I want to make this review for any students in the minor taking 5HB with Professor Austin, just so they have this information beforehand.

First of all, there is significant evidence that she (or someone wanting to promote her) is spam-posting her own reviews. Read the other reviews—they do not sound like any student wrote them. Even other reviews on other classes are saying the other reviews are weirdly misleading. I say this not to bolster my own credibility but to warn you that the sentiments on this page absolutely do not reflect the sentiments of the students in her classes. Some highlights (just because I think they’re funny):
- “called for a lot of collaboration with peers through which I made amazing new friends”
- “be vocal in class (when appropriate) for answering questions or taking part in discussions”
- “Be creative and add some personal elements to yours! These presentations, while they may seem a little intimidating, become a great way to get to know your peers and relevant topics more.”
- “Overall a great, enthralling, and very informational class”

No student would write like that lol. There’s other evidence, but I won’t go into depth on that. I will give a fair review of the class.

First, the good. Professor Austin as a person is fairly nice to talk to. She is fairly approachable and the manner in which she explains information isn’t too bad. I also really liked the other students and community in the class.

However, I would say overall I definitely regret taking this class with Professor Austin. There are two main reasons: disorganization and lack of understanding the student’s perspective. From day 1, the syllabus she posted did not have any due dates, specific assignments, or grade cutoffs. Throughout the course, she would constantly edit and repost the syllabus with changing due dates and shifting assignments—and not tell anyone. For instance, the due date for the midterm project was shifted up a week beforehand, and students were not notified of this change. Only because someone in my discussion group told us did we know. Since the information shifts so much, almost every important piece of info was through word of mouth (“apparently we are on Zoom on Tuesdays now, not Thursdays. Someone else told me”). Never trust what she says either. She will say the quizzes are easy, they aren’t. She will say something will be graded easily, it won’t. Be maximally prepared for every assignment and every shift that may happen. “Expect every possibility” needs to be your mantra for this class, because things will constantly shift under you. She would tell us “you need to print these out by tomorrow” at 3 AM the night before. And then, we would never use the printouts. Once, she decided that we would be having an “optional quiz” and let us know, again, at weird hours the night before. No time to study. Then, it turns out the quiz definitely was not optional.

She also definitely has favorite students. She would call on them for everything, even without their hands raised, and praise them constantly. Even these students that she had favoritism towards did not like it. During our final presentations, she would say “now these next presentations are really good” about her favorites, disregarding the feelings of the several other students who had just gone. Speaking of the final presentations, make sure yours is PERFECT. These are graded insanely harshly. If you are imagining a number right now, drop it by 20%. This is secondhand information from talking to other students since she did not actually give us the grades back, just a final letter grade. She will also ask for positive and negative feedback from students on each presentation, and mark you down for what others say for their negatives. If you aren’t the “favorite presentation of the day” by your peers, you will not be getting an A on it. The other assignments almost don’t matter besides this presentation—make it perfect. Check it with her multiple times in OH, and confirm that different elements she would give a perfect grade for. She might still go back on that, but at least you have that leverage when she does (this happened to some of my friends). For other grading, the assignments the TA grades should be fine, just check with the TA. (Our TA would complain about her inconsistency as well, but in a professional way. I really loved our TA honestly, she made the class feel less like a slow motion car crash). Some assignments you do will not be calculated in your final grade, she might not even give you final scores back, and this class will be a lot of work. Especially work assigned last minute. A LOT OF WORK—I’m highlighting that.

I do want to say I’m not some troll that hated Prof. Austin and am using hyperbole and lies to vent, I am trying to make sure that other students are fully prepared for what to expect from this class. I got a grade I am happy with, but feel bad for other students that didn't and really did not like going through the class itself. Other students I would talk to in previous quarters would go “ohhh Dr. Austin LOL—yeah just bite the bullet on that one”. That is the general consensus. However, there were no Bruinwalk reviews until recently which really didn't help things. I will say, while there were some positive-ish aspects, this was probably one of the worst classes I’ve taken so far at UCLA. Not for the content, but the extreme expectations and disorganization. I sincerely do hope Prof. Austin improves in the future with feedback, but right now, it’s just best to be prepared. Also: to whoever is spam posting misleading reviews, please stop. I’m not sure why you’re doing it, but it is important for students to know what other students think about the class so they can make their own informed decisions.

