BEWARE of the trick questions! One word could be different, making the entire answer wrong. I really enjoyed Clegg's jokes and personality. However, when taking the midterm, I was blinded by the trick and niche questions about specific experiments. Now that I know how to study for his section, I bounced back on the final. Just be careful!
He brought his dog to lecture:D Definitely my favorite out of the three professors, his jokes were very silly and I loved the medical mysteries. The topics he covered are kind of hard to understand so reviewing lecture videos and quizzes, watching explanatory YouTube videos, and practice problems are key because exam is a lot of the same questions.
MY FAV FROM THE 1A PROFS he knows what he's talking about, exam questions are exactly like study guide, and he tells a joke every lecture. Takes a content heavy subject like cell biology and makes it very digestible. 10/10 recommend
I liked him the best out of the other 2 professors for 1A. He was very upfront that his midterm would be solely based on his lectures. This portion of bio is entirely based on memorization, there's no critical thinking so it made it easy. It's just a matter of how much raw information you can shove into your brain. Do that and you're golden
He made learning about cell biology more fun with his mid-lecture jokes. The content contains many details you must know, but he breaks it down decently. His quizzes and his midterm are high-difficulty since you have to memorize those details and need a deep understanding of them to answer specific questions. He is a cool professor though.
Best STEM professor I've had at UCSB so far. He makes his lectures super engaging and always told a joke in the middle of class to break it up. He even brought his dog once. His midterm was definitely tough, but very similar to the practice tests. Watch the CLAS videos- they saved me!
Clegg was funny but his jokes did not make up for how bad his midterm was. The questions are worded very odd and it was hard to understand what they were really asking. Also, the questions would be more on applying knowledge/critical thinking more so than memorization, so you can't really BS your way through his section of the class.
He is a good professor and tries to keep his lectures engaging. Definitely a bit of an oldhead but in an endearing way. His content is quite dense and very memorization heavy. I struggled with his midterm the most, but I think just grinding the flashcards is the best way to hit it. And the practice tests.
Very charismatic professor and good lecturer (condenses material down making it easy to understand) but the midterm questions are worded very specific and some material on the exams is not taught in lecture.
This course was taught much better than his part of intro bio. Midterm was a 5 minute presentation in section wort 30%, participation in section 20%, final exam 50%. The final was very stressful since there are no assignments throughout the quarter so it can be hard to know what to study but he posts a previous final to help. Overall ok MCDB class
Clegg's lectures are fine, but his test questions are highly specific and intentionally confusing.
Clegg's portion of the MCDB1A was undoubtedly the hardest for me. It was based on the tiniest of details and took a lot of concept relaying to fully understand the concepts. Just try your hardest and if you don't do well, haul ass for the final. The curve really comes through (78 was an A- for Fall 2021). Curve was insanely good for this class.
His lectures were my favorite out of the 3 for this class. His midterm and portion of the final were also the hardest. It was all memorization and we were tested on the smallest details. Honestly studying could only do so much unless you have a photographic memory.
he put a question on our practice test and on the midterm but misspelled the correct answer from the practice, so no one got it right. he also made a mistake on the practice test and used the same question on the real test, when a student questioned it after the test, he changed the answer so again, almost everyone's grades dropped. so frustrating.
My favorite lecturer from MCDB 1A. His part of the class is about cellular biology and most of it is memorization. So rewatch lectures, take notes, and read the book.
He's a very accommodating professor. Super easy class, and the material is interesting because he mentions current events. You have to do a presentation for a midterm and the final is open notes for a few days.
his lectures are straightforward, but his test is too heavily formatted on knowing more than one answer for the question. I feel like this is very unnecessary especially since his topics are memorization-heavy, and his format isn't needed especially during an online class. Stu did better on formatting his questions than clegg did.
He likes to tell jokes. His exams are very detailed, and the style of the problems is quite unique, which is really effective in testing the actual degree of understanding among students. One must get quite familiar with the material to achieve better grade.
Out of all the professors who taught MCDB1A clegg was the most tolerable. He's good, not great. He understands what its like to be a student, he tries to make class interesting and I appreciated his corny jokes and the fact he always started at 8:01 :)
His jokes are adorkable. Lectures are very well designed and he presents material in a way that's easy to understand. Efficient at getting the point across and dulls the pain of an 8am lecture 4 days a week
Great teacher, funny and easy to understand!
Professor Clegg is a funny guy, lectures well, has great office hrs. However, he's only taught MCDB 1A for a short time and his test questions are weird. STUDY random details and figure out how to determine what his test questions are getting at! I did awesome on his midterm and not as great on his portion of the final... so weird discrepancy.
He is very straightforward with the material (literally everything is in the lecture slides). I went to every class but rarely took notes because I found that getting the general idea during lecture was helpful for me. Later on I would review the slides for the more specific details. Tries to crack a joke every class- reminds me of my dad.
Definitely worst lecturer I've had in my 2 years. Why do I even go to class if I'm literally just having the slides read to me? AND it's an 8am. HELL NO. Not something I look forward to. Lecture slides are all over the place and hard to understand. Might as well just stay home and watch the lectures when it's convenient for you.