I absolutely ADORE Professor Pflugel! This man is the human embodiment of sunshine. He is so sweet and understanding, his lectures are so clear, informative, and entertaining. I can't say enough good things about him.
As for the class itself - it was a lot of work. With COVID and having to do remote learning, it was an interesting class. We used Labster to conduct online labs, and honestly it was fantastic. Everything was super informative, and I genuinely learned a lot in this class.
10/10 would 100% reccommend and take again!

Dr. Pfluegl is very accomodating and cares about his students. He and the TAs have been responsive to feedback.

All of the assigned worksheets have been manageable. Most students will usually ask questions on the discussion forum for help and Dr. Pfluegl tends to go over how to complete the assignments during lecture. The three writing assignments were also very simple to write. We were given one week to write the paper, another week to assess each other, and a third week to write a reflection. Overall, I would say the workload for this class is not too heavy.

Overall, Dr. Pfleugl is incredibly organized. The class was taken online and the site was very easy to navigate because of all the adjustments he made – there was color-coded tabs, a check-box to ensure that all assignments for the week were completed, and lots of videos and links to resources just in case you weren't able to attend lab section. Although everything was pretty fast-paced because this was a summer session class (we did two labs per week online), the workload was definitely manageable. We also have 3 CPR assignments: 1 for writing the first half of a scientific paper, 1 for writing the second half, and 1 for writing a full paper. There are options for getting points back on the CPR through a reflection. I admit that I didn't attend all the lectures, but I don't think they are crucial for success -- he mainly goes over the assignments for the week and gives you a bit of a background on the labs.

I took this class the first quarter it was online. If you can, I would definitely recommend taking it in person, because there are a lot of really fun labs (such as sequencing your own mitochondrial DNA to discover your ancestry, and running an EKG etc) that I wish I got the chance to actually do. Online, we just used a data base and wrote reports based on that data. The amount of work we have is very manageable, and the class is organized super well so everything we have to do for the week is clearly laid out. The scientific articles we had to write were actually my favorite part of the course, because I found the process of reading published research papers and learning how to set them up to be very beneficial to my learning and applicable to my future. Also, I really loved the peer-review system for grading. You have six peers review your paper so it is very fair, and reading other students' papers is helpful so you know where you stand in your writing. The grading is incredibly generous and as long as you do all the work you can easily get an A. Dr. Pfluegl is also very nice and definitely shows that he cares a lot about his students!

Good class. Very interesting material and the teaching team was very helpful. Remote learning for this class very clear. There were clearly listed bullet points of lab and writing requirements for each week on CCLE. This made each week's work very easy to follow. Although there were some labs that were complicated, the use of the discussion forum as well as the teaching staff made it good. The professor himself is a great person!

This class was thankfully a breeze, because I took it with four other STEM classes. Professor Pluegl and all of the staff made sure all the lab assignments and worksheets were understood in their weekly lecture by explaining each step pretty well. I was able to finish all the work for each week in one day. The Labster, worksheets, writing assignments, and other small tasks only take a couple hours, especially if you do the pre-lab quizzes and watch the Monday weekly webinar/lecture before Tuesday, when the assignments open.

Lecture: Once a week, for us it was every Monday for about an hour on Zoom. Pfluegl would review all the material for the week and show us exactly what to do for each section of the worksheet assignments.

Discussion: This was asynchronous so I never actually met my TA. We all just worked on the assignments on our own time but there were Zoom meetings with TAs or LAs as hosts that we could join if we had questions about a problem.

Writing Assignments: There were three of these, and this was the hardest part of the course for me, although it really wasn't too bad. The first one is just the intro and materials, the second one is the results and discussion, and the third is all components. Each write-up is based on a different lab, so the first one was about memory, the second on metabolism, and the third on pulmonary function. There are lots of instructions, the rubric is provided, and there are sample papers that everyone uses as a reference. The only thing that many of us disliked about the writing assignments was that they are graded by peers. So you grade can be way lower than it should've been on the assignment if the peer graders were harsh or picky. I personally didn't have any issues, but others were unfairly marked down. There is a way to complete a self-reflection to receive extra points to makeup for the lost ones, but the idea of a peer-grader system is still debated. There were like 700+ students in the class though, so I can imagine that grading all the papers would take too long and that's why the peer system is in place.

Other: Since we couldn't actually perform labs in person, we did our labs through Labster. It worked out pretty well in my opinion. There were also short multiple choice pre-lab and post-lab quizzes for each week that were super easy. There was also no midterm for this class and the final was optional due to the protests at the time. The final was only 5% of our grade anyway.

Bottom line: It's very easy to get an A+ in this class, and if you're taking it remotely, it's even easier. Pluegl was the only professor, but he was a great one. He was the first out of my professors to reach out when remote learning began and the first to make final exam accommodations, and just overall, the LS 23L course was very organized and prepared. Highly recommend!!

Dr. Pfluegl is great and the class was really easy especially online. The problem is that the weekly webinars weren't too helpful and I found myself watch an hour-long video, but really not learning much. The weekly quizzes are rly easy too so i wouldn't worry about those. The weekly assignments could be long and sometimes confusing to a point I needed to ask the TA for a lot of help.

Either way, the class was really easy

I took this during COVID-19, so it is a bit of a different situation than traditional years. The class was overall easy to obtain an A in as much of the grade is group work and discussion assignments. The final was very manageable and was comprised of an individual and group section. The workload did seem a bit much for a 3 unit lab as it was primarily seeming to be busy work. A large part of our grade were 3 writing assignments which were peer graded. Though some peers graded more harshly than others, overall the grade balanced out and wasn't too bad.

Professor Pfluegl clearly put a great amount of time into the class. He would send weekly personalized emails detailing your grade and explanation as to why your grade was what it was. He also would have lab tours during the hour lecture, which was interesting to see since we are not on campus.

Overall if you do all the work, it is not a difficult class and relatively easy to do well in.

Pfluegl is the best professor! He's so charming and calm and you can tell he really wants to help his students succeed in every aspect of life. He's also adapted to the online format quite well, especially impressive seeing as it's a lab course that normally requires in-person, hands-on activities.

The class itself is quite a bore, but if you're reading this, you probably need to take it. There's a lot of busy work now, taking the form of worksheets and videos and online lab simulations that are assigned every Tuesday and due every Sunday, but make sure to do well on these because points do add up!

Every third week you have a section of a research paper to do (first half, second half, and full paper). These are peer-reviewed and graded (you are assigned 6 reviews to grade). Try to do your best on these and you'll be rewarded. A lot of people give half-assed efforts and then complain when all the peer reviewers roast them. If you do your best, you will get the grade you deserve, especially since there are 5 points that you can make up by simply doing a reflection.

I didn't find his weekly recorded webinars helpful so I would just read the lab manual that he posts every week and it will tell you everything. Several of the weeks are quite confusing, but since there aren't synchronous discussion sections, the only way you can ask for help is online chats with TAs that are active all week. Definitely try to find a groupme for this class because they are a godsend. Overall, this is an excessively easy class that you may not learn much in this online format, but it's decently fun to learn different aspects of lab techniques.

Took him during the COVID situation, overall he was a saint. He made things very clear to understand, also I enjoyed his intro to his videos. Your peers play a part in your grade through peer reviews This quarter many students were harsh graders even though Pfluegl made it clear some things should NOT be taken into consideration and should not reduce your points, but some students didn’t listen. Pfluegl is very considerate and understanding. He’s honestly the sweetest professor I’ve had at UCLA.