Bro had me pulling my hair out all quarter. The actual course material wasn't too difficult, but the way he teaches, wacky grading, & the entire grade being based on exams will do it for you. All I can say is good luck & get started early on the practice exams. Even Anyika ochem didn't do me this dirty

John Lew is incredible. He's very interesting and fun to listen to, but this course is HARD. You have to understand concepts extremely well. But Dr. Lew explains everything clearly and in depth. There's videos, lectures, readings, homework problems, and past exams. Do as much as you can. You'll spend a lot of time studying if you want to do well.

This class was very difficult. His lectures are entertaining. If he tells you not to memorize something like the TCA or glycolysis- he is lying MEMORIZE everything. The weekly quizzes look just like the homework, do well on those they saved my grade. The exams are similar to the practice exams he posts, but do not really reflect the homework.

"would" - my good buddies in this class

By far, best MCDB professor I've had. Really hammered home on what was important, and 4 months removed still remember a lot. Great job of using concepts to drive memorization and making the subject matter unforgettable. Very accessible in office hours, and it is not a class where bs gets in the way of doing well. Highly recommend

Great professor! Really teaches the conceptual aspects of the class well, I still remember all of it weeks removed. Super kind and helpful in office hours. Hard class, partially due to large amount of material requried on own time but truthfully material in the class should be taught over 17 weeks not 10. Overall great prof and fun class.

Similar to others! Professor Lew is a great guy. That being said, his lectures are pretty disorganized. It was kinda hard to gage the big picture until I went through the practice finals. But, I feel like I learned the most from this class than any other class. The final is hard, but nothing crazy. Practice finals and midterms are your friend.

Mixed feelings... He's a really nice, approachable guy & lectures extremely well. He struggles to be succinct though, & piles on tons of work for you to do outside of class. I disliked watching all his prerecorded lectures on our own time. Shoutout to my amazing TA for getting me through this course!

It is v difficult to gage what Lew wants you to have memorized vs what he wants you to "understand". His finals are notoriously difficult, there is an excessive amount of work given that you must watch a video lecture before every lecture, on top of weekly quizzes, problem sets, and additional homework. He often gets lost in his own analogies.

John Lew is freaking angel. He cares so much about his students, and is truly concerned about the well being of his students. He tried to keep the material brief and interactive, and always owned up to the mistakes me made during them. I wish I could take this guy for every class at UCSB.

I wish I attended Lew's OH more because he's genuinely a great guy and professor. He teaches super intuitivley and is a very compassionate professor. I wish he taught more classes because I would take each class.

His problem sets are your best friend, very good at explaining concepts in a way that's easy to understand, his lectures are pretty all over the place which made it hard to keep track of how certain concepts connect, but overall he's a good and fair teacher, seems like a nice guy too.

The beginning of the class was super slow, with little lecture material, and the end of the class was hyper speed! There was so much material towards the end of the class; it was ridiculous. Found it pretty boring but he was an okay teacher

I had him for MCDB 108B as well and honestly love him. He's really good at explaining complex concepts in an easy to understand way and for the lab class (granted it was all online due to COVID) he did a great job at teaching us important lab techniques even though we were unable to be in the lab. Definitely one of the better upper div professors

Lew sets tough expectations for test answers so you have to be really precise and answer perfectly to get full credit for a question. Lectures are very long, slow and tedious and he mostly writes on the blackboard instead of posting slides so be ready to write. Do all the practice problems to study because the tests are similar to those.

The irony of John Lew telling his students to be brief when they explain their test answers and then spending an entire class discussing one simple concept that everyone already understands is not lost on students. Overall a pretty good professor and his tests are very predictable due to the problem sets.

Dr. Lew did a good job working through the intricacies of some key metabolic pathways while keeping lectures focused on the big picture of metabolism's goals -- telling the TAs to grade answer length and preciseness strictly is a bit stressful (though fair), especially when the course grade mainly rides on a 4-question midterm and 8-question final.

This is the most disorganized class you will ever take. Lectures are all over the place and it is impossible to piece what readings belong to what. He can be a good lecturer but the concepts are made overly complicated because of how scattered the material is presented.

Class was 15% quizzes, 35% midterm 50% final. Midterm was orientated around his problem sets (do them! all of them!). Final was more orientated around his past finals. RECORD HIS LECTURES because he can be scatterbrain and he will test you on stuff he lectures (that he doesn't put on problem sets). Last week of class he rushes through stuff :/

He mostly tests on stuff that is based on his online problem sets. It's hard to catch up in the lectures, so if you can't do so, just take notes from the suggested textbook reading pages. Overall, he seems to have improved his abilities to elucidate course concepts and tie things together.

Dr. Lew has a great personality, but simply isn't a very good teacher. The concepts in this class aren't too difficult, but are presented in a very scattered manner that makes them extremely difficult to follow.

He is a horrible teacher - VERY unorganized and misleading in regards to preparing for exams. He doesn't want students to memorize, rather to "intuitively" understand the concepts. YOU NEED TO MEMORIZE EVERYTHING. No clear course structure -uploads reading material a few times a week. He never posts quiz scores to GS. Be ready to teach yourself.

Lew is friendly and cares for his students but IMO was not the best teacher. His in-class analogies just don't help (some are good), he tries to oversimplify complicated systems to one statement he'll tell you to write down, and often lectures past the end of class. I'd say he could spend less time emphasizing points. Sections and hw help a lot!

he was bad.