MCDB 1BZ
William Smith
3.2
23 reviews
LOW S H
Seng Low
2.5
225 reviews
NGUYEN A T
Alice Nguyen
1.2
74 reviews

322
2.3000000000000003
MCDB1B . Low S H 3 Years Ago

Dr. Low is not as scary as people described. I took her MCDB 1B over the summer and her lectures are kind of long but funny. Memorize her slides and do practice exams and then you will be fine. Make sure that you do the quizzes - that's a great boost of your grade!

0 helpful 1 unhelpful
MCDB1B . Low S H 3 Years Ago

why does UCSB hire these people? seriously? worst professor ever. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. so disorganized, all over the place, convoluted, lectures make 0 sense. turns simple concepts into a complicated mess because she has no idea how to coherently teach a concept. PLEASE ORGANIZE YOUR LECTURES DR. LOW FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. PLEASE HAVE SOME STRUCTURE.

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MCDB21 . Low S H 3 Years Ago

lectures covered difficult material very well, and prof low explained concepts several times to make sure the points got across. two midterms and a final which all included short answer portions, but study and they shouldn't be too bad. didn't use the textbook too much, prof covers most material in lecture.

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MCDB139 . Low S H 3 Years Ago

Her lectures are extremely long and dense. The lecture slides are all over the place and you have to pay close attention on what she is saying because they will appear on the midterms/ final. Her teaching style is like "if this does that, then that does this." For the midterms and final, she does not give you a lot of time and harsh grader. 0/10

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MCDB34132 . Low S H 3 Years Ago

Worst Professor Ive had yet. If it werent for Wilton in the second portion of the class, I would have definitely failed. Her lectures are very unorganized and she tests you on obscure facts. She cares more about making sure she weeds a bunch of people out of the biology major rather than actually helping us learn and succeed. Avoid at all costs!

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MCDB1B . Nguyen A T 3 Years Ago

Not good at her job. Has made multiple mistakes such as telling people incorrect grade cut offs and accusing people of cheating and later admitting it was her mistake. Makes you feel like a number. Weeder class

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MCDB6 . Low S H 3 Years Ago

taken F2020 One of the worst professors ever. Does not care about students at all and shows no effort into teaching, she didn't even review her lectures before posting them when they were recorded precovid. Lectures were way too long. Contradicts herself in lectures and tests. Both midterms and final were ridiculously hard

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MCDB1B . Low S H 3 Years Ago

I personally didn't mind Seng Low and really liked her enthusiasm for the course. Her lectures were engaging and taught concepts in an understandable way but she moves through topics quickly (lots to cover in 1B). Her tests were fair if you knew the material well. This class is definitely a weeder class though, so join a bio mentor group or CLAS!

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MCDB111 . Low S H 3 Years Ago

Low's lectures are hard to follow and the slides are poorly organized. If you want an A, you will have to write down EVERYTHING she says. Also, the test questions were vague at times to the point where you can't even understand what it's asking you. If Low just organized her slides and put more effort into making the exams she would be much better

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MCDB1B . Low S H 3 Years Ago

she doesn't answer all your questions thru email when you need help. she's super lazy and tests on things that she went over for 1 second. seng babe if u reading this, either make the tests make sense or dont teach at all, we don't mind :)

3 helpful 0 unhelpful
MCDB6 . Low S H 3 Years Ago

Just... don't. Unreasonably hard midterms and final, and they're worth almost all of your grade. She put little to no effort into the class and it was clear that her goal was to make the class as hard as possible, not to have her students learn. She expects you to know more than she teaches, so I recommend self studying from day 1.

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MCDB1A . Nguyen A T 3 Years Ago

Half the class was accused of cheating on the last day of the quarter so no one could do anything about it. She didnt respond to the emails. Left us in the dark. Some got letters saying it was a mistake on their end. All exams had multiple mistakes they refused to fix. Waited to very last minute to submit final grades so we could not protest.

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MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

Low is one of the worst professors I've faced at SB so far. I ended up getting an A just from watching + notetaking the lectures. You should write down every part of the slides and what she's saying out loud too. I took the class remotely bc of COVID, so open-notes were helpful during exams, but without that the class would've been 100x harder.

0 helpful 1 unhelpful
MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

She was a terrible professor and person. she completely disregarded the entire pandemic and didnt not care for students at all. this class was 95% based on test scores which didnt even match with the lectures. her exams were so specific yet her teaching was so vague since she was lazy enough to use previously recorded lectures. DO NOT TAKE LOW.

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MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

Gotta work really hard for it and had to self study almost all of it. On my part I hear she is good during office hours and her TAs were helpful. Her tests were very specific which made self studying the textbook a requirement to get an A. Her lectures and structure is confusing and largely unhelpful. Focus on textbook and OH if u wanna do well.

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MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

Online lectures are prerecorded from last year in class so they are very difficult to learn from. Lots of background noise and lecture doesn't match up with the slides she gives us. Tests are difficult and super specific. May be different in person, but it seems as though she put no effort into the class. Had to teach myself everything before exam.

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MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

Truthfully, just dont.

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MCDB111 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

During OH, she's really chill and answers questions, but her tests really take you out. They demand an incredible amount of detail with little to no leniency for grading, and definitely not enough time to take it. Tiny things from lecture end up covering huge portions on the exams, so if you miss it, you're screwed. Nice person, not nice professor.

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MCDB111 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

Took her for online fall quarter. She uses pre-recorded lectures that are of bad sound quality and she moves away from the recorder sometimes which makes her thick accent harder to understand. Seemed to be no communication b/t her and TAs for material covered. Pulled review pdfs from many years prior that had info that was not in main slides. 1/10

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MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

She is one of the worst professors I have ever come across with. She does not accommodate for students needs and quite literally calls people stupid when she is approached to clarify something. Her lectures are just audio recordings from pre-covid classes with distracting background noise. DO NOT TAKE HER IF YOU CAN

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EEMB2LL . Nguyen A T 4 Years Ago

Lacks empathy and contributes to the (minimal) toxicity in the bio major. I dont understand how she has a job considering the immaturity and lack of self-awareness that she has. How did she even end up running the Intro Bio Labs? I cant believe the intro lab classes for the most impacted major on campus is this disorganized. UCSB deserves better.

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MCDB6 . Low S H 4 Years Ago

Professor low is definitely a great professor. She is reachable during OH, answers every question I had without any hesitation. For maintaining the course as university-level as possible, she made the exam a little harder than the impersonal class. But it is absolutely workable if you try to focus on the course material. For bad student, it is hard

1 helpful 5 unhelpful
EEMB2LL . Nguyen A T 4 Years Ago

If I could give her a zero I would. She is by far the worst faculty member I have ever had experience with at UCSB. This class was horribly organized, had unclear requirements, and Dr. Nguyen displayed a complete lack of compassion for her students on several occasions. I was actually excited to this class but this professor ruined it. TA was nice

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EEMB2LL . Nguyen A T 4 Years Ago

Class is terribly organized, she doesn't respond to emails, changed grading policy to be harsher mid-quarter during a pandemic, even though the class uses 3 different websites to turn things in, all with different times due which is extremely confusing and difficult to keep track of. She is also uncaring and unsympathetic to student hardship.

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