If you want to teach yourself chemistry, take this course. The final and exams were extremely difficult and worth the biggest part of your grade. Oftentimes, Courey did not know the answers to most questions and whenever questions were asked, he simply responded with "ask on campuswire". This class will burn you out.

This class was brutal. I easily spent hours studying for it every day (when they asked how many on the mid-quarter survey I sob-laughed), and if the other two classes I was taking hadn't been relatively easy I'm not sure how this would have gone.

However, I might still recommend this class if you like having extra padding for your grade compared to 14B (it's not much, but at least it's something). In general, the TAs were great - Mariah was a godsend and hosted review sessions before the CMCs and final, and I also attended my TA's office hours religiously every week (they were very helpful, but that should help give you an idea of how much of a time commitment this class is).

In terms of materials though...after taking Queen Casey for 14AE I was expecting the ones for 14BE to be useful and manageable, but they were not.
The LA worksheets were extremely long (so long that the LAs began to just go over the answers without giving us time to work the problems), and my group only finished the POGIL within the two hours allotted for discussion about three times. In complete honesty, the LA worksheets were not super helpful for the assessments, but if you plan to attend the workshops I would recommend trying the worksheets beforehand. However, even the LAs sometimes struggled with solving the problems.
You'll be expected to read chapters of the textbook and Courey's PowerPoint(s), watch a short video, and complete a PTL quiz as part of every module (before lecture, so kind of like the LS7 series' flipped classroom setting). In 14AE I could understand what was going on even without having read the textbook, but reading the textbook is ESSENTIAL to Courey's class. His PowerPoints are extremely long and dense (with lots of clarifying information written in the Notes section), and it can be hard to pinpoint the really important information. During lecture he often skipped slides ("because they were in his videos") and didn't show all the steps when solving the math problems (if you are confused, ASK HIM!! He was pretty good about explaining things as long as someone asked about it).

There were two CPR assignments. The second involved a primary source research paper as well as a secondary source web article. A lot of people found the prompt difficult, and I sat in on office hours just to understand what he was asking. For some reason, a lot of people were also pretty harsh graders, so just remember to be kind to your peers - you all need the points. In addition, pray that you don't get such a bad grade you need to dispute the peer review part of the CPR, because he very rarely granted it.

In terms of assessments, there were a lot of trick questions on the CMCs, so as a class we performed pretty poorly on them. However, the worst part was that many of us didn't realize they were trick questions until we got our grades back - I feel like I only understood how important some of the concepts were after I got them wrong, which was not ideal. The midterms (one was online this quarter and one was in person) and final were more manageable, and he always gave enough time. I generally think the final was fair, but it was worth a big part (30%) of our grade. However, he offered to replace our scores in the CMC category with the final if we did better on the latter.

Some final notes:

In terms of studying, I would recommend making a study guide of the important equations and concepts (he gives you a sheet with the equations, but you need to know WHEN/HOW to use them). There were a lot of conceptual questions (T/F) on all of the assessments, so make sure that your understanding of the concepts is ROCK SOLID.

In the beginning of the quarter we didn't have a class Campuswire (he made a few discussion threads on BruinLearn, but no one used them), so if that happens again ask him to make one.

This class was certainly something. It forced me to develop new study habits I didn't know I could develop even after a year at UCLA. I wish you the best of luck.

Do not take this class <3

Some reviews are fresh out of the extremely difficult final (of which you have probably read about so far) so I am going to try be as objective as possible. This class is doable, IF you dedicate a good amount of time toward it. The lectures were very clear, the work assigned reflected the course content and strengthened our proficiency in these concepts, and the class was extremely organized. However, you have to know what you're getting yourself into; I took the class just to fulfill the gen chem requirement for a major I'm not even pursuing anymore with no intent on taking any more chemistry after this class, and it became a source for an unnecessary amount of stress for me. If you want to rigorously prepare yourself (perhaps for the MCAT or for biochemistry) with loads of group work, essays (in a chem class?!), and pre-lecture/during-lecture assignments on top of weekly homework and exams, this class may be for you.

