I liked Lannan a lot as a professor. He's a good professor, gives fair exams, and lectures keep students engaged. One thing I will note is that his slides do NOT have all the information he will test you on - you need to actually pay attention to what he's saying, or you will likely miss points that will show up on the exam. There is EC for LA evaluations, instructor evaluations, and an EC group project at the end of the quarter. Exams sometimes have a few EC points on them. Study off his learning objectives that he gives you and you will probably be fine. He doesn't curve. People who complain about grading being harsh frankly just sound entitled, given the exam averages below...

Midterm 1: Mean = 83%, Median = 86%
Midterm 2: Wasn't released
Final: Mean = 80.7%, Median = 83.9%

This was Ryan's first time teaching Chem 153A, with insufficient time to prepare. Nonetheless, I saw significant improvement in how he presented the material throughout the quarter.

A lot of people were bashing him on group me because they thought the exams were graded harshly. They don't understand that Ryan is not actually the one grading the exam. Each exam consisted of 8 questions and Ryan had 8 TAs combined from two lectures, meaning each TA graded 1 questions. Students were very rude and critical of him on the group chat after each exam. This is biochem though, it is not supposed to be easy. It shouldn't be an easy A. You got to work hard for the grade you earn.

To be frank, I thought that all his exams were very fair. I sure didn't get a 100% on them, but they were fair. The study guides he provided us were very extensive, but it was an accurate representation of exam content, along with the homework. In all of the classes I have taken at UCLA, this is the first time a professor offered midterm and final study guides. So be thankful.

Now moving on to the quizzes, they were all memorization based. I literally memorized everything the night before and still got 100% on all quizzes. Is there a lot of memorization in this class? YES, is it as bad as Chem 14D, NO!!

Lastly, I really respect Ryan's efforts to correcting mistakes throughout this quarter. He said he would give people some points back on midterm I because he understood that the answer key and some questions weren't as clear as he hoped. On top of that, he said that he was doing all the regrades himself! With a mountain of regrades to do, he had to deal with some impatient and inappreciative students that were constantly rushing him. He has a life too, you know.