This class is HARD. You learn soooo much material with so many intricate details about signaling pathways and processes and it's super difficult to keep track of everything and put it together into one cohesive picture. The papers every week were also really challenging to get through and I found the weekly paper quizzes to be a bit too specific (reading the paper one time through is not enough to do well haha). The exams were intense... all multiple choice but very detail oriented and you have to have a pretty deep understanding to answer the questions well. There is just soooo much memorization. Professor Hartenstein is such a sweet and gentle person - he is very helpful and receptive to student concerns and he definitely makes this class better - but the nature of the class is just that it's gonna be difficult regardless of which professor you take it with.

Before entering the meat of this review, I'd like to posit my theory that Dr. Volker Hartenstein has mystical powers and/or has communication with a god-like entity. What evidence do I have to prove this you may ask? I believe that Dr. Hartenstein accidentally granted me favor with the godlike entity he communicates with, for divine intervention is the only explanation that even remotely explains how I got an A in the class. On the day of the final exam, I walked into the exam room with nothing but an overcrowded mind, a #2 pencil, 260 mg of caffeine, and around 2 hours of sleep. I soon opened the final exam booklet to find that I could only confidently answer 13/94 questions, and could only rely on guesswork for the remaining 81 multiple choice questions. In my panic, I started frantically looking around the exam room, hoping to lose myself in the comfort of the gaze of anyone who may meet mine. Suddenly, and without warning, the majestic professor himself appeared on my left; he was answering the questions of another student. In my panic, I turned my nearly tear ridden gaze toward him. A few seconds later, the professor simply turned to me, took note of my expression, and just... smiled. It didn't have the aggressive and assertive optimistic quality of a smile baring teeth. It had the calm gentle assurance of a whole hearted half smile; a smile that emptied my mind and replaced all anxiety with the affirmation that "I will be ok." It felt as if an energy derived from an immortal god washed my body of stress, anxiety, and fear. I proceeded to guess for the remaining 81 questions and turn in my exam. By some miracle, I had scored the exact amount of points needed to keep an A in the class. I sincerely believe that his smile was a signal to his deity, a signal to bring luck/a miracle to a student who so desperately needs it. This was no random miracle, this was an act of a power beyond my control, but likely well within the control of Dr. Hartenstein. If this is not proof of Dr. Hartenstein's mystical powers, I'm not sure what is.

With that fan fiction aside, Dr. Hartenstein is a great professor teaching a class that most evidently exemplifies the problems with the quarter system; too much content, too little time. Exams are hard, but he teaches very clearly and provides extra credit opportunities to make up for bad exam grades. Points are split between weekly quizzes in discussion based on the research paper assigned for that week, weekly presentations (on the assigned paper, in discussion), one content midterm, one research paper midterm, and one final. Regarding the lectures, I highly recommend attending them. This is a class where falling behind on the content is super easy to do. There is so much content that builds on each other, that missing even one lecture makes the rest of the content harder to understand. Additionally, the lectures are only audio recorded, so it's hard to determine what slide Hartenstein is reading off of. I highly recommend reading the lecture reader before or after lecture. All of what you'll need for the midterm or the final are located on these readers, so try to review them at least once, especially when you're studying for the exams

The exams are HARD. The questions are purely memorization based multiple choice questions, and the amount of content you are expected to memorize is truly staggering. Plus, without learning objectives, you really don't know what topics you should be focusing on. You're basically forced into memorizing nearly all of the content in order to ensure good coverage for the exams. This is especially the case on the final. Any topic, from any slide, can become a question on the exam, and if you didn't memorize the content on said slide, you are basically forced to make an educated guess. It doesn't help that the same signaling molecule does something different in each organ system, so keeping track of the roles of signaling molecules becomes more of a challenge as the course goes on. I should mention, however, that I believe said expectation is achievable, but you need to begin memorizing well in advance, starting two days out from the final won't cut it *cough* *cough*

On the brighter side of things, Hartenstein knew these exams were hard, and made many accommodations. He gave a massive amount of extra credit this quarter, and likely rounded grades up since the final exam average was pretty low. The grades are scaled such that an A is a 92% instead o of a 93%. Plus, the quizzes, presentations, and paper midterm served as a good buffer for the exams. Plus, him and the TAs are more than fair when it comes to mistakes on exams. If a question shows up that was never covered (like on the paper midterm, where two questions were derived from figures we were not told to review), they become extra credit questions. Plus, I loved the addition of readers. While I am not a fan of how much memorization is involved, it was made slightly easier by the fact that all the information you could be tested on was concisely summarized on the reader. Lastly, the content was very interesting. This basically goes over the development of the embryo, from fertilization to gastrulation to the development of different organ systems like the brain, kidneys, limbs, etc.

