CHEM 14A
General Chemistry for Life Scientists I
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Preparation: high school chemistry or equivalent background and three and one half years of high school mathematics. Requisite: completion of Chemistry Diagnostic Test. Enforced corequisite: Life Sciences 30A or Mathematics 3A or 31A or score of 48 or better on Mathematics Diagnostic Test. Not open to students with credit for course 20A. Introduction to physical and general chemistry principles; atomic structure based on quantum mechanics; atomic properties; trends in periodic table; chemical bonding (Lewis structures, VSEPR theory, hybridization, and molecular orbital theory); coordination compounds; properties of inorganic and organic acids, bases, buffers. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Lavelle is so amazing, I could say infinite things that make me think he's the goat of this school. His lectures are engaging and really applicable to life science - the whole point of taking 14a instead of 20a - and he's just such a kind and funny person. If you didn't take AP Chem, make sure to take advantage of his massive amounts of student help hours offered. If you did, then do whatever you think is necessary to make sure you grasp everything well. In terms of difficulty of tests, I'd say that they are very similar to the difficult of the Achieve and textbook problems - ie if you have no difficulty in those then you'll be fine for the midterm. This guy is the goat.
Fall 2024 - Lavelle is so amazing, I could say infinite things that make me think he's the goat of this school. His lectures are engaging and really applicable to life science - the whole point of taking 14a instead of 20a - and he's just such a kind and funny person. If you didn't take AP Chem, make sure to take advantage of his massive amounts of student help hours offered. If you did, then do whatever you think is necessary to make sure you grasp everything well. In terms of difficulty of tests, I'd say that they are very similar to the difficult of the Achieve and textbook problems - ie if you have no difficulty in those then you'll be fine for the midterm. This guy is the goat.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - take this class with Reslan!!!! Could not recommend her more. She's a bit disorganized with her lecture but holds amazing review sessions and is very helpful during office hours. The class itself can be difficult because it's a lot of material crammed but she at the end she did listen to students and cut material. She values our feedback and provides great formula sheets. Her exams are very fair and she gave good practice exams. Discussion is not mandatory but highly recommended because that's when you actually do practice problems. Lectures were recorded. Best chem teacher :)
Spring 2024 - take this class with Reslan!!!! Could not recommend her more. She's a bit disorganized with her lecture but holds amazing review sessions and is very helpful during office hours. The class itself can be difficult because it's a lot of material crammed but she at the end she did listen to students and cut material. She values our feedback and provides great formula sheets. Her exams are very fair and she gave good practice exams. Discussion is not mandatory but highly recommended because that's when you actually do practice problems. Lectures were recorded. Best chem teacher :)
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - GOOD GOD this class kinda sucked. AP Chem or its equivalent can be used for a good portion of the class (stoichiometry especially), but you'll need to know more for the final. The class weighs heavily on your exams (30% midterm 40% final) but the homework is pretty okay since it's just infinite attempt simulator. Don't slack on the homework -- even though all homeworks are due at the end of the quarter, they're about 30 questions each and can be quite frustrating. In terms of lecture, you'd probably want to find someone more interesting. Scerri DOES record his lectures, so if you like to go back and watch in your free time (or skip lecture) its doable, but he writes on the whiteboard sometimes and it's really hard to see if not impossible to see on recording. He audiobooks the slides so its really monotonous and quite boring. Sometimes he does crack a joke here and there and has a few amusing slides in between, but for the most part its really hard to pay attention for the entirety of his lectures. We were on Zoom during week 2 because of the fires, so he brought out his cats which was very nice. There are a few instances where he will tell other students to quiet down but it's *really* not that big of a deal, just a minor momentary disruption. Discussion sections are just not worth going to if it's not convenient for your schedule. I went to a few of mine and there were less than 5 people present (23 per discussion). The TA would hand you a worksheet and sort of walk the entire section on how to go through it, but most of the content on it was stuff you can honestly do on your own and check with either the textbook or GPT. While you can use it to ask questions for content, office hours is probably better. The TAs host a good amount of office hours that you can go to. I feel like youtube does a better job than the TA sometimes, heck even the textbook even though it's also a giant block of text in small font. Exams are all multiple choice, but the practice exams Scerri gives you are his old FRQ ones, so it can be kind of janky. Practice exams don't quite reflect the kinds of questions on the exam but they loosely show you which topics will be covered. Still sucked anyways, class didn't do so well on the midterm but it got curved. TLDR mayyyyyybeee find a different professor. Lectures are not so great, discussions kinda suck, exams are definitely not the best (but it's MCs), homework is janky, his cats are cool If you are scheduled to take it with Scerri, just try to stay on top of the game and try to be on the good side of the curve.
