Loved this class, hated the premeds. As a chem major, I was dreading this class because I hate biology, but Lannnan made it incredibly enjoyable because he is a great lecturer, and the class was pretty easy. The averages are super high (153a normal averages used to be 50s and 60s) AND he gives a ton of extra credit. Highly recommend this class for 153a, won't get a better experience.

This class is honestly love. I have never loved a class so much. I was truly distraught on the last day of lecture and in tears. Please take biochem with Dr. Lannan because you will begin to enjoy biochem so much and be able to connect it with other STEM classes. However, beware that before coming into this class you need to realize that in order to do well, you have to spend ample amount of time studying and doing practice problems for this class. Take this class with 2 other easy classes and you should be able to do to fairly well. Do not fall behind because that is just going to ruin so much for you. Go to lecture and actively listen and participate and soon you will realize how interesting the content is and how funny Dr. Lannan is. Make sure you understand everything on the homework and be able to do the practice exam questions. Give yourself ample time to study for exams and don’t wait till last minute like me. Regarding the professor, honestly, everyone loves this class because of how Dr. Lannan teaches it and I am sure I wouldn’t have done well if I weren’t taking it with him. He is actually listens to you and doesn’t belittle you if you don’t know something. This is a super rare trait in professors at UCLA.

Lannan wasn’t the best professor, especially in the beginning, but if there was a “Most Improved” professor award he would easily win it. He just got thrown into a difficult situation teaching the class for the first time on really short notice, and it showed in the beginning. However, he always ended up addressing his mistakes and the lecture quality was actually really high. The class is just really hard and many people are upset about the fact that they had to memorize things when last year everything was online so you could just use a cheat sheet. Were there issues with grading? Yes, but he literally just gave out free points and people still complained. Most of the mistakes were due to the TAs anyway, who were far more disorganized and lazy than Lannan (they promised to finish grading and ended up delaying multiple times), who ended up taking all of the blame. He’s actually a really funny and engaging lecturer who I would take the class with again. Don’t listen to the reviews that say he’s terrible and disorganized and hates all his students, he just didn’t know how to manage everything and got it figured out. Everyone just wanted Jarrett because she gives easy tests that won’t prepare you for the MCAT at all, but you’ll get that A+ because you don’t have to memorize anything!

Professor Lannan is a really good, engaging lecturer who is super familiar with the course content (I think a lot of the bad reviews are from when he just started teaching and was a little more disorganized, but now he really knows his stuff). Even if I fell asleep during a lecture, the recordings and slides themselves would always be very clear. His quizzes are memorization-based so using Anki/quizlet flashcards was the easiest way to study for them, and I think all of the exams were very fair (he covered all the content in his slides or during lecture). He also gives extra credit on the tests (I think like 3 points on each midterm and 6 points for the final?) -- overall, I enjoyed this class and I think the main tough part is just the sheer amount of material that you have to know or memorize by the end. The learning objectives help a lot with managing the information though! Also, attendance is tracked using clickers but ****they are not location-based****.

Obviously, this class was still kinda hard but I feel like it was definitely better than ochem for me as the professor is probs the best biochem professor! I would def recommend you take with him over anyone else if you want to understand biochem and do well in the class. He gives a lot of partial credit for his tests which is how I ended up with an A. I feel like this class was definitely manageable as the wasn't even that much homework (only one a week) or anything. I took with 3 other classes and still did well, so u should def sign up for this class! One thing to note though is that he does use iClickers but he allowed us to go to the other lecture if our lecture didn't work for us. Also, discussion is mandatory so make sure you pick a time that works for you. The TAs kinda suck for this class LOL and the prof's office hours are always filled so that kinda sucks i guess, and homework does count for correctness but if u take this class with a friend you'll be good. Also, the prof is FINNEEEE

Ok there are a lot of contentious reviews for Lannan but this is my personal take. Lannan was very disorganized throughout the quarter. I would think that someone with a Ph.D in biochemistry would know a little bit more about the topic without having to second guess himself, but maybe this comes with time and experience. It was a little frustrating how he'd pretty much start a lot of lectures going over what he got wrong the last time. He didn't really know how to answer some questions that tried to reach beyond the scope of the class, and often said he'd need to look things up to confirm. However, this could also be because he got the class thrown onto him and had barely any time to prepare. I understand that he had a lot of lecture slides to create. His teaching I think got better as the quarter went on, and he's pretty young so he's probably still not confident in his abilities. Everyone has to start somewhere. That being said, it doesn't excuse the fact that we pay around 30k (more if out of state) a year for quality education, so this got frustrating over time, but I do think that with enough practice he'll be a good teacher.

