This is literally a made up class. We write a research poster on research we did not do. The in person labs are an actual joke. This is a waste of three hours every week. And don't get me started on the horrible organization and direction of this class and the stupid pre-lab quizzes. I am sorry if you have to take this class.

It's bad. The pre labs are borderline ridiculous. The questions are so out of date that they still ask about covid green badges in pre lab quizzes. It just feels like they are so unprepared to teach this class. Even my TA is confused by the organization of this class. Also we are writing a poster about a lab we will never do. Weird.

I am speechless. I have never encountered someone who couldn't care less about their students. MCDB 1LL is my villain origin story and I have never felt more misery. She never responds to emails and her videos are less than helpful. Do not get me started on the pre-labs. The questions are awfully worded and the answers are not clear either.

Makes a class that's supposed to fun ridiculously complicated and tedious instead. Way way way too much work for 1.5 units and essentially an online class. Worst class I've taken here so far.

I really enjoyed Dr. Even's portion of EEMB 2; his lectures are content heavy but they're super interesting and he provided a lot of opportunities to review the material. The exam was hard, but I don't think it was unreasonably difficult. He was especially accommodating due to his part of the class being online, and I really appreciated that.

While I never met Dr. Nguyen in person, she seemed nice, but the class was very complicated for a 1.5 unit class and the grading criteria was not clear. The pre-lab quizzes were so stupid because the questions changed every time you attempted it and were worded badly which caused significant confusion and time to be wasted. I was disappointed tbh

funny and nice guy who shows interest in the subject but also in the success of his students. He sometimes would tell stories and they almost felt like they were life lessons. his test were pretty straight forward if you really get to know the material you will get an A

This lab was not difficult content-wise, but it seemed highly disorganized and busy-work based. We accessed course materials on a platform outside of GS, which was inconvenient. It could have been structured better, to suit both students and TAs. Your grade and how time consuming the course will be is 75% dependent on your TA's teaching style.

Professor Even is great! He's nice and makes lectures interesting. The way he formats his class makes sense, even though it can seem like a lot of work at times. I wish that this class was more about controversial issues like it is supposed to be and less about basic biology though. We would only spend like 1 day talking about controversies.

Most of lab section is spent sitting and waiting for something. The experiments we do are pointless and uninteresting, but every bio major has to take this class at some point. Your TA will determine how easy or hard the research paper assignment is. At least its way easier than 1LL.

Dr. Even makes the lectures highly interactive by letting everyone to watch the pre-recorded videos first and do discussions in lecture. This guy gave very fair exams. Everybody in my study group got a 90+% in the first exam. Just attend his lectures, go to CLAS, and discuss in group weekly. Then you can do an amazing job.

Dr. Even was a great instructor. His lectures/problem sets contain essentially all the detail students need for the exam and the textbook is an extra resource. Use his office hours/Q&A forum before the exam. He is accessible outside class for help/study tips by email/zoom. Find good study techniques EARLY. His exam covers many topics so CLAS helps.

The MCDB 1LL course was a mixed bag. TAs were often lost, prelabs were confusing, manual lacked clarity, and the course was disorganized/chaotic. Students were offered a small EC opportunity and GS was regularly updated (2 positives of this class). Email responses were unreliable. Labs could have been engaging if given better instruction/detail.

Prof. Even gives pretty engaging lectures and clearly cares about his field. His midterm is very easy if you watch lecture and understand the problem sets. Never went to office hours or did CLAS, and got an 80 on first midterm.

Honestly just awful in so many ways. Terrible PDF assignments that force students to buy Adobe Acrobat and then bait them into clicking links that make them lose all their work (this happened to me and many other classmates). Having to pay for the stupid lab manual that she probably makes thousands off of. Stingy and inaccessible. Horrible prof.

MCDB 1LL is way too much work for 1.5 units. In the first week during Winter quarter of 2022, we were doing remote learning and the LURE project drafts were so confusing, as no experiment videos were provided and we were just doing worksheets based on numbers/data given to us. The pre-labs are also tedious and time-consuming.

Insane amount of work, very disorganized, the work we are doing seems pointless

I took the EEMB W 22. You just have to watch all the recorded lectures on GS, do weekly assignments, and midterm and final test. The lectures are pretty solid. The weekly assignments are interesting but includes a lot of readings. The midterm and finals are MCQ, and asks detailed and tough questions.

Easily one of the worst professors at UCSB. Both of the Intro Biology lab courses are incredibly disorganized. It's almost like Alice was the only one applying to be the head of the bio department and UCSB was stuck with hiring her. If she can get a job, anyone can >:(

His tests are unreasonably hard no matter how much he says he tells you "everything to expect". He's really funny and intelligent, but when the class average on tests are 60, he then blames the students. Grade distribution is also super weird with a ton of A's and a ton of D's, blind-sighting both groups. And again, he blames the students.

Professor Even's lectures are the best in UCSB for me. He does know every concept of biology and how they related to real life examples. Essays and quizzes take up 1/3 of the grade, and quizzes related to readings are really tricky and hard. Midterm and final take up 2/3 of the grade, and they are hard but follow the exam guide you will be okay.

Really interesting class, lots of relevant conversation during section. Science is a bit harder for me personally so I just P/NP'ed it. Good for taking care of a GE. I'm not big on math and science courses, but this was a really good choice! The online setup is well done, left me time for other courses, but midterm and final definitely take work,

The Biolab classes (1LL and 2LL) are horribly organized and a huge waste of three hours every week. This class also has super strict rules on grading and attendance and they will almost never make an exception for students under any circumstance. The only upside is that the final exam is a group test in 2LL.

Dr. Even makes you work for your grade. His tests are mostly essays with some matching and fill in the blank. He mostly tests based on how well you understand the material rather than memorization. Write detailed notes for the full story, some of the stuff he says isn't always in his lecture slides. Funny and engaging lectures though (EEMB 159 too)