This class is a joke.

Cvrkel will mock past and present students' exam answers, shame students in class when they present views that conflict with hers (not hard, BTW), and often fill the first 30 minutes of the lecture with some meandering discussion about something only vaguely related to the class. She "lectures" as if she's filling time because she didn't prepare anything for that day by littering her speech with "Ok, here's what we're going to do" and "Are you ready?" (as if you're 10-years old), and "Ok, then. Let's do it!". Over and over again.

The reading material is good, but her and her TA's grading was capricious. Also, information given in office hours leading up to exams was aggressively misleading. It was like some game Cvrkel was playing. Basically, you couldn't trust them to grade you properly.

This whole class felt like the "Tiffany Show". You had to listen to her rants about what footbal teams she loves, which ethicists she thought were "stupid", and what a good matchmaker she is.

As far as "being taught how to write arguments", this class is really lacking. If you want to learn how to write arguments, take a real class like PHILOS4 or something.

I'll give you an example. For the first midterm, she told us we would just be responsible for the medical info she'd talked about. But, when we looked at the midterm, all the questions expected answers in "argument form". Guess when we had the reading material and lecture that covered that "argument form" material? Yeah, the week AFTER that midterm.

Look, if you like to be mocked in class and jerked around about what the exams are going to cover, take the class; you'll have a blast.
If, on the other hand, you're a serious student who doesn't have time to play mind games and who wants to learn from real scholars, skip this ridiculous class.

Selling the Course reader. It is brand new, I had to drop the course. Selling for $25 (Originally $35).

I can also sell the "Stem Cells" by Slack for $5. It has some high lights in the beginning. Otherwise in a great condition.

Please reach me at ********** or *************.

Awesome professor! One of the best I've ever had. She always keeps you informed with the "business" of the class (like upcoming due dates, reminders about office hours, things like that). This class is a little bit about stem cells, but really more about teaching you how to expose the weak points in other people's arguments, and then forming your own (unbeatable) argument. Great class in terms of learning things that are applicable to real life. Dr. C is a very engaging lecturer and I always looked forward to class with her. Her class is extremely difficult in that it makes you think about controversial issues and form opinions on them; however, she makes sure that a large number of her students get As and Bs. She's always willing to digress on interesting topics that students bring up in class, which I like since that means we're not learning/going over a certain set of information. It's more of an open forum sometimes, so some really interesting points are brought up. The best thing about this class is that it's a hybrid between North and South campus. Centered around science, but building a more North campus skill. Highly recommend this class.

First, let me say that Dr. Cvrkel is an amazing lecturer. She’s so humorous and sarcastic that you can’t help but become interested in what she says. You can tell that she cares about her students because she’s always willing to spend a good amount of class time answering students’ questions, and she has a class Facebook group for that purpose as well. This class is basically 1/3 biology and 2/3 ethics and politics, so while a few factual questions do appear on exams, most of the questions test students on how well they can write arguments and defend those arguments.

Here’s what the grading was like for this class:
Attendance and participation: 5%
Homework: 10%
Exam I: 15%
Exam II: 20%
Essay: 20%
Final Exam (cumulative): 30%

The homework is very easy, just reading and making a mini powerpoint about the material taught in the last lecture. I found most of the readings long and boring, but Dr. Cvrkel says they’re fair game for exams, even if she doesn’t go over the readings in class. The exams all involve essays, which I found difficult because it was hard for me to finish in time, and I had to really think about how to write good arguments. The class average generally seems to be around a B though, so it’s not impossible to get a good grade. I found the essay difficult – you have to write about one of the controversial topics discussed in the class – but you don’t have to do research for the essay, and the professor says that as long as you try to write about a difficult topic, even if something goes wrong and your essay isn’t that great, you should still get a decent grade on it. Although the syllabus says the final exam is cumulative, for my class at least the final really wasn’t… maybe because she claims that she tries to learn what students know best during office hours and put that material on the final so students will get better grades.

Overall, I found this class very interesting, although rather difficult… but it really helped me learn how to think critically and write decent arguments.

I've taken Cvrkel for MCDB 50 and 60 and I can hands down say she is my favorite professor to tread UCLA ground. This won't be your easy peasy A class but it will be the only class at UCLA where you retain useful information. This class completely changed my outlook on certain topics in life (for the better). It is not absurdly difficult! It is the type of class that makes you enjoy arguing and debating topics. That's how you learn.