The first quarter of the class focuses so. much. on GMOs (I should've known, considering the GMO game is a big part of the class). The game made the class super fun :) You got to be in a big group project and schedule meetings yourselves.

The workload is manageable, but there'd be reading like every other day. + There would be extra credit readings, too! The tests were what lowered my grade in the class, and I wish I had studied more :( However, Professor Rensel is SUPER ACCOMMODATING, so nothing was her fault, LOL!

To preface my review, a cluster is a team-taught general education course for freshman. I will also leave reviews on the co-professors for this class.

Dr. Rensel was a wonderful lecturer, who always made her topics (relating more to the biological aspects of the course) enjoyable. Her test questions are always the most reasonable on the test, and her grading is straightforwards. It is sometimes easy to put off her assigned readings if you get bored easily.

Overall, if you're interested in biotech, bioethics, or are just an engineer hoping to knock out all their GEs in one fell swoop, I would highly recommend this course.

If you are going to take a cluster, take this one!!! Interesting material, lenient grading considering almost half your grade ends up being made up of participation in the discussions, the GMO game, and homework readings (all of which you should get 100 on if you are keeping up with the basic work). The work load is pretty manageable, we have readings but they are pretty short compared to other clusters. Midterms and finals are sometimes slightly difficult but very fair and clear. Also 1% of extra credit is offered by doing pretty basic extra work
Rensel is the best professor in this cluster. She is super clear, organized, friendly, and just makes her material a lot more straightforward than the other lecturers.

I love professor Rensel. She is extremely accommodating, caring, and very engaged with the class. Her lectures were interesting and everything you need for the test is in the lectures. The readings were a bit annoying as they are long and you need to read them for the weekly quizzes. However, it does solidify the information taught in lecture. Love this class and I will take another class with her.

I don't have enough good things to say about Dr. Rensel and the Hormones seminar. She's a very sweet, knowledgeable lady who is always willing to listen, offer advice, etc. I got sick on the final presentation day and she was super understanding about it, which is not common in teachers around finals time. The course content was super interesting and felt intentionally chosen / hand selected. We covered so many topics that I would not have known about and I really felt like my perspective and understanding of multiple controversial issues became more nuanced and educated. The course load was manageable, a few readings and activities a week for a once a week class session. I felt like it was all teaching me something new, so I usually didn't mind doing it. We were also provided plenty of resources to learn how to use UCLA research resources, which I think will help me throughout my years at school. That made doing our research paper much easier and smoother. I'm not yet sure what grade I received, but I don't doubt it will be high thanks to her timely inputting of assignment grades and a fair grade distribution between assignments, participation, and the paper.

For the Biotech & Society cluster, Rensel's lectures are the best because she completely goes over all the readings and makes them super easy to understand. She also holds tons of office hours if needed and is overall a super efficient, engaging and easy to understand prof.

Rensel was one of the best professors in the cluster. Simply it is because she totally knows what she is doing and she totally knows what she is saying. She is direct and to the point without the need to give extra unnecessary information. This makes her lectures quick and easy to follow. She offers tons of office hours, but didn't find myself going simply because I had no questions to ask since she explained everything nicely and clearly. Her readings that she assigns are quick and easy to follow.

Professor Rensel gives great lectures. I really liked the topics she covered in the cluster and her material was very interesting. She was also super helpful in her explanations of complex biological mechanisms. She made the class easy for me.
The workload is super heavy though. There's a lot of reading assigned for each lecture. I wouldn't say this class is an easy A.

Professor Rensel, unlike other professors in the cluster, uses the Learning outcomes very clearly and specifically, so that when it comes to the revision for finals, you'll never have a problem figuring out what exactly you need to know for her part of the course. Although she might come off as strict and intimidating in the first few lectures, with time you realize she's super sweet and cool. She explains everything very well and detailed, doesn't go over time and makes sure to she answers all questions that you might have. Probably the best of the 4 professors you'll have in the cluster!

