Nice dude and good lecturer, but started out really slow (for half the class we were always at least 2 weeks behind the syllabus) which made him speed up A LOT in the last 2 weeks of the quarter which made it overwhelming. As other reviews say his grading is really harsh because he looks for super specific words/phrases in your answers. But overall this class was a lot easier than I expected, if you made it through 14D you'll def be fine for this one.

Grading breakdown:
Midterm 1 20%
Midterm 2 20%
Quizzes 10% (lowest score dropped; all just memorization, but that helps you a lot with the content/tests)
Participation 5% (lecture iClickers and discussion attendance; you can miss like 6 lectures and 1-2 discussions)
Homework 15% (lowest score dropped; almost all on completion, with 1-2 questions per homework grade on accuracy)
Final 30%
+ some extra credit form LA/prof evaluations and a creative group project at the end of the quarter

How the class works:
Every week there were Homework assignments where one question is graded for correction and the others are graded for completion. There were 3 quizzes, which are just pure memorization of biological pathways and their metabolites (easy points). 2 midterms and a Final. 2% extra credit.

My Thoughts:
Ryan was a decent professor for this class. You will see a lot of people complain about him, but really they should be directed towards the class itself. 153A is not meant to be an easy class, and it seriously takes a lot of studying to do well. Prof. Lannan can only do so much to make the class more approachable for students. Yes, he was disorganized at the start of the quarter (keep in mind, it's his first time teaching this class and he was told he was teaching this class a week or two before the quarter started). Towards the end of the quarter, Ryan definitely grew a lot as a professor, and he was way more organized with his lectures. Personally, all of the exams were fair if you studied for them, especially MT2 and the final exam.

That being said, this class is far from perfect. My biggest gripe with this class is how much content it tried to cover, and how little we were actually tested on. For all of the exams, Lannan would give us a study guide, but those study guides were just bullet points of every detail in the class. He did this for both midterms, and for the final he gave us a study guide which essentially had every detail from weeks 7-10 along with the very helpful message of "look at MT1 and MT2 study guides." When it came to final, we were barely tested on 3/4 of the material covered in class, and it was frustrating to see all the work I put in while studying just go to waste. Also, the exams would usually ask vague questions like "What process is this very similiar to?", and I felt like those were extremely general given how specific biochemistry is. You either know exactly what he is asking about, or you don't. This is very unfair to students because it doesn't actually test their knowledge, you are just testing if they can read your mind about what you are trying to vaguely ask. Sucks that this class is MTWF because it can easily feel overwhelming in this class.

My advice:
DO NOT get behind on lectures. Once you fall in the loop of "Oh, I'll watch it later" , it's virtually impossible to catch up with all of the material.

Focus on the study guides he gives you. They aren't really all that helpful bc they aren't specific about what exactly will be tested, but it helped me streamline my studying

Review HWs. Some of the questions on the exams will be reminiscent of these.

This class is by no means an easy class. Anyone that says otherwise is lying to you. However, it is definitely doable with Ryan. I don't think he is the problem.

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%

Worst professor ever.

Dr. Lannan is an engaging and enthusiastic professor! He's very knowledgeable about the content and if you're genuinely interested in learning it, he's more than happy to teach it to you. Other reviews mention specific wording on his exams and this is very true! The way I studied for his course and 153B (which I took with him as well) was through the learning objectives. The LAs will often write their own before exams but I highly recommend going through them yourself and writing out an explanation for each content. I also liked to clarify certain concepts with Dr. Lannan during office hours to understand what he was looking for us to take away. He really cares about student learning and since we were pretty behind, he gave us a cheat sheet for the final to make up for it. Overall, I really enjoyed the course content and Dr. Lannan as a professor!

A lot of people don't like Lannan, although I have no idea why. He is very reasonable. He doesn't like it when people try to take advantage of some of the systems he sets up for things like extra credit, which is understandable. His lectures are clear, his exams are normal and easy to study for. He leads a well taught, appropriately paced, reasonably difficult biochemistry class. I recommend it. The only issue I can see is that discussions are mandatory, even though they are just homework sessions. I don't see a point in that, but it's not a big deal. Take his class.

Midterm 1: 20%, Midterm 2: 20%, Final: 30%, Quizzes: 9%, Participation: 5%, Homework: 16%. There are 4 4 in-class quizzes and one is dropped, so each is 3% of your grade. iClicker is used at lectures and discussion attendance is mandatory. Small cheat sheet for final. Professor can be condescending and his tests have a very specific rubric. 2% of extra credit offered, mainly for an end of quarter group project.

Lannan is a pretty good lecturer. His slides are clear and his tests definitely reflect his lectures/homework. We were the guinea pigs since it was his first quarter but now that he has material made, I'm sure the future classes will have a better experience. He definitely cares about students learning biochem. I will say the only negative thing about the course was the logistics and how late we were given material, classes were very rushed with little time for questions, TA's made mistakes on grading, etc. But Lannan definitely took our criticism and became a way better instructor throughout the quarter.

I think the negative reviews for Lannan are so unwarranted. I think every professor for this class would be harder than Lannan and way less generous. He was concerned with student learning and his slides were very good considering it was his first time teaching the class. The homework helped me personally and the quizzes were necessary to memorize the content. The class is just memorization so it’s not that hard as long as you put in the work. Overall good professor would take it with him again any day.

A lot of people wrote mean reviews about Dr. Lannan, but I think a lot of people were unfairly judging him just because they did not do well. Honestly, biochem is known to be a class based upon memorization, so a lot of the people that were complaining weren't taking that into account. Although Dr. Lannan was a bit disorganized at first, his lectures got better and better throughout the quarter. Overall, I did feel like I learned a lot and that Dr. Lannan was a pretty good professor to take 153A with.