Prof Mazer is really awesome. She's so enthusiastic about the subject and it really shows. She does pop quizzes instead of midterms and finals which forces you to keep up with the class and not to cram which is actually really helpful. She makes the class interesting. Would recommend. Textbook not necessary.

Love plant biology, hate this class.

A professor who really tries and cares for her students but tests are difficult and expects you to know everything about plants in 3 weeks in an intro biology class. She really tries and is always available to help but tests were very long for a 50 minute period and didn't have time to finish and the tests were tough.

Teaches moderately clearly, but his powerpoint slides have few words on them. His tests require alot of memorization. His midterm was tough, but his portion of the final was insanely difficult- it had questions that seemed to be more advanced and in-depth than what was covered. Seems to be helpful.

Hodges loves his plants and his enthusiasm makes lecture a lot better. His tests are fair as long as you prepare. His slides lack the detail he goes into in lecture and are often just pictures. Make sure to attend lecture.

As an updated review of the course, I would say it is a relatively easy course. The best parts are also the worst however, there just is simply not enough time to pull off a genetics course that encompasses the entire field. This is especially true within a quarter. Be ready for a lot of botany based lectures, since this is his main expertise.

Pop quizzes every class meant cramming reviewing previous material while she was lecturing and meant missing out on a lot of what she was saying. The quizzes weren't difficult, but it was tough to find time to review for pop quizzes when other classes had midterms or papers due. Professor Mazer was fine, but the TA was very unhelpful and rude

This class is one of my favorites I've taken at UCSB. Mazer makes plants interesting and exciting. Instead of a midterm and final, you have 10 popquizzes throughout the quarter. It forces you to stay on top of your work so you actually learn and remember everything from the course! Everything you learn you can use outside the classroom. Love her!

Mazer tried out having weekly pop quizzes this quarter. The difficulty level of the quizzes was rudimentary considering it was an upper division class, but since they are weekly, you have to study quite frequently to be prepared. The material isn't tough, you just need to stay on top of it. I give her kudos for making botany a bit more bearable.

This year, she started a new thing where instead of a midterm and final, she did quizzes every week. They were pop quizzes, you never knew when she would give one, so that was a huge bummer. Requires lots of studying, because of it, in order to try to stay prepared all the time.

Requires studying 8+ hrsweek. Putting in all the work doesn't guarantee a good grade. No clear grading criteria. Mazer & the TAs grade students differently, if everyone puts the same answer some get full credit and others don't. Have to memorize 80-160 slides a week & have no idea when the quizzes will be or what will be on them & spelling counts

She is amazing! explains everything clearly....and her exams are fair if you study hard, plus the section quizzes were straightfoward I would def take another class from her

Hodges tries to do a good job teaching and be entertaining. However, he often is very unclear. TA was very helpful (Derieg) and more clear. Textbook is helpful but all exam material is from class. The content of class is interesting, but is made less interesting by the fact that he uses flowers and plants for his examples.

Hodges makes an effort, so i respect him. However, he is unable to present material in a clear way. Additionally, the content is the most boring thing on earth. literally wanted to die every second of that class. exams were easy and he doesn't try to trick you. This

Really helpful and friendly! Make genetics extremely clear and comprehensive. He provides a lot of example problems in class, so review those for the test and also review the practice test he posts online. I never read the textbook, just went over his lecture slides and did some book problems! Great professor and extremely approachable!!

Very clear and loves what he teaches. Lecture slides have little information on them but that's all you really need to know. Midterm was very easy and he reuses test questions

LOVED THE PLANT COURSE! She is very into plants and I loved that because she made the class fun. Wish she taught the plant lab.

This was a really good class. We just talked a lot, and she showed us some really neat stuff. There weren't any assignments really (besides participation in discussions on the readings) so I think everyone got A's...

Good prof, enthusiastic about the subject but lectures can tend to put you to sleep. Good thing you don't really have to go much. There are 'pop' quizzes but she pretty much always tells you when they're going to be and had most of them in section. Overall decent class, if not necessarily thrilling.

very nice guy. he had a good sense of humor and joked about the fact that none of us were actually interested in plants. his test for the midterm and final were relatively easy. just a lot of memorization for all sections of the class. i would definately like to take another class from him. oh and he takes A LOT out of the text book so read!

not a hard class, its plain memorization...his quizzes are like his tests and he recycles questions.

Ive never seen a man so interested in plants as much as Hodges,it's really cute.The way he presents himself during lecture is quite feminine.Hes a pretty good teacher, even though the material was really boring but at least it was Finkelstein!His tests arent that bad but make sure u know the specific dates and time period of when each plant evolved

I hate plants and never liked them, but Hodges made it alot easier to understand them. Although he throws a lot of material on his lecture slide, it is not hard to follow along if you do the readings before hand. Overall, he made the class exciting and a learning experience for me. He is defintely one of the better bio professors I've had.

He seems like a good teacher when the class starts and his lectures are fairly interesting; his tests, on the other hand, have nothing to do with anything that he teaches. I never missed a lecture or CLAS tutorial, I did the assigned reading / studied lecture slides, etc., and his test was absurd and NOTHING like what you would expect.