The weekly two-hour discussions really drained me since it was two full hours of working on a chemistry worksheet designed to enforce concepts you learned every week in a group of 4 - if you haven't been keeping up with lecture and homework, you will not be able to contribute much to the worksheet. The three peer-reviewed essays were a bit annoying, since they combined a little bit of biology (I had taken none) with chemistry and were occasionally harshly graded by my classmates. The last of the stuff that might make this different from 14B is the pre-lecture quizlets, which were short, multi-attempt quizzes to make sure you read the powerpoints and textbook before lecture.

Lastly, the quizzes and exams. The quizzes and exams did a pretty good job of testing your knowledge, and you will do well provided you studied a good amount outside of class. I changed my major around midterm 2 (due to physics, not this class) so I started to slack off and things became much more difficult. Now the final: this was already difficult since I completely put the class on the backburner, but on top of that it was LONG. My 24-hr math and physics exams were shorter than this three-hour exam, and I got around a 38% on it without studying. It was formatted exactly like the midterms, except we had only three hours to complete 12 multiple choice-esque questions and TWENTY-FIVE free response questions. A plurality of students, most of which actually studied, received less than 50% on the 12 multiple choice part, and a vast majority left 2/3 of the free response blank.

Professor Courey is super nice and formatted the class well for what it is (a rigorous gen chem course for those who need some more direction regarding learning and/or have little chemistry experience), but some things could be tweaked (the essays and final). The pandemic made focusing in this class 10x harder than it had to be, so maybe it would have been much better in person.

Here's the thing. Chem 14BE is supposed to be a class that is more heavily focused on participation and interaction with your classmates. I took 14AE the quarter prior and absolutely loved it. HOWEVER, this class is not that. Professor Courey, while a genuinely nice guy, failed the majority of students as a teacher.

His lectures are easy to understand, his examples are simple and that sets your expectations. You would think 2 hour-long Pearson homeworks and weekly online quizzes alongside 3-4 hours dedicated each week to solving lab worksheets would give you an idea of what to expect on the final. NO. Twenty-five free-response calculation questions and a set of 12 CCLE type questions over a 3 hour period. I have never been screwed by a professor this hard in my 4 years at UCLA.

Compared to what I've heard about 14B, this class seems to dish out some hard tests and some assignments which I personally found very time-consuming and unnecessary. Such assignments were the PRWAs which are basically three essays that you have to write based off chemistry topics where your grade depends on whether or not your peers liked the essay (which some people are really harsh about). The final was a complete disaster as you may have read in the other reviews. Supposedly, this class was "enhanced", as another review said, so it's supposed to help people with weak chemistry backgrounds right? Wrong. You're better off taking 14B in short.

This class was reasonable both in workload and difficulty throughout the quarter up until the absolutely brutal final that was borderline cruel. It was not only incredibly difficult but much too long compared to any of his exams he gave all quarter (apparently this version had been shorted per the advise of out TA's !!). Probably about half the class didn't finish it and if anyone did, they felt really rushed. I had an A the entire quarter and after the final exam results came out I fell nearly 10%. The curve that he offered only really benefited those who did very well on the exam already, not helping anyone really impacted by the sheer length of the test and lost around 20+ points for questions answered. He also really did not care that the CCLE portion of the exam had technical issues for a few students, offering no answers on piazza to their concerns. For a pilot class that was supposed to be ENHANCED for students who needed a more thorough approach to learning general chemistry, he is unforgiving.

I feel so blessed for having him as a professor. He has all it takes to be an excellent professor or even a father (not completely sure about the latter, just feeling like saying it). He delivers lectures flawlessly with his casual laugh and jokes. His tests are fair, straight forward, and less brain-damaging than Tienson's 153A. If he mentions a certain problem from the problem set, do it cuz it'll be the midterm!

I am currently taking him right now. He is yet another fantastic professor. He knows his shit WELL. He has a great sense of humor and the midterms are fair. There are no trick questions or anything. His office hours are VERY helpful too.

3 midterms 1 final (3rd midterm is given at the same time as the final)

2 homework assignments
2 articles

Courey is such a cool professor. He really knows the material and is very good about answering all your questions. He also has a cute personality--really jokey but soft-spoken.

The tests are pretty fair. He tells you exactly what you should know on the lecture slides.

Just take him.