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 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!

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.

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.

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.

Dr. Austin is an engaging lecturer who really demonstrates a deeply rooted passion for teaching biomedical research. I personally had little to no prior research experience before taking this class and, after learning various concepts through her lectures, I felt a lot more prepared to pursue long-term research in a wet lab for my Minor. The class has quizzes, but they are fairly straightforward so long as you paid attention in class. You also learn to write proposals and give a presentation on a topic of interest that expands on concepts discussed in class, which were all great learning experiences. Overall, I would highly recommend taking this class with Dr. Austin if you plan to pursue the Biomedical Research Minor.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class especially because I learned a lot about the material and because I appreciated Professor Austin and all her generous help. This class provided a great environment to learn and discuss research. With COVID, the lab classes where you learn a lot of basic lab techniques were online so when it came to laboratory techniques and research, I still found everything very new. This class taught me a lot about various lab techniques and made me grow more comfortable in my own understanding so that I could apply my learning to my own research lab and projects.

The class is formatted where we had presentations given by UCLA faculty who would present one of their own research projects and then for the next few weeks, we would spend our time reading and dissecting their work. A few weeks later, the researcher would return to our class and answer our questions. It was satisfying to engage in discussion and see how much we have learned over the last few weeks. Throughout the quarter, there were also a variety of assignments, including a proposal and a final presentation. I enjoyed having the opportunity to design my proposal and give a research presentation. I further enjoyed having the opportunity to listen to my peers and listen to their creative ideas and perspectives when it came to research.

This class made me feel more confident in my abilities to present and discuss research. The set up of the class is focused on participation and allowed for everyone to actively contribute their thoughts or ask insightful questions. As such, it created a great environment to discuss research and learn from Professor Austin, other UCLA faculty, and my peers and hear their unique perspective on subjects.

Through projects in this class, such as the proposal and final presentation, I was able to grow in my abilities to present research. I especially learned a lot because of the valuable feedback from Professor Austin. She would have us submit our presentations prior to our presentation date to provide us feedback and ensure we felt prepared. She worked with me countless times, even taking the time to meet with me outside of office hours or class. In office hour, it was incredibly helpful to meet with her and ask further questions about the class material or assignments. I also found it enjoyable to attend office hours to chat about her research experiences as well or other research in the field. Professor Austin truly cares from her students and will invest her time in them in order to help them grow as students. I truly believe this class has taught me so much and helped me grow as researcher, especially because of Professor Austin.

Overall, I loved this class because I felt like I was able to demonstrate tangible progress I made through class discussions or presentations. or even being able to directly apply the class material to my own research. I especially appreciate all the time Professor Austin took to meet with me and provide me with her feedback to help me grow. I highly recommend this class to any student interested in pursuing research or just learning about the research field. I also would highly recommend taking this class with Professor Austin given her dedication to her students.

Professor Austin was a great professor, definitely one of my favorites at UCLA so far. Although the class was tough, especially for students like me who did not have as strong as a research background, Professor Austin did everything she could to make students learn a lot from the class and come out of it as better scientists. You can definitely tell she cares deeply about her students and their learning in the class. She consistently asked for feedback and actually implemented what students told her could be improved on. She always allowed students to feel welcome participating and voicing their opinions and thoughts during class, which I found to be refreshing, especially since so many professors at UCLA tend to just lecture without allowing for student input or participation. The research proposal and presentation were the two most time consuming assignments, and students who started them later on felt rushed. However, if started when the assignments were given, many students including myself felt that we were given an adequate amount of time to complete them. In terms of grading, throughout the quarter, the TA had given most students lower than expected grades, which many students were frustrated about. However, Professor Austin recognized this issue, listened to the feedback that the students gave, and corrected it by hiring a different grader to grade the assignments in a more fair manner. She also gave lots of extra credit assignments that were basically guaranteed points so long as you completed them. Because of this, I feel that people ended up with grades that they were ultimately happy with and reflected the effort they put forth in the course. Overall, I definitely feel that I learned a lot from this class. It helped me grow as a researcher and I find myself understanding my work in the lab to a greater extent after taking this class. It was difficult at times but ultimately worth it, and if given the chance, I would take the course with Professor Austin again.

I personally really enjoyed Dr. Austin's class this quarter and felt that she was a great and understanding professor. The class centered around a central theme of research which for our quarter was aging. We began by watching a seminar by another UCLA professor about his recent work which I found very interesting and spent the next few weeks deconstructing his findings and experimental techniques. Along the way we completed group worksheets which I felt were fairly graded and eventually finished with an online quiz. Dr. Austin offers a ton of opportunities for extra credit usually in the form of additional worksheets as well as an extra credit quiz whose points would be added to the first pretty much guaranteeing you got over 100% on it. At the end of the quarter the professor returned for a question and answer seminar which was really cool as he was very passionate about his research and excited to answer questions. Dr. Austin also gave us extra credit if we asked a question.
Additionally, the class focuses a lot on teaching you how to give presentations which I felt was very unique and extremely helpful for future classes here at UCLA and outside of school. Going into this class I was a very nervous public speaker and this class did a great job in helping me feel more comfortable giving presentations. For our first presentation we had to give a "TED Talk" about a research topic of our choice relating to the central theme of aging. Dr. Austin provided us with a ton of sample presentations from students in the past which was extremely helpful and gave us the option to record the presentation in zoom if we didn't feel comfortable presenting in front of class. We also gave a "Chalk Talk" with a partner to an imaginary 9th grade audience which I actually had a lot of fun with. Dr. Austin allowed us to be creative and gave us a lot of leeway in how we structured our presentation. We were able to use props or give out prizes for audience interaction which made watching other group's presentations a lot more entertaining.
Dr. Austin was very good about being clear with deadlines, as everything was posted in the syllabus at the start of class and we were able to choose the dates we wanted to present well in advance. The class pretty much finishes in week 9 when you give your presentation which was really nice as I had time to study for my finals for other classes. I would definitely recommend taking this class with Dr. Austin as all the extra credit she gives makes it a great opportunity to learn how to give effective presentations in a low stress environment where getting an A is very doable.

Professor Austin was overall a great professor. Students complained about due dates being randomly assigned but everything was clearly stated in the syllabus and no due dates changed. I would suggest following the syllabus throughout the quarter and you will stay on track. She offered SO much extra credit. If you do all the extra credit and put effort in your presentations you will have nothing to worry about. She was also very friendly and approachable. At the end of the quarter you will have a ted talk as well as a chalk talk. I really enjoyed the ted talk and had a lot of fun with it. You can submit a video for this or do it in person but she provides many examples from past students which was a huge help. I came into the class really worried about the chalk talk because it is a 6 minute presentation in person. But, I ended up having a lot of fun with it as well because she gives you a lot of freedom to do whatever you want with the topic and engage with the class. If you are a nervous presenter, you will not be after leaving this class. She makes it a very laid back and fun environment for presenting and meeting your peers. When students expressed their stress for the chalk talk, she even pushed back the due dates. She is accommodating and listens to feedback. I feel much more confident in my presenting skills especially with presenting my research in the future. It is an essential skill and I wish more classes made us learn these skills. Overall, it is a great intro class to the minor and it is just a small taste of the presenting we have to do compared to 193H and 194H.