Overall, I think this was a very interesting class with a great professor with clear lectures and many opportunities to make up bad exam scores. However, the content is tough to grapple with, and the exams rely on a large amount of memorization to do well. Since it's a core class for the MCDB major, and you can't avoid it (you chose this life), I recommend that you take it with Hartenstein. I think this class could really improve if the content we needed to know on the exam is made abundantly clear (so you're not forced to just memorize everything only to find out that there wasn't a single question on kidney development, for example).

I am an MCDB major and was looking forward to this class, but it was not what I was expecting at all. There is no understanding whatsoever in this class - just memorization. You have to memorize transcription factors, signaling pathways, etc. that are used again in so many different situations that it gets so confusing. You have to memorize dorsal versus ventral gradients and other pretty much useless information for anything other than this class. The professor is a kind man, I don’t have as much issue with him as I do the actual class. The midterm and final were online and the questions were INSANELY specific. I don’t see how anyone could possibly get an A on these exams. The weekly quizzes on research papers are so specific that I would read the papers twice in order to do well. One of the hardest classes I’ve taken at UCLA (and I’ve taken my fair share of difficult classes) but also the least rewarding. I don’t recommend this class at all unless you are an MCDB major and are required to take it.

I took this class remotely for Winter 2021, it just won’t let me select it as an option. It was one of the hardest classes I have taken. Not because the content is difficult because it is straightforward, but there is just SO MUCH CONTENT and little details you must know in order to do well in the class. The class has 1 midterm and 1 final and weekly quizzes on the papers. There is also group presentations during discussions but they’re really chill depending on your TA. Dr. Hartenstein is a really kind professor and he is super nice. I think developmental biology is just a topic that has so much information it is easy to get lost in a lecture that is more than one hour.

Make sure not to fall behind as each lecture builds on the other. I recommend writing everything he says since exams were very detailed, though multiple choice. I thought the final was hard.

I really love the topic of developmental biology but was honestly disappointed about how this course was taught. The lectures were disorganized and unclear and I sometimes found discrepancies between what the professor said and what the textbook said. Dr. Hartenstein is really kind, is willing to help, and will take suggestions from students. However, I felt like he didn't really know the material really well or at least he was not clear when explaining it. I got the most out of the papers we read each week and discussed in office hours.

Selling Principles of Development Wolpert 6 edition pdf for $30. Text **********

This class is quite difficult. As a beginning course into the MCDB major, it makes this class seem even more confusing due to first learning new terms necessary to understand developmental biology. I took this course during the COVID-19 pandemic so everything was online. We had weekly quizzes on readings (that were not tested on the midterm or final) and had weekly group presentations in discussions. All quizzes and tests were on CCLE. The lectures were on zoom twice a week, but lecture is not mandatory. All of the zoom meetings are recorded. The material is very confusing and his questions are specific so you must truly understand the material to achieve a good grade on your work.

I walked into this class right after switching from PHYSCI to MCDB, and I automatically knew that this was the perfect field of study for me. Dr. Hartenstein is sooo passionate about what he studies for a living, and it really shows through his lectures. He made what could have easily turned into a tedious subject something that was interesting and applicable.

This class is definitely a lot of material, but I found it very manageable and a very good introductory MCDB upper division course. Your grade is determined by in-discussion quizzes, mini figure presentations every week in class, and the midterm and final.

Suggestions: Read the course reader before class, and it'll definitely help you understand the concepts that he goes over better. Bruincast if you don't understand anything, and write/type down everything he says in class because he doesn't have text on his powerpoints. This will really help you when you're studying for his examinations, which aren't easy!

This class is challenging but by no means impossible to do well. The previous posts have summarized what I wanted to say so I won't post anything here. The course readers hartenstein posts are extremely useful (albeit sometimes goes more in depth than needed for the tests). I recommend to learn the importance of each slide rather than memorization. The tests do not emphasize rote memorization (has some pure memorization questions though).

In addition to all the reviews that have been written, here are my opinions!
I felt that even tho the second portion of the class was much more detailed and covered more material, the final wasn't as hard as what I expected. He is very willing to help you if you ask him questions and go to his office hours! His slides can be messy but use his readers to help you create the big titles/outlines.
I felt that this class was hard for me personally because 1) I am really bad at directions, so it was hard to keep track of where each signal was when I can't even tell left from right in real life. 2) It was also hard to visualize some processes because there arent that many good animations out there. 3) The developmental biology field itself doesn't have the answers for some of the questions that my classmates asked in class so as a result, you'll just have to "know" the facts because the reasoning that links these facts is still a mystery, which made it hard for me to "connect the dots."
Overall I thought it was a very very interesting class!