i love dr mazer, although she left around wk3 for personal/health reasons, 127 is probably the most rewarding class ive had at ucsb. study guides are not graded assignments but do ALL of them anyway, seriously helped me for the final/quizzes. she's so passionate & her ppts are very detailed. i ended up joining her lab, do the work & you'll be fine!

Professor Mazer is caring, clear and concise when it comes to lecturing. Everything you need to know in on the power-points. The powerpoints are usually 50-60 slides in length each lecture, on top of section lectures which pounds even more information on top of you. This class is pure memorization, nothing else to it. It takes a lot of your time.

I thought Prof. Mazer created a really thorough and well organized course about a huge topic, plant anatomy and biodiversity. I wish more than 2 weeks had been spent on the biodiversity section though, especially because she put so much of it on the final. If you take this class definitely study the last few lectures really thoroughly.

it's called plant diversity but we spent almost the whole quarter on plant cells and anatomy. the diversity part is only like the last 2 weeks. way too much information for the last 2 weeks to memorize tbh. :( don't recommend to take it

Mazer is a great lecturer. She is very passionate about plant biology & it really shows. Beware of 4 cumulative pop quizzes that literally stress you out the whole quarter & a multiple choice final. Not difficult but you can mess up your grade if you arent constantly preparing for the next pop quiz.

She does 4 pop quizes in class. It does help you study the material all the time but the class is totally focused on the grade and test. Class was Mon and Wed, and a quiz on Wed could cover Monday lecture so you'd have to learn it all perfectly the day after the class to be ready. It says quiz but every quiz is around 10% so you can't mess up.

Six pop quizzes, one final, and section. Pop quizzes are straight forward and easy as long as you study for them. I liked the grading criteria a lot. YOU DO NOT NEED THE BOOK. You also don't need to do the practice questions online. Just read the lecture notes (take some notes too in lecture) and you'll do well.

Prof Mazer is really awesome. She's so enthusiastic about the subject and it really shows. She does pop quizzes instead of midterms and finals which forces you to keep up with the class and not to cram which is actually really helpful. She makes the class interesting. Would recommend. Textbook not necessary.

Love plant biology, hate this class.

A professor who really tries and cares for her students but tests are difficult and expects you to know everything about plants in 3 weeks in an intro biology class. She really tries and is always available to help but tests were very long for a 50 minute period and didn't have time to finish and the tests were tough.

Pop quizzes every class meant cramming reviewing previous material while she was lecturing and meant missing out on a lot of what she was saying. The quizzes weren't difficult, but it was tough to find time to review for pop quizzes when other classes had midterms or papers due. Professor Mazer was fine, but the TA was very unhelpful and rude

This class is one of my favorites I've taken at UCSB. Mazer makes plants interesting and exciting. Instead of a midterm and final, you have 10 popquizzes throughout the quarter. It forces you to stay on top of your work so you actually learn and remember everything from the course! Everything you learn you can use outside the classroom. Love her!

Mazer tried out having weekly pop quizzes this quarter. The difficulty level of the quizzes was rudimentary considering it was an upper division class, but since they are weekly, you have to study quite frequently to be prepared. The material isn't tough, you just need to stay on top of it. I give her kudos for making botany a bit more bearable.

This year, she started a new thing where instead of a midterm and final, she did quizzes every week. They were pop quizzes, you never knew when she would give one, so that was a huge bummer. Requires lots of studying, because of it, in order to try to stay prepared all the time.

Requires studying 8+ hrsweek. Putting in all the work doesn't guarantee a good grade. No clear grading criteria. Mazer & the TAs grade students differently, if everyone puts the same answer some get full credit and others don't. Have to memorize 80-160 slides a week & have no idea when the quizzes will be or what will be on them & spelling counts

She is amazing! explains everything clearly....and her exams are fair if you study hard, plus the section quizzes were straightfoward I would def take another class from her

LOVED THE PLANT COURSE! She is very into plants and I loved that because she made the class fun. Wish she taught the plant lab.

This was a really good class. We just talked a lot, and she showed us some really neat stuff. There weren't any assignments really (besides participation in discussions on the readings) so I think everyone got A's...

Good prof, enthusiastic about the subject but lectures can tend to put you to sleep. Good thing you don't really have to go much. There are 'pop' quizzes but she pretty much always tells you when they're going to be and had most of them in section. Overall decent class, if not necessarily thrilling.