TLDR: if you are in the minor, this isn't an easy A class. Be prepared for disorganization and a large workload.

I am writing a review on this class because I do feel like the other reviews are a bit misleading. Tina was by no means a bad teacher, but her slides were incredibly disorganized. Her exams were hard. They required you to memorize her slides word for word, and there were about 300 slides for each midterm. Pretty sure the average for the second midterm was a C. She's a very nice person, but honestly, after taking other MCDB classes that require 165A, I genuinely did not feel as prepared as I should have. One professor I have for an MCDB upper div said to my class "you should have learned this in 165A" and I had literally never heard of the topic. I do believe she tried her best, and she got better as the quarter went on. She did give extra credit, and the presentations were pretty fun to do! But do not go into this class thinking it's super easy and fun. It still requires a lot of work.

Best professor ever! The class was composed of 2 midterms + 1 presentation + 1 final. Everyone got to be creative in the presentation. She gave many extra credits throughout the quarter, and the exams weren't tricky (closed book, MC + T/F + Short Answer). One midterm was dropped as she asked our opinion: the majority of the entire class would like to. Learned a lot of information about cell biology, though not in-depth, it is what this class is designed for. There are six papers that are spread throughout the quarter's discussions and were part of the grading for biweekly assignments. TA was helpful as well. Shout out to Evgeniy! Attendance is not required but is very helpful, highly recommend it as the professor likes to interact with the students. Half of the class is on zoom and half in person. The zoom classes are often recorded, and in-person classes fail to do bruincast but the professor is willing to make post-lecture recordings to go over the material, and these are also very helpful for review. The professor's OH is extremely helpful so highly recommend attending. Great professor, we also took a class photo together! Supra Fun. ((((love Prof Austin, from the minor

My main critique of this class is that the class materials and lectures felt unorganized at times. Slides were often disorganized and did not properly condense information, and the professor would sometimes not be very thorough with explaining the material. Also, I personally did not feel that the topics that were tested on the midterms and final were representative of what we had mainly focused on in class. Prof Austin is a great person- approachable and passionate about what she's teaching, but the class was very "eh" for me. I will say that our research presentations were quite fun.

I had a great experience with Professor Austin. The class included research seminars from UCLA faculty, learning about research techniques, how to effectively read scientific papers, write your own research proposal, and present your work. I looked forward to every lecture because of the supportive and passionate energy Professor Austin brought in. She made class a fun, interactive place and showed her commitment to teaching by asking for feedback often. I always felt comfortable to participate and ask questions during class. The assignments called for a lot of collaboration with peers through which I made amazing new friends. The class is structured in such a way that you gain a lot of knowledge during the beginning of the quarter and use it for assignments that are due towards the end. It is important to stay on top of work and reach out when you need help, and Professor Austin was always more than happy to provide guidance. I loved everything about this class!

By far the worst professor I have had at UCLA. She was rarely on time for class and very disorganized. I was really excited to take this class because I had such a great experience with my pre-req for the minor but I hated every minute I had to be in class. She does not set clear expectations for assignments and rarely grades them herself. Attendance is mandatory and one of our classmates was forced to come to class even though they were very ill because Austin was going to dock points for not coming to class. It is hard to get ahold of her over email and if you do she can be very rude and abrasive.

I normally don't write reviews here, but I think Professor Austin did a great job this quarter teaching 5HB! The course structure tends to be "bottom-heavy," with most of the heavy assignments scheduled for the latter part of the quarter. However, I've found that reaching out to Professor Austin and the TA (Paul was great, by the way) outside of class, whether through email or office hours, helped get rid of those initial feelings of being overwhelmed.

It was very clear to me that Professor Austin cares deeply about student success, and also wants to know how she can improve the class. This quarter, we had the chance to provide feedback through google forms and express our thoughts about the class, which isn't something I typically get to do during the quarter for other classes. Her lectures can feel quite quick at times, but I think that's just the nature of the course content itself. There's a lot of ground to cover, but the content is super useful. The things I learn at my research lab oftentimes overlaps with what is being covered in class, so I personally found it very applicable.

Contrary to other reviews, I thought that the schedule and organization of the class overall was great. If there was a slight change in schedule, it was always to our benefit (extra days to prepare for the presentation, finish the proposal, etc.).

