Dr. Pires is a hypocrite. If you sit in the Geology library near the magazine shelves, you can see her chain smoking cigarettes every 10 minutes in the garden area in between the Geology building and Franz. I don't understand how she can teach us about life and evolution when she participates in one of the most degenerate activities known to humankind. Obviously the LS department fucked up when they hired her.

I think someone needs to write a good review here. She is a good professor. Her tests are hard but I don't know what everyone is expecting out of a LS2 class. You have to work hard and know your stuff inside and out and you will do relatively well. Her averages are low but if you study you will get a good grade. My only complaints, she sometimes does not respond back to emails and takes forever to do the grading! Besides that good professor. Take her clas you will learn a lot.

I took ls1 with deb..and am now waiting for my ls2 grade with her. The thing is, she's a nice lady to talk to after class and just have a friendly chat with, but her tests, they are just way too hard when you are taking like 3 other classes. As everyone has already mentioned, her means hover around the low 60's, high 50's. I am sorry but this is just unacceptable for a class of very hard working students. The one kid who scored the 80 and 90 on the midterms...the only one who scored in that range rewrites the book. This is not normal. You should not have to rewrite the entire book to do well in a class. And still, even HE is not scoring 100. I studied very hard for the final and still did bad, the participation points she assigned are about 70 less than the max. How can you do well in a class when even showing up at 8am lectures and doing clicker questions doesn't give you 100% in participation? Final grades are not posted yet, but i am very scared i may be getting a C :(. Deb is a very nice person, however, if you want a reasonable shot at an A or even B+ avoid her.

I feel so bad having to say this, but I think you guys need to hear it. This class was probably the hardest class I've taken in my 2 years of being at UCLA. I know that it isn't only because LS2 is a hard class itself...I think Deb had a huge role to play as well. I understand that LS2 is a class that requires you to retain an incredible amount of information in ten short weeks, but Deb definitely didn't try to make this any easier for us. Her test were way too tough. Not a single person scored above an 80 something percent on either of the midterms. Her tests have multiple choice and free response. Both sections are insane! I have absolutely no idea where she comes up with these intense questions.
Just to make something clear, I am definitely not a slacker, and I did not slack off in this class. I studied for WEEKS and still failed. I took the first midterm after studying just a few days and failed. I figured ok, it's just the first midterm and now I know how she tests, and maybe I should've studied a little more. So for the second midterm, I studied like CRAZY. From the day after I got the first midterm back to the day of the second midterm, I studied my butt off. I did everything possible and made sure there was nothing more left to study. I also got really sick because of all the studying but I thought it would be worth it. So I got my results back and I got exactly the same score as the first midterm. I was so discouraged. I would've probably done better if I just guessed everything and didn't study at all. I seriously have no advice to give to anyone because apparently studying your butt off and actually understanding and not just memorizing is not enough. Her final was about 50 times as hard as the midterms. I haven't gotten my grade but I just want to pass. I don't even care about the grade anymore.
So if you can avoid this class with this professor AT ALL just do it. I feel like I got out of this class was stress, discourage, and rethinking med school :(

She is actually one of the worst lecturers I've ever had at UCLA. She went way too fast when she explained everything, especially for an 8 oclock class when everyone was still half-asleep. Her midterms were COMPLETELY unfair, the short answers were hard to read and decipher and she refuses to answer questions during testing. The last 3 lectures of class, she went over a chapter (50-60 pages) EACH LECTURE. Meaning she crammed in 3 chapters in week 10 just to be able to test us on them for the final. She is also awful in office hours and tells you to go back in the book and look for the answer instead of answering the question you have. Do NOT take her if you don't have to. Her class is awful