He was an okay professor but he is super unorganized! He gives you a reading list that is super confusing that makes you jump back from course reader to lab manuel to course reader. Its so annoying. His exams are pretty hard and if you don't have the exact wording he is looking for you won't get the points. His averages are super low.

Similarly to some of the other reviewers, this class was by far the worst experience I have ever had. Dr. Kim was not a bad professor and the exams were pretty fair. His lectures were straightforward and were easy to follow. The quizzes and midterms were similar to the practice and EB problems. The two midterms exams were detail oriented. The free response questions were usually similar to those on the sample exams posted on VOH. Do the EB problems and the sample exams if you want to do well. If you want to do well on the quizzes, you should write the protocol beforehand because some of the protocol items usually make it on the quizzes. For the lab practical, make sure you write down the equations to calculate protein concentrations from protein and enzyme assays. Do not forget to write your name on everything because people lost pts for every page they printed out with no names. Additionally, people tend not to wipe their pipette tips with the kim wipe after extracting solution, which can lead to erroneous dilution. So do yourself a favor and take the extra 2 second to wipe the pipette to prevent the possible frustration from erroneous dilution. However, your overall experience in this class will essentially depend on your TA. My previous TA, Kai Lei, was extremely anal and his grading was not systematic at all, which is ironic considering the fact that accuracy and being systematic are emphasized. For example, he would take 1 pt off from a group's lab report for missing a minute detail from a figure legend, but would only take 0.5 pt off from another group and they did not even write the legend. Sometimes I wonder where UCLA get these asinine, egocentric, and pretentious TA. I did above average on ALL of the quizzes, exams, and lab practical and I do not think I got the grade I deserved because of my TA. They essentially determine your final grade, so choose an easy TA. Good luck choosing the correct section because your grade depends on it. Kai can go to hell.

He is so disorganized and his grammar is horrible. There are grammar/spelling errors everywhere in the course reader and on exams. In my class, he didn't make enough copies of the final exam which had lots of errors in it. It was just complete chaos. The labs are not too bad, but the class is extremely time consuming. You do work for it all the time. Also, at first I would try to take notes, but I gave up by the third week cuz he jumps from topic to topic and talks very fast. The only good thing about the class, is that he has a huge curve. The class is not impossible, but it is very frustrating.

Dr. Kim is an absolutely amazing professor. Honestly, if you're a science major and have been subjected to rigorous tests from notoriously difficult departments (neuroscience, phy sci), there is no reason why this class stands to be any harder. It's an extremely fair class and if anything people who I thought were going to do horrendously and come out with a bad grade still got at least an A-. The curve is generous. That being said, if you're worried about your grade coming into the course, don't. Take the class for what it is and instead of spending 10 weeks griping about how much work it seems, learn it and learn it well. It's worth it. Dr. Kim is extremely invested in making this class useful to your career as a professional - you might as well make the most of it. And while you're at it, get to know him. He's an extremely friendly professor and honestly doesn't deserve half the poor remarks people here make of him. I would honestly say he's one of UCLA's best professors... Other professors could learn a thing or two from him.

Make sure you get a good TA that grades easy.

week zero claim: critical thinking based course
week 1 to week 10: memorization based stuff
final week: returned ALL memorization back to him!!!

Wastes time.
Unorganized.
Confusing.

I honestly really enjoyed Biochem153L. I think that it was one of the most challenging, time consuming, but rewarding class that I have ever taken.

Professor Kim's class definitely required a LOT of work and a LOT of time. His lectures were VERY helpful, and my advice is that if you are taking his class, you take advantage of his podcasts and RELISTEN to the lectures.
He focuses a lot on concepts, so make sure you have that down. His exams make sure that you understand the concepts well enough so that, in his exam questions, he'll ask a question about an experimental procedure, except he changed some factor, you must be able to know what that will do.

My advice is to take it during the summer as THE only class that you are taking, so that you can focus completely on it. That's what I did, and I'm extremely glad that I did. Or, if you're taking it during the school year, take only easy classes along with it. It will require a lot of time and effort and reviewing concepts over and over again.

The professor is actually very organized and his class is extremely structured. BUT you WILL feel left behind and confused/lost if you don't keep up. If you want to enjoy this class and do very well (not just make a B), you must work for it.

I honestly think that Dr. Kim was THE BEST CHEMISTRY LAB professor in my entire ucla career. I don't know why people are complaining so much but I really think that I learned so much about critical thinking process of biochemistry and that Dr. Kim put soooo much effort to make this class more entertaining. He Genuinely cares about student learning because he spent so many hours to talk to individual student regarding lab practicals and final exam in addition to his office hours. He is really a nice person and the curve in the class is really generous. If you guys are complaining about him, take Bacher for chem 30CL and you would think your time spent with Dr Kim was heaven!!

Without a doubt, Dr. Kim is the worst professor I have ever had at UCLA. Yes, he is a nice guy with many jokes in class, but we are not paying money to see him talk about himself (which he does a lot of and even has an extra credit quiz that consists of mostly trivia about himself). He usually wastes the first 10-15 minutes of lecture and then proceeds through his VERY disorganized course reader. And it seems like he does not know how to check grammar or simply likes to abuse the English language, because all of his slides, quizzes, and tests have grammar errors. There are quizzes almost every week, but he lectures on the material that is on the quiz AFTER the quiz itself because he is always behind in lecture. Yes, he does make tell some funny stories and jokes in class, but again, we are not here for a comedy show. The tests are difficult, not by virtue of the material, but because he does not seem to be able to write coherently. The material in the class does not necessarily have to be hard; in fact, the material is not that difficult at all. However, because of his incompetence and lack of organization, the class is made harder than is necessary. If you can take the class with someone else, do so.