Professor Lannan is a good lecturer and is pretty decent at explaining conceptual stuff; however, I felt that his class needed much more clarification and had many areas for improvement. The class is incredibly fast-paced, and he doesn't slow down, making it difficult to keep up. He talks during lectures as if you already know everything, often just gliding over some concepts and then making the most difficult questions out of them for the midterm. His office hours were useful at first, but they became useless after the first four weeks. He has ADHD, so he's always saying, anyways, you guys know this, while no one knows what he's talking about. He also talks so fast, which adds to the confusion. The exams are brutal, and your wrists and hands will hurt after each midterm. He is a harsh grader, and there are a lot of mistakes while grading the exams. Unfortunately, he is not open to improvement and seems to think everyone is in love with him, while in reality, almost everyone dislikes him. He has no sense of awareness about this.

The TAs are also poor graders, and the regrade request process is absolutely unfair. He deducts points from you if he receives too many requests because he can't review them all. Well, nobody forced him to implement the regrade request system. Additionally, he doesn't accept requests for 0.5 points, which is problematic if there are multiple grading mistakes on these smaller questions. He is an awful grader, extremely non-responsive, and rude towards students. He is very mean in emails and tries everything to single you out, often insinuating that you are trying to cheat in the class. I really hated this class. It gave me so much anxiety, and I am a chemistry major, so I have been through the hardest chemistry classes at UCLA. Another major issue is that he sets you up for competition against other students and has clearly stated this many times on CampusWire. While it's understood that eventually, you're evaluated against others, this is not something that should be explicitly stated in class for 800+ students. Each class should be structured in a way that you're being valued based on your own knowledge at least.

I think other professors, such as Gober, should be brought back to teach biochemistry rather than Lannan. While Lannan has some strengths as a lecturer, there are significant issues with his teaching approach, grading policies, and overall attitude that need to be addressed.

CHEM 153A with Lannan was definitely not easy but if you really study it is definitely possible to get an A. I would recommend reviewing the learning objectives and rewatching the lectures because he expects you to know things that he mentions, sometimes just in passing. I would also highly recommend going to his office hours, they're really helpful. And the reviews which complain about the specificity with which he grades are accurate, he expects a lot of detail in his rubrics, so honestly try to write down every little detail you can think of on the tests. I liked Lannan though, he was tough but mostly fair and very concerned with student learning.

Pros
- Exams sometimes recycle old questions
- EC project at the end of the quarter helps buffer grade
- Campuswire will be your best friend for answering questions and getting reputation tiers for extra credit
- Generally, I found section to be so-so, but mostly I never paid too much attention ; I think my TA, Cindy, was very knowledgeable though
- Review sessions are held where concepts are discussed and it's more of a Q&A/workshop hybrid format
- He drops a quiz
- Homework helps with general concepts
- I would say past exams are reflective of the real deal (he will post a practice exam from a previous quarter)
Cons
- I feel like I neglected my time in other classes because this class had so much information and knowledge to memorize/understand/apply
- Grading is very harsh
- Sometimes Lannan is passive aggressive towards people who have questions - he kind of brushes them off and tells them that he'll answer their questions during office hours, and mind you I never asked questions, but I just observed his behavior and it came off as rude/inconsiderate sometimes
- Grading is very slow sometimes. When it comes to quizzes, there wasn't even a point in me missing the last quiz because I didn't know what I got on the other 2/4 (so I still studied for the last quiz)
- I know this class moves very quickly and there's a lot of information to memorize, but it seemed like we were all thrown in the deep pool when all of the disruptions happened. Nothing was necessarily "easier" per say for exams. We honestly were dangling and wondering if we would even have our Midterm 2 on Monday of Week 7 because there was a lack of communication and we were just assumed to show up on campus and see how the day would go, even if it felt unsafe sometimes.
Final Thoughts
This class is a fever dream. Idk how I got an A+ tbh but my biggest recommendation is to make sure you're writing out paragraphs for exam questions to get as much points as possible. You need to be detailed in your responses and making sure you touch upon every single part of a question. Taking a look at his past exams also helps with the format and what to expect. I think the homework was alright for preparing for exams, but it's definitely not as application-based (homework is generally a content review) as exams. Be prepared for scenarios (Lannan likes to make sci-fi questions where you're on XYZ planet and some biochem related problem comes up) where you will apply your knowledge. This class is not easy, but if you put in the work and time, you should be fine.

Professor Lannan is a very fair lecturer, with tests that take a bit of getting used to. Once you learn the rubric of the exams and what he expects out of answers, it becomes more manageable. His lectures are engaging and mandatory, and the discussions were helpful as well. At the end of the quarter, there is an extra credit project, and all of the extra credit totals to around 2% which is generous. The homeworks are for the most part completion based as he only grades one of the questions, and the quizzes are pure memory. It really comes down to the exams, but once you get the hang of it, it is a fair test. Overall, I would recommend taking Lannan for 153A.

