Professor Bennoun is goated. Mbappe in the World Cup final type of goated. You only get one homework and one lab assignment per week, which is completely manageable. Midterm and Final is fairly easy to study and prepare for. Most learning is done by doing the homework. If you do the homework honestly and look at the answers after the due date then you should be fine. The coding is not too difficult, you just have to be patient with it. Overall, I would take again and recommend, but this class is not for those who like to complain when faced with a bit of difficulty.

He taught LS30A so good that he tricked me into taking 30B

Professor Bennoun is an amazing professor and he is generous. He switched our bonus from 0.5% to 2.5% after finding out that Professor Shevstov let her students gain back points for their midterm. He's great at teaching, but please don't think this class is an easy A. A lot of the reviews from the past were from COVID so they took it online. In 2022, the grade adjustments were made so it was also easier for them.

Textbook: You don't need to use it all.

Lectures: Go to the lecture and make sure you pay attention, especially during the clickers. A lot of the concepts from the lecture show up on the midterm. When Professor Bennoun explains concepts, make sure you understand them and you're able to write down what the concepts imply when you take your tests.

Homework: Going to the lecture alone wasn't enough for me to complete the homework successfully. I went to office hours each week. I highly recommend Micah Vinet's office hours if he's still a TA by the time you see this. He has the most students coming, but he does the problems on the board and it starts to make so much sense. I received 100% on each homework assignment AND I understood everything thanks to office hours.

Midterm: It was so bad for me. I got a C- and I thought there was no chance of me getting an A, let alone an A+. I studied a lot, but I feel like I didn't study right if that makes sense.... The practice midterms were not enough and were way easier than the actual midterm.

Labs: The labs were easy at first but they got pretty difficult. Make sure you try to do as much as you can during lab sections and don't be afraid to ask your TA for help. It's their job and all of them are friendly.

Lab Practical: The lab practical was easy because I studied the past labs, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. Start early and keep practicing until you feel like a pro.

Final: When I flipped through the final, I was so relieved. I think Bennoun and his team realized that we struggled a lot on the midterm, so the final was fair. I got an A on the final and I studied by going through the past homework, doing the practice midterms, and attending office hours. At one point I attended four office hours a day. It was a lot of hard work but it was worth it in the end. Also, the TAs are so generous when it comes to grading the exams.

The reason I got an A+ in this class is because of Bennoun's grading schemes. Two grading schemes take away the midterm and increase the final exam percentage from 35% to 60%. If you do badly on your midterm, don't think it's over. An A in this class is so doable, but it's not extremely easy. Good luck!

Dr. Bennoun is a very helpful professor. He speaks clearly and is easy to understand. He teaches topics from the basics and builds it up so it is easier to grasp the concepts. The class is generally easy, however the concepts and the coding can definitely be a bit challenging to grasp. I'm taking him again for LS30B next quarter because my experience was so positive! And if enrollment is anything to go by, his class always goes away first.

I'm convinced that this man's spirit animal is the GOAT.

This class is NOT extremely calculus-heavy, more-so applications of those concepts in actual biological scenarios. The first couple of weeks had almost no relation to calculus so if you're behind, it's not too big of a deal. The midterm and final were extremely easy if you actually understand the material (don't memorize the formula, know why they work).

The python coding labs are not as challenging as you might think! I had absolutely no prior coding experience and still managed to breeze through them. The trick is to actually READ the labs, because they often give you the answer and you just have to reapply it to the context of the problem. The labs can be pretty engaging and fun with the right mindset, and they're really good ways to strengthen your problem solving and logical skills.

Professor Bennoun is an excellent teacher and a very considerate person. If you can, I would highly recommend attending his office hours, because he can teach the material efficiently and help you UNDERSTAND the material instead of just knowing it. Due to the TA strike, Professor Bennoun made two critical changes: replacing the lab practical with the lab grade (essentially increasing how much labs were worth) and changing the cutoff for an A from 93% to 90%. In my opinion, this made the class a lot easier (almost trivial) but it goes to show how considerate this man is. Even if you're not skilled with calc/coding, this class is really manageable and I'd highly recommend taking it with Professor Bennoun.

Only take this class if you already have experience with calculus!! Bennoun is a kind, good lecturer. However, his tests are unfairly hard and he often gives long homework assignments that feel like busy work.

LS30A was definitely a struggle - this was pretty evident based on the overflowing office hours that kept increasing in attendance as the quarter went on, and sentiments from friends/peers. This class is not curved, so you really need to have a solid understanding of all the concepts to do well. The midterm (for F23) was extremely challenging, like some others mentioned - I studied literally so hard for it, thought it was difficult (everyone did), and got an 81%. However, Professor Bennoun has 3 different grading schemes that you can use to get the best possible grade in this class - which is really nice. I got a 99% on the final (I thought it was way easier than the midterm), so I was able to pull my grade back up using a different scheme. The lab portion of this class is also pretty challenging, especially for people with no coding experience (basically everyone). They start out pretty simple and guided with a lot of instructions, but they get harder pretty quickly with less instruction and more "figure it out on your own"! It also didn't help that labs were almost nothing related to the class/lecture content. Therefore, I thought the lab practical (the coding "final" of the class) was pretty difficult, but I still got a 90% somehow through generous partial credit, I guess. Ending with some tips:

- GO TO MANY TA OFFICE HOURS. Pick your favorite TAs, and go to their OHs every week. And don't just go to get answers to your homework and labs. Try to really understand and learn from office hours, because if you're just copying the TA's answers, you won't do well on the exams. You have to know what they're doing and be able to replicate the work/concepts yourself.
- Study consistently for this class - try not to cram before exams. Review your lecture notes after each lecture, make them more organized, and see if you understood everything.
- Try to get help on and understand the labs and the *meaning* of the code. Again, you can copy code from peers and TAs who help you, but you'll have to understand it when the lab practical rolls around in week 10.

