As a more physical science major, I hated bio before this class but Esdin really taught me how to enjoy the content! I've also started watching my health quite a bit more LMAO so take that as a bonus to this class. Class is free if you put a smidge of effort into it (especially if you've taken AP Bio or whatever, lots of review.) Only annoying thing is daily participation quizzes (online) but honestly it kept me more engaged and they were easy.

I strongly disliked this class. Esdin is a great person and funny professor, but at the end of the day, he has no control over the structure of the class, which is main issue of LS 7C. The TA's were extremely unhelpful and took many many many points off for discussion each week. Discussions were on new topics not closely related to class, but graded on correctness. The tests were worded ridiculously strange and had questions on topics we very briefly went over in class. Many students failed the midterms. Lectures don't really prepare you for the tests, and neither do clicker questions or discussion worksheets. Also, check the pdf of the clicker questions for the slides because the lecture slides are missing a lot of important pages. There really wasn't any useful guidance on how and what to study, leading many students to do poorly on the test. This class was just very frustrating because of the lack of straightforwardness and helpfulness. And to top it off, we were constantly told it was our faults for not doing well when clearly there are issues with the structure of the class.

*SELLING COURSE READER
One of the easiest GE's I've taken. Includes lab credit and makes you a better, healthier person overall. The only thing is that he requires you to buy a $100 course reader/iprofile that you can only get from a particular shop in Westwood. I have the updated course reader that it is in brand new condition and am selling it for cheaper: text me at **********. The only reason I got a B+ in this class was because I would forget to watch the lectures and take the quizzes LMAO. They were literally not even hard.

Although this class proved to be very difficult to me, I did enjoy it!
As with the rest of the LS 7 series, Launchpad is used, but I found myself to be the most successful after reviewing iClicker questions posed during lecture & after reviewing discussion section materials. Launchpad was helpful for general knowledge surrounding the subject, but DO NOT rely on it for your learning!! I did this for the most part & did not receive the grade I could've hoped for. Please, please, please engage with the material on a deeper level by reworking iClicker questions, discussion section questions, and make sure you 100% understand the diagrams & visuals you are given. I often glazed over these, as I thought I had sufficient understanding from just reading the material, but understanding the diagrams associated with the description is crucial (especially for midterms & finals).

I loved this class! I needed a science GE with a lab credit, and this was the perfect course to fulfill that requirement. The material was actually interesting and rather easy compared to a normal bio class. Dr. Esdin is a great lecturer as well; he explains concepts in a clear and concise manner. There was also no homework, so the workload was very light. The final project is not hard at all, but it is a bit time-consuming. The midterm and final were all multiple choice. If you took good notes during the lectures, the exams should be fairly easy. I bought the textbook but did not really use it at all since the majority of the material was just review from the lectures.
TL;DR - easy and interesting course with a great professor, easy A, highly recommend as a GE with lab credit

Esdin is a great teacher and gave engaging online lectures. If you just take notes on his lectures you don't need to do any studying outside of going over your notes for exams or quizzes. He makes participation quizzes every lecture day to encourage that. The project was a grind but it is manageable (not recommended) in one day if you wish. You need to go to discussion sections every other week which was probably the most boring part. But nonetheless an interesting class where you definitely learn a lot of useful stuff.

Honestly, I disagree with the other reviews of this class. I thought Esdin was a very confusing lecturer as he jumped around and constantly went on tangents. His slides were unclear at best and generally he wrote them out as he went, which made for lots of pausing and waiting. He posted lectures three times a week with a pop-quiz after every single lecture, so if you are bad with busy-work assignments like me, you will probably end up missing a bunch of these. The midterm and final were okay, and the final project was easy, but it was literally 3 days straight of copy and pasting without adding any additional knowledge. Overall, this class felt like a huge waste of time to me.

Super easy GE, and bonus points because it has a lab. When I took this class, the lectures were posted at 9am 3 days a week and you completed an attendance quiz on lecture content at some time that day to prove you had watched it. The attendance quizzes weren't bad. Discussion was once every 2 weeks which was nice, and the lab was just a project that you worked on throughout the quarter so it didn't feel too overwhelming. Get started on the project early and you'll be more than fine, and everyone I talked to in the class got a 95 or higher on it! Exams weren't too bad either if you were relatively prepared for them, and the class was sort of interesting and didn't have an overwhelming amount of content.

Maybe it is because I am not used to the structure of south campus classes or I am just not attentive, but I did not think that this class was as easy as a lot of people made it seem. Although it wasn't extremely difficult, I found that a lot of stuff on the quizzes and tests weren't explicitly stated on his powerpoints so you literally had to take notes on everything he said. That said, I found the class to be relatively interesting and I learned a lot about cardiovascular diseases and Esdin himself was pretty funny in his lecture videos. The entire class is currently asynchronous and I would recommend it.

Dr. Esdin is probably one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. He's really engaged during lectures and I learned a good amount from the class. He uploads lectures on CCLE and you have to do a quick participation quiz at the end. Quizzes every 2 weeks on lab and lecture material. Exams were pretty straightforward but some of them had weird wording so it was easy to lose points here and there. The final project was worth a lot of points but can be easily crammed into 1-2 days of work.

It was kind of stressful keeping up with the grading (can only lose 34 points to maintain an A) but towards the end of the quarter, he gave us some extra credit. Overall if you want an easy GE with lab this is definitely the class you should take.