His exams, in my opinion, were fair, but the way that they were graded was not. The TAs would often mark you down points even if you wrote the right answer, and it seems that they would often look for buzz words rather than actually reading your answer. A lot of us got marked off for not writing VERY specific words and phrases, so honestly memorize as much as you can off his slides. The actual content on the exams however was pretty fair and nothing was out of the ordinary. The final was a bit harder, but it was also cumulative and so 10 weeks of biochem memorization was pretty difficult. Ryan himself is pretty nice, and I've heard he teaches better in OH but I've never gone myself to verify if that statement is correct. He definitely does care about his students and wants us to understand biochem, and he is clearly pretty passionate about the topic itself.

The other stuff in the class like the quizzes and HW were pretty easy and manageable, and shouldn't take that long to do or study for. There was also some extra credit offered! Biggest piece of advice is using the campuswire, because there was a lot of helpful info on there. Also, exams were VERY similar to HW questions.

One other negative thing about Ryan tho that I really wish he'd improve is his flexibility and accommodations. If someone got COVID, he'd pretty much make you handle it on your own without helping.

Other than that, you certainly learn a lot in this class and it goes by fast. Don't fall behind and stay on top of things! Good luck!

I really enjoyed taking this class with Dr. Lannan and I would recommend him to anyone who wants to 153A. It was his first quarter teaching the class and he got assigned very last minute, so he did not have time to prepare slides, tests and everything like that.

Here is the breakdown of points:
Midterm 1: 20%
Midterm 2: 20%
Quizzes: 10%
Homework: 15%
Final Exam: 35%
Extra credit: 2% (campuswire =0.5%, evals = 0.25%, ec project = 1.25%)

He gave around 3% of extra credit problems on tests and these were all just free points. He ended up curving the final 6%. His tests are very fair and reflect the hw problems and are all pulled from the topics on the study guide. This class does have a lot of memorization, but that is the nature of 153A. If you stay on top of it and review his slides, you will do well in the course.

I thought Dr. Lannan was a great lecturer who was truly fair. He is clearly very knowledgable on the topic and I thought he did a fantastic job and I think he will only get better over time. Dr. Lannan is fairly understanding and communicates well.

Also - he offers this online textbook with practice problems called Achieve. I did not purchase it and I was completely fine. He never references the textbook and gives sufficient practice problems with the homework. If you like extra help, it may be for you, but I wouldn't purchase it until after week 1 when you know how the class works a little better.

Overall would take again and I highly recommend Lannan!

Honestly, the people roasting professor lannan are just upset about their grade. This man is incredibly accommodating, like I have shown him mistakes and made criticisms and he LISTENS and truly makes changes. He is a super nice guy who was just put into a tough position this quarter.

He knows how to teach biochemistry, like this class honestly had very interesting material that was easy to understand once he broke it down. Yes you need to study for exams, but if you do that you will get a good grade.

The TAs of the class were the main problem tbh they did not know how to grade, but if you brought it to Lannan's attention he fixed it almost immediately.

it is week 6 and i decided to drop this class. This is by far the worst class i ever took at UCLA, Lannan is the worst professor. poor lecturer, disrespectful, and very hard grader. he does not know how to teach and himself doesn't know the contents well as his slides are full of mistakes. the tests has nothing to do with what he teaches in class, extremely hard and very long. the homework are also hard and were harshly graded, he even deduct points for students who didn't assign pages to the grade scope. PLEASE LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR DON'T TAKE HIS CLASS

Ryan Lannan is the worst professor I have ever taken at UCLA. It seems like he doesn't care of students and comes across as dismissive. I wish he was a lot more like Anish Nag. I was really looking forward to this class but now I dread it.