Overall, an interesting and doable class that requires a lot of hard work and persistence. I did have a breakdown in one LS30A lecture this quarter because I was so overwhelmed. Just know it'll all work out and be fine in the end - all you can do is study hard and try your best. You got this!

Honestly, this class is a hit or miss. Bennoun is a good lecturer, but the examples he gives in class fail to replicate the questions you will receive on the homework or exams. The first half of this class was taught well, but then he fell off toward the end of the class, especially with creating bifurcation models. I will say that the grading is very strict. Every homework assignment is graded based on accuracy. The instructions for the questions are unclear, and I would constantly find myself getting points taken off, not because I did it wrong, but because I forgot to add specific details (which are not asked for, instead just expected, which is kinda stupid). This class also has a lab portion, which I thought wasn't too bad, contrary to the other reviews on here. The coding itself is pretty straightforward (even if you don't have any experience). I agree that the lab assignments are a bit useless because you don't have to code on the final, but the lab potion itself was helpful because we would always end early, giving me the opportunity to ask questions about the homework. In terms of the exams, it almost felt like the rubric is designed for you to lose points, as, like the homework, it fails to give a clear line of direction of what they actually want the student to say (I do agree that this may sound like I'm just complaining, but they can't just expect you to have specific details when the practice problem solutions themselves don't include those details either). The review sessions aren't the best help, as the TAs will give broad explanations that would still lose you points on the exam. To sum it up, this class does have its highs, more with the light workload and lenient deadlines, but it is a bunch of useless/made-up math you'll never need. If you took calculus in high school, I would strongly encourage you to take another math series that is more calculus-integrated. Just adding this in, don't expect Bennoun to round up a grade or curve any of the exams if that's what you're hoping for. Also, don't take this class if you're looking at the 2022 grade distribution (it doesn't seem like many people are getting many A+'s or A's at all).

I’ll let others go into the specifics of the class itself but let me just say, you should strongly reconsider if you are planning on taking this class. Only take this class if you don’t plan on using math AT ALL in your entire life, are CERTAIN you want to be a life science major, are confident you don’t want a minor/double major outside of life sciences, and only care about an easy A instead of learning anything. The math taught in this class is completely made up and is not at all useful in real life despite what the professor tries to tell you. If you ever want to leave life science or do a double major/minor outside of the life sciences you have to take the math series so please just save your future and don’t take this class. The professor is great, the problems I have are with the course itself.

I would say that if you are looking for a typical calculus class, this is not the class to take. I would also say, that if you have not taken calculus before this, you might find it more difficult than it already is. I was lucky to have had a strong calculus background, so when we spent one day on derivatives and one day on integrals, I was not lost. However, the course does not explain conceptually what derivatives or integrals are very well, and it is assumed that you should get it very fast which may make the rest of the class extremely difficult if you don't.

As for the content of the class, it was a LOT of modeling. There is very little calculation, really, in this class. Which I disliked. I found that it was super conceptual. I don't have problems with conceptual math, but there was almost never REAL math to back it up. So, you either get it or you don't.

Something that I found odd was that I almost always came out of the lecture feeling good about the content, but when I went to do the homework I was completely lost. I would go to Professor Bennoun's office hours but they were PACKED because everyone else was just as confused. I went to multiple TA's office hours, too, and some of them told me how to do a problem totally wrong. So I would say to get your homework help directly from the professor if you can.

The midterm was DIFFICULT. I went in having done all of the prep material given to me. The main issue with this class is because since it is unique to UCLA, there is no additional prep material you can find online beside the homework and other practice problems given to you. Since the midterm felt totally different from the practice problems, I walked out of the midterm feeling quite unprepared.

One saving grace was the two grading schemes, which allowed your grade to have the final and midterm weighted evenly, or have the final weighted 65%. I did well on the final (definitely easier than the midterm) and ended up with a great grade in the class.

I think the key for this class is understanding EXACTLY how they want your answers written for short answer because the grading is very strict.

Also, for the labs, I don't feel like I learned any python. It was a more of a fill in the blank type thing and I often had to ask for help on every question.

I really did like Professor Bennoun, though. He liked to crack jokes in class, and he gave helpful clicker questions to help with understanding. I found that his explanations in class made sense, and he cared about us understanding the material (even if we did not, lol). He is super genuine and always made sure that if I asked a question in office hours I understood the material. What I disliked about the course had nothing to do with Bennoun, just the course itself. If you are going to take this course, I 100% recommend trying to get into one of Bennoun's sections!!!

I decided to leave the LIFESC 30 series and I am switching into MATH 3B because I have AP calculus AB credit because I think that learning more in depth calculus will be more helpful for me.