I've read reviews about how many have dreaded the presentations. Regarding the chalk-talks, I think the best approach is to voice your concerns early on or prepare earlier, so that Professor Austin can provide some initial feedback. I did this during office hours, and she gave me very useful feedback. We also had a chance to review our peers' presentations. I think that a lot of the chalk-talk presentations that I heard in the class struggled with voice projection, and also felt more like info-dumping. I think that, if you can, try to practice by presenting it in front of other people who don't know about the topic at all, and see if they even want to pay attention or if they can understand. Speaking louder, throwing in a joke, or a relatable personal connection could help a lot! Not to mention, sounding more energetic can go a long way, and make you stand out more. Yes, it's a biomedical research presentation, so the content of your presentation is important; but at the end of the day, while you shouldn't overdo it, the audience want to be entertained. People tend to remember how you made them feel.

Overall, my experience with Professor Austin was awesome, and I highly recommend taking this class with her.

I've never written a BruinWalk review before but upon reading these reviews of Professor Austin feel the need to voice my experience. Some of these past reviews describe this class as being disorganized with a heavy workload, which I find pretty unfair. During the first week, our TA (Paul) and Professor Austin walked us through the syllabus and explained that the class was very bottom-heavy (a majority of the deadlines are in the latter half of the quarter) and that many deadlines were flexible (could be pushed back if needed). As a procrastinator, I was pretty worried about pushing deadlines out of the way but ended up having more than enough time to complete my assignments. Professor Austin was VERY generous in working around students' schedules and it genuinely felt like she did everything she could to create the least amount of stress around deadlines. Stressing out for quizzes (2 in our quarter) or workshops (1 a week) was really pointless since majority of the grade came from the final research proposal and presentation.

In terms of class content and assignments, this was one of my favorite classes at UCLA thus far. It was the first time I genuinely felt like I was being challenged and had to apply skills I learned from previous classes when writing my research proposal. In my opinion, Professor Austin found the right balance between giving students guidance and letting students do their own research about a topic they were passionate about. Yes, I did struggle at times when writing my research paper, but with office hours offered by both Paul and Professor Austin I never felt like what was being asked of me was undoable/excessive. I found the presentation component at the end of the quarter to be super fun. Students that engaged the audience and presented with energy did very well. It was also really interesting to hear what everyone had been working on all quarter and felt rewarding to share my proposal with my classmates. I recommend practicing your presentation in front of your roommates or friends a couple of times, that definitely helped me.

As someone who had no previous research nor lab experience before coming into this class, I gained so much from it. Professor Austin wants students to participate and do well in her class, you just have to trust the process. Yes she might let you struggle at times, but she doesn't create any unnecessary stress nor does she want you to fail. I've learned so many valuable skills from her class through the research proposal and presentation that I have already started applying to my other classes/labs.

I balanced this class with Biochem 153A, Physics 5C, an Engineering Upper Div Elective, and playing a sport at UCLA. I highly recommend taking this class with Professor Austin even if you aren't in the minor, I promise you will not regret it.

You're going to hear this several times but this class is extremely bottom heavy (assignments worth the most are all due within the last 2-3 weeks, close to finals). While I would say Dr. Austin is an approachable and engaging lecturer, she didn't really give us the resources to work ahead so you had to work on these assignments while balancing studying for finals. Throughout the quarter, she would also sometimes post assignments a day or two before they were due. I felt that in general, she did not respect our time as students. However, she is understanding and takes student feedback into consideration. She also is a good lecturer and explains concepts clearly while engaging the class by asking questions (you are expected to participate). She has a policy allowing students to miss up to 15% of class, though I wouldn't recommend it because lectures are not recorded and you won't be able to get the information again. Overall, if I had to take this class again I would be extremely proactive about my assignments and getting information on what to do for them, especially for the end of quarter assignments which are graded on an extensive rubric while other assignments are usually participation based.

Professor Austin is one of the most welcoming and engaging professors at UCLA. She is always interacting with her students and encouraging them to participate in class. The content is taught from a scientific perspective but also takes into account the modern-day relevance and application of stem cells. The assignments are very reasonable and there are lots of extra credit opportunities available throughout the quarter. The exams do cover a wide range of topics, but all the relevant material is covered multiple times in class. Every lecture starts with an interactive recap that helps solidify previous content. Professor Austin is also very accessible during her office hours if you need additional help and she genuinely tries to make a connection with each student in the class. Highly recommend this course!!