Overall I think Lannan is a safe choice for a biochem professor, so if he is an option, take it. His lectures are engaging and clear, and the overall flow of content from the beginning to the end of the quarter makes sense at building on top of each other.

You can tell he's super passionate about the subject, and he's fairly young so there's a bit more engagement and energy to things. Personality-wise he is also fairly geeky and and can be funny, plus posts pictures of cats on Campuswire, so I think he can keep morale up. I respect him for sharing his views too outside of class on UCLA Radio during the time of the encampment, I think it showed his education about world events and also not just a soulless STEM professor.

It's true his rubrics for exams can seem strict, but honestly I think they're not outrageous. The medians for Midterm 1 and 2 were 75% and 85%, respectively, and that is definitely within the norm for a STEM class like this, so I disagree with assertions that his exams are "tougher" than any other similar upper-div class.

When you're doing exam questions, just always make sure to ask yourself "Why?" or "So what? and write down the answer. I think a lot of people (at least when you're not used to the rubric) make the mistake of writing something like "Thing A makes Process 2 stop", but they miss the rubric point about how Thing A actually made Process 2 stop. Make sure though that you understand the wording he uses in his slides/lectures, and that you really understand the consequences of processes that you learn. He likes to ask questions that make you apply content to a completely different context (e.g. how would this alien's cell membrane be different from Earth's).

Speaking of aliens, there's a extra credit group project at the end of the quarter about creating your own alien organism based off unique biochemistry that's varies from biochemistry of Earth (i.e. stuff we learned in class).

For our lecture's final, a third of the questions were literally the exact same as the ones on the practice final (which he gave the answer sheet to).

There's iClicker (mandatory lectures) and assignments. The assignments are not too bad but they really do force you to review what you learned well.

Discussions are fine (and mandatory), really specific to the TA whether it's good or not (shout-out to Katie!).

Dr. Lannon is an energetic, engaging, and overall excellent professor. I am happy to have had him teach 153A, my main problems were with the course pacing. I really struggled with keeping up, but it is difficult to distinguish where my decisions and time-management is at fault and where it is with the course. So I will just say that balancing this course with another content heavy 5 unit course (Physics 5B), a lab internship, and time with friends was difficult. Dr. Lannon really does his best to meet us in the middle while getting to all the content vital to the course. He is very passionate about biochemistry and when a student's question meets him in terms of energy he really engages with it. Since I was struggling to keep up with the course and he covered so much content every lecture I regret not going to office hours at all. I think that would have really changed my grades, but it is what it is. We move. Anyway, Dr. Lannon is great and makes a very heavy, draining curriculum more manageable. As long as he maintains that young passion for the subject I think he will continue to be a great professor. If there was one improvement to suggest, it would be to emphasize the importance of engaging with students during discussion sections. He designs engaging discussion section assignments, but I felt like execution of these assignments were not as engaging as intended. Maybe it was different for the other discussion sections that weren't at 8 in the morning.

I think the professor is a great lecturer and does a fantastic job of explaining the content in a way that is digestible to the students. That being said, I think the way that the exams were graded were honestly ridiculous; you could put an answer that is completely correct but if you do not explain it in his words or use specific terms that he feels is important then you will get points off. I thought the difficulty of the rubric for the exams ruined this class for me, as well as the fact that there were little to no accommodations for this course given the stressful circumstances of campus this quarter. For every single one of my other classes, my professors had made accommodations to help ease stress and anxiety among students, but professor Lannan does not care about his students in the way that my other professors have shown to care. Overall, professor Lannan is obviously extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about the course content, and he is a great lecturer, but I feel that being a great professor is more than simply being able to eloquently teach difficult concepts, and I think Lannan could have been a better professor if he prioritized students' mental health and wellbeing.

I think the professor is a great lecturer and does a fantastic job of explaining the content in a way that is digestible to the students. That being said, I think the way that the exams were graded were honestly ridiculous; you could put an answer that is completely correct but if you do not explain it in his words or use specific terms that he feels is important then you will get points off. I thought the difficulty of the rubric for the exams ruined this class for me, as well as the fact that there were little to no accommodations for this course given the stressful circumstances of campus this quarter. For every single one of my other classes, my professors had made accommodations to help ease stress and anxiety among students, but professor Lannan does not care about his students in the way that my other professors have shown to care. Overall, professor Lannan is obviously extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about the course content, and he is a great lecturer, but I feel that being a great professor is more than simply being able to eloquently teach difficult concepts, and I think Lannan could have been a better professor if he prioritized students' mental health and wellbeing.

Honestly overrated as a lecturer with some of the most poorly designed tests I have seen. His rubric is extremely subjective to the point where TAs disagree with him. I honestly would not recommend this professor.

Chem 153A isn't going to be easy and there's a lot of material to memorize and understand but Lannan did an excellent job at teaching material during lecture and his tests were incredibly fair and manageable. He also provided a lot of extra credit, making it easy to do well even in a notoriously hard class. I highly recommend.