MCD BIO 138
Developmental Biology
Grades
3.74
Average grade awarded in MCD BIO 138. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.
In the A range
82%
of the 1,860 letter grades
D, F or W
0.6%
of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals
Taken pass/no pass
-
the registrar has this letter grade only this term
The registrar's own records: 1,860 grades over 17 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.
What is inside that record
4 of those terms are summer sessions, and summer sessions are counted here.
The table below splits them, and term averages across those 17 terms ran 3.14 to 3.99.
Historical grades for all professors, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 178 · 9.6%
- A 1,156 · 62.2%
- A- 182 · 9.8%
- B+ 118 · 6.3%
- B 78 · 4.2%
- B- 56 · 3.0%
- C+ 34 · 1.8%
- C 38 · 2.0%
- C- 9 · 0.5%
- D+ 2 · 0.1%
- D 5 · 0.3%
- D- 1 · 0.1%
- F 3 · 0.2%
- I 1 of 1,861
Percentages are of the 1,860 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: incompletes (I).
How the non-letter outcomes are counted
They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.
By instructor
| Instructor | Predicted GPA | Raw | n | Terms | A range | Workload | Spring 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHEN, JAU-NIAN reviews ↗ | 3.93 | 3.93 | 685 | 5 | 95% | very light | not teaching it |
| RIGUEUR, DIANA reviews ↗ | 3.95 | 3.96 | 438 | 6 | 98% | average | not teaching it |
| HARTENSTEIN, VOLKER reviews ↗ | 3.32 | 3.30 | 351 | 3 | 53% | average | not teaching it |
| FARMER, D'JUAN TYREE reviews ↗ | 3.61 | 3.60 | 244 | 2 | 65% | light | not teaching it |
| LYONS, KAREN MARIE reviews ↗ | 3.51 | 3.48 | 142 | 1 | 66% | heavy | not teaching it |
Why Predicted is not the Raw average
“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department, so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.
Grade records describe outcomes. For what a course is like to take, read student reviews written on dibs below or follow the separate external review link.
Workload and assignments
Work types reported in BruinWalk reviews of this course, across recorded instructors and terms. They may differ from this term's syllabus.
dibs has read this course’s reviews and none of them say what kind of work it sets, so dibs has nothing to show rather than a guess. Read from 116 reviews 26 days ago. That is the reviewers being silent, and not a course that sets no work.
What comes first
The chain dibs can see is 4 courses long before MCD BIO 138. Read from Fall 2026, because dibs has not read a class page for MCD BIO 138 in Spring 2026 and a department can change what it requires. This is a floor, not a deadline: dibs has not read a class page for CHEM 20B and LIFESCI 23L, so the real chain can only be longer than this, never shorter.
Counted in courses rather than quarters: dibs does not know which of them a department lets you take together.
In Springs
Ran in 4 of the last 4 Springs.
From the terms dibs holds, which start in Fall 2021 and exclude summer. A department can run a course in a quarter it never has before.
From the registrar's catalog
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: Life Sciences 3, 4, and 23L, or 7A, 7B, 7C, 23L, and 107. Development of understanding of fundamental molecular mechanisms and cellular activities guiding formation of complex organism from single fertilized egg. Development of model organisms to understand conserved nature of developmental decisions across animal kingdom, distinct features that lead to diversification of animal shape and form during evolution. Origin and roles of stem and progenitor cells in development and maintenance of specific organ systems. Roles of cell shape change, cell death, proliferation, and migration in generating shape of embryo, organs, and tissues. Mechanisms by which cells become different from and communicate with one another to coordinate their activities in time and space in embryo. Special emphasis on experimental approaches used to address these fundamental questions that determine how organized tissues and organs are formed and maintained throughout life of organism. Letter grading.
Sections in Spring 2026
From the people who took it
Student reviews
What taking MCD BIO 138 was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.
Your experience could be the first.
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External reviews are separate and do not count toward the dibs rating.