Winter 2025 - GOOD GOD this class kinda sucked. AP Chem or its equivalent can be used for a good portion of the class (stoichiometry especially), but you'll need to know more for the final. The class weighs heavily on your exams (30% midterm 40% final) but the homework is pretty okay since it's just infinite attempt simulator. Don't slack on the homework -- even though all homeworks are due at the end of the quarter, they're about 30 questions each and can be quite frustrating. In terms of lecture, you'd probably want to find someone more interesting. Scerri DOES record his lectures, so if you like to go back and watch in your free time (or skip lecture) its doable, but he writes on the whiteboard sometimes and it's really hard to see if not impossible to see on recording. He audiobooks the slides so its really monotonous and quite boring. Sometimes he does crack a joke here and there and has a few amusing slides in between, but for the most part its really hard to pay attention for the entirety of his lectures. We were on Zoom during week 2 because of the fires, so he brought out his cats which was very nice. There are a few instances where he will tell other students to quiet down but it's *really* not that big of a deal, just a minor momentary disruption. Discussion sections are just not worth going to if it's not convenient for your schedule. I went to a few of mine and there were less than 5 people present (23 per discussion). The TA would hand you a worksheet and sort of walk the entire section on how to go through it, but most of the content on it was stuff you can honestly do on your own and check with either the textbook or GPT. While you can use it to ask questions for content, office hours is probably better. The TAs host a good amount of office hours that you can go to. I feel like youtube does a better job than the TA sometimes, heck even the textbook even though it's also a giant block of text in small font. Exams are all multiple choice, but the practice exams Scerri gives you are his old FRQ ones, so it can be kind of janky. Practice exams don't quite reflect the kinds of questions on the exam but they loosely show you which topics will be covered. Still sucked anyways, class didn't do so well on the midterm but it got curved. TLDR mayyyyyybeee find a different professor. Lectures are not so great, discussions kinda suck, exams are definitely not the best (but it's MCs), homework is janky, his cats are cool If you are scheduled to take it with Scerri, just try to stay on top of the game and try to be on the good side of the curve.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - I took this class 3 years ago so I can't remember too much about it, but I just want to note that Wu was the best science professor I've ever had. He was super chill, took his time explaining concepts to the class, and was very understanding with midterm regrades. I honestly think he is the only reason I was able to pass this class. He is an incredible professor that makes chemistry seem much less daunting to non-stem majors like myself who hate science. I'm not sure if he still teaches this class but if he does, I HIGHLY recommend taking it with him. I've heard lots of horror stories about the other chem professors but Wu was incredible and I don't have a bad word to say about him.
Spring 2022 - I took this class 3 years ago so I can't remember too much about it, but I just want to note that Wu was the best science professor I've ever had. He was super chill, took his time explaining concepts to the class, and was very understanding with midterm regrades. I honestly think he is the only reason I was able to pass this class. He is an incredible professor that makes chemistry seem much less daunting to non-stem majors like myself who hate science. I'm not sure if he still teaches this class but if he does, I HIGHLY recommend taking it with him. I've heard lots of horror stories about the other chem professors but Wu was incredible and I don't have a bad word to say about him.
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