre-meds who are pissed off because they couldn't get by with the rote memorization they've been used to doing since day one! This guy is one of the "realest" scientists/researcher/professors at UCLA.

LS3
Schein knows his stuff and wants you too as well…but he knows that his knowledge is far more detailed than he can possibly teach us in ten weeks. So it’s important to know everything he teaches-to an extent. Memorizing each detail takes up a lot of time and I wouldn’t recommend doing that, especially if you’re taking three science classes simultaneously like I did. The best thing to do is to look at the diagrams (read the captions) and bolded words for the chapter in the book before lecture on that topic—he calls this skimming. If you don’t have time to do that it’s fine, plus when I did it I would just get confused sometimes so I’d have to spend class time undoing my confusion rather than paying attention. Definitely do this though: after lecture, read the slides again twice, then read the book. This will fill in the details he didn’t cover in class and help you make sense of it all so that you know the general concept, not the specific details. When you study for tests, read the slides over and over until you understand them, not necessarily memorize. You will always have to think on the test because some of his questions attack a face of the concept that he doesn’t teach, but it’s the same concept so it’s fair game. Clicker points aren’t too bad. Mostly everyone gets all the points. Don’t cheat, it’s not worth it. The factoids you should memorize are the ones he spends a lot of time on in class, and things that come up repeatedly, and things he says students often get confused with. There were a few questions on exams that were out of the blue random facts (like Frank Starlings Law), but very few and it won’t end up affecting your grade as much because mostly everyone gets them wrong. And there were some “scenario” questions that were confusing, like what a pufferfish does to our action potential if we eat it (the question was explained better on the test, so that you could figure it out but it was hard). When you learn about how to calculate membrane potential, know how to do it. There are questions from Lane. I took notes on Lane as a iread so that I could review and really get what the book was trying to say because the guy who writes it is confusing and annoying. Overall I liked what I learned in the class. At first Schein wasn’t my favorite, but he grew on me because he is nice, supportive, and really into the material he teaches. It gets awkward when he talks about sex but it’s so funny coming from him since he’s kind of elderly. If you have any questions, ask him. He gets to know the people who sit in front and go to office hours and will make an effort to know your name if you talk to him. I had LS89 with him too, so we talked a few times. The questions are all multiple choice (50) and you have three midterms basically. I’m not good at multiple choice so it was hard for me at first and I would have rather taken the other lecture (which met less frequently in the week with longer lcectures), but I took this one instead. I don’t regret it. I worked really hard after slacking on the first midterm. Midterm 1- 82% midterm 2-92%, midterm 3-96%, overall A. No one got 100 on the last two tests. It depends more on your rank in the class than your percentage since the top 25% or something get a’s, but still shoot for at least and average of an 88 on the tests to be safe,