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

Such an awful class, take it from ANY other professor if you can. Low reads slides word for word in class, taken directly from the textbook. The worst part is the exams (almost the entire grade). All mc questions extremely specific/includes trick questions so even when you know the material, you will probably fail the exams. IDK how anyone passes.

Awful lecturer. All of her lecture notes are copy-pasted from the textbook, and she goes through slides at lightning speed to the point you can't even keep up taking notes. Either she reads the slides directly or she explains complicated points that aren't written down without elaborating anything. You're better off just reading the textbook.

Prof. Low was the most hilarious professor I have taken so far. Although exams were quite hard and sometimes difficult to understand, all you have to do is take good lecture notes and make sure you fully understand each concept taught. I thought she did a pretty good job explaining everything and she made her lectures fun with jokes. I recommend

If you see this comment, then stop thinking about taking her class. Her lectures are so tedious and her PPTs are quite not organized. She only follows a bunch of notes on her PPT during class and speaks so fast. Her exams are unreasonably difficult although exam grades are 90% of the score. She doesn't know how to help students understand biology.

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.

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.

I have never been more offended by an academic professional than I have by Professor Low. I'm in her nutrition class and she literally LAUGHED when talking about how some people need to get surgery to help with obesity. She is not sympathetic at all and makes people feel crappy if they're not in perfect shape and eating vegan. -5000/10

I find this woman's lectures to be so impossible to get thru. Like she's one of those professors whose literal voice irks u by the end of the quarter. She doesn't know how to explain concepts to make them easy 2 follow. She'll go on for way too long in lecture just to say "ok," flip the slide, & confuse tf out of u. She ignores raised hands too lol

I found her to be a genuine person which encouraged me to work more and enjoy biology just a little more. Sometimes the accent would trip me up or the material would cause me to daze off in that stuffy room, but she was sweet and had a simple humor that allowed me to enjoy this course more than EEMB7.

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.

I had Low online and her lectures were better than Finkelstein, but by no means were they amazing. She asks for very specific answers on her exams. I definitely recommend CLAS, it's a great way to review processes especially before an exam. Put in the work now in animal physiology, because once plant physio hits, it's harder to recover.

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

Lows exams are literally impossible. I reviewed the lectures several times and even read the textbook thoroughly. She included content on the exam that she explicitly said we wouldnt be tested on! Had to drop this class and will take it in the summer with hopefully a better and more fair teacher

Overall, I found this class to be intolerable. I would choose to take classes with any other professor but that was not possible. Majority of your grade is based entirely on test. There was a small extra credit opportunity that saved me from a C. I found the test to be extremely difficult and often not on material in lecture or the book.

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 >:(

Shes a super sweet professor! Her lectures basically just go through what youre reading in the textbook but in less detail so I highly recommend getting the textbook and taking detailed notes on it. Her tests are really hard and very conceptual but she was still a good teacher and the class averages were always reasonable.

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.

Prof. Low is great! She is caring and funny and her lectures aren't too difficult or boring. Our entire grade is made up of a midterm, a final, and a few quizzes, but the curve is pretty forgiving. Her tests are pretty hard though, but she is a great prof.!

In-class lectures too dense and fast to accurately take notes, watching recordings is necessary. 1.15 hour lectures became 4-6 hours straight of recorded lecture note-taking twice a week due to 25+ slides of block text and figures that you must know. Exams have horrible point distributions per question and are poorly worded. Quizzes are a coinflip.

I loved Dr. Low's class! I took her in summer session B. I enjoyed it when she became passionate when covering something she has a special interest in and when she ate snacks in the pre-recorded lectures. She's a quirky professor (which I love) and her exams inspired me to double my effort. Take her and you'll never regret!

Professor Low clearly does not know how to write proper and fair exams that encourage critical thinking in biology students. Her lectures are all over the place and she tests you on things that she will mention only in passing during a lecture video, so if you miss anything she says you will fail the exam. It's amazing how UCSB hires these people.