Dr. Chen taught the second half of LS7A after Dr. Maloy this quarter. Though she was not as good as Dr. Maloy, she was still a great professor and lecturer. You can tell she is EXTREMELY knowledgeable about the material covered and always went out of her way to answer any questions we had about the material. She does move VERY fast in lectures, but other than that she is a very solid professor. Highly recommend!

I'll split this review into two parts the class and the professor:
(This class was taught by two professors, Dr. Chen and Dr. Maloy)
(Dr. Maloy taught the beginning and the end and Dr. Chen taught the middle)
(Each professor taught what they specialized in Dr. Maloy taught cells, cellular energetics. Dr. Chen taught everything about proteins gene expression recombinant DNA and all the Biotech subjects)

The class:
Oh jeez where do I even start with the 7 series. Right off the bat I'll just say that professor does not make a difference in how the class is run. The whole 7 series is ran as a "reverse classroom" so essentially you learn the material on your own before lecture. Then at lecture you do answer some iclicker questions that help you understand the content. Your midterms and final (AOL's) are split into a group section and an individual section. Your pod (group) makes a big difference because you do the group section with them. The AOL's are not too bad with the exception of the final. The whole concept around them is that "you don't memorize because you can just look it up, why memoize glycolysis, when you can just find it on google images, we are going to test how well you can apply the knowledge." Essentially making the questions similar to AP Bio. The first two AOL's were pretty easy for me and before the final I had a 97% in the class but the last AOL was more difficult and dropped me to a 91%. I would say the only way you can practice for these are looking at past AOL questions because those are the only way you can see how they want you to apply the knowledge. The class is run on a point based system and is made so that you are allowed to miss some assignments and still get 100% in that given section. Overall 7A is not too bad especially if you took AP Bio because most of the content is the same with the exception of going a little bit more in depth into the content and some new content within already learned AP Bio content. The 7 in general is pretty odd for a university lass but it should to bad and is manageable.

The Professor:
Dr. Chen is amazing, she is super kind and a very good lecturer. Within 5 minutes of meeting her you realize that she insanely smart and accomplished. She is very open to the students asking questions. When you ask her a question she answers your question and goes really in depth into what you asked her, sometimes people find that confusing because they would rather have it simplified rather than made more complicated, but for me personally it's just how I like it. I really enjoyed 7A with her.

Class taken: BE/ChemE CM 145

My advice: STAY AWAY FROM THIS CLASS

Dr. Chen is very intelligent and well-versed in her field. That being said, if you're an undergrad eager to learn more about molecular biology (like me at the start of the quarter), then be prepared to lose some interest in that field after this class. Her homework assignments consist of summarizing an article into one page and making your own graphic. It doesn't seem too bad but it is more time-consuming (and in my opinion pointless) than you may think at first. With her lecture slides, she throws a TON of information at you (there is a lot of extra research/industry-based info that I don't believe is necessary for this class) and this can (and for many, probably is) very overwhelming when you are studying for her exams (which are not fair in my opinion just based on her slides). I have to thank the TA Eugenia. For the second midterm and final, she gave practice problems that were very helpful for those exams, and I would not have survived the class if it wasn't for those resources. However, this brings me to another point: an effective professor should be able to present material in a balanced way-not too light and not too overwhelming. Dr. Chen definitely leans a lot more on the latter side, and until this issue is fixed (or a more fair professor teaches this class), I advise you to stay away and pick a BE/ChemE elective that doesn't make you tear your hair out as much. Electives should be there to pique your interest and make you think but also present material in a fair manner, and this is not what this class did.