A lot of people are going to tell you that clusters are not worth it and a lot of work. Honestly, the workload is not that much (at least for this cluster), there's just a lot of readings. You can probably get away without doing the readings since most of the questions on the exams are taken from lectures. However, the readings do help you understand a lot of the material talked about in lecture, so that is really up to you. The midterms and finals consist of multiple choice and short answer questions. If you can answer every learning outcome from every lecture and remember the answer, I can guarantee you will get at least a 90%. I personally recommend clusters if you are not into humanities because it gives you writing 2 credit and knocks out a good number of GEs and also fulfills the diversity requirement. I really hate writing essays and there is only one major paper every quarter. A usual UCLA writing class has 3 essays a quarter, and since clusters are year long classes, the 3 essays are spread out between the 3 quarters, which puts less stress into any one of your quarters if you are really slow and bad at writing essays like me. The seminar in spring quarter is a little more writing intensive, but it is still only one major paper plus a bunch of small pass/no pass writing assignments. The nice thing about it though is that the seminars only meet once a week and there is no midterm/final, much like your typical UCLA writing class. For some people, like me, who would rather take midterms and finals, that may be a little more actual work, but for others, the spring quarter is the most chill because some people can actually BS their way through the small writing assignments.

Just like what you might also hear from others, take a cluster that you would actually enjoy. I am a science major and even though this GE only gives me 3 GE credits that I actually need (because 1 of them is a life science GE), I did not ever regret taking this cluster. I absolutely think that everything I learned in this course was so interesting and learned so much from it. The topics that are addressed in this cluster include GMOs, breast cancer, in vitro fertilization, DIY science, and a few more other topics. It brings another perspective to science that you may have never thought about, for example, ethical issues, social, political, etc. This is probably the most scientific a humanities class can ever get for a south campus major. So for all you freshmen out there, if you are interested in taking a cluster, I suggest going through each one and reading all the descriptions about them and see which one catches your eye. Of course, weigh out the pros and cons because some clusters have a lot of science GEs, which you may or may not need, and vice versa. For me, this cluster was the one that I thought would be interesting plus it gives GEs that cannot be fulfilled by any of my other prereqs.

One thing to note about for this cluster is that your TA has a good amount of power towards your grade. During fall quarter, I had a pretty harsh TA and although I aced both the midterm and final, I ended up with an A- because the TA graded me pretty harshly on the stuff she gives grades to (I am definitely not a slacker and I put in a lot of time and effort into my work but still got low Bs). I highly recommend Evelyn if she is going to be a TA again. I switched to her winter quarter and got an A. She is fun, interesting, and super nice and approachable. She understands her students and actually enjoys teaching and is good at it, most importantly, a very fair and not harsh grader. Discussions are almost 2 hours long but her discussions are always super interesting and relevant to the class. In the spring I was in Professor Rensel's seminar about GMOS. Pretty interesting but I mainly chose that one because I personally think Professor Rensel is the best professor in the cluster plus having a professor is probably more safe than a TA. But then again, the spring seminar focuses on a special topic of the cluster, so choosing a seminar you are interested in is important too.

Overall, I wouldn't say this cluster is "easy", but it is definitely worth taking if you are interested in science and/or biotechnology. Especially for science majors who want to avoid as many humanities classes as possible, this cluster is a really good blend of humanities and science. Definitely super fair class. Professor Lee has some pretty unfocused lectures, but as far as I recall, the exams don't have a lot of material from her lectures. Theres usually only 1 or 2 main points from Professor Lee's lectures even though they are really long so try to figure out which things are important (it is usually the broader stuff rather than the details she will give). Professor Rensel definitely is the most clear and if you do end up taking the cluster, you will understand you don't even need to worry about Professor Rensel's material. Panofsky and Le Goff is kind of the middle ground where the concepts are not just laid out for you but you need to do a little thinking on your side. Definitely doable cluster and if you're sincerely interested in it and put work into it, you can get an A.