I loved Dr. Courey!!!! He was great at lecturing and you can really tell he cared so much about his students. His midterms were very doable if you studied the learning objectives and POGIL worksheets. I highly recommend taking this class with him. Most of these bad reviews are just because of the final. However, everything else went smoothly in his class and he curved the test so much and also curved the grading score to make a 91% an A. He is super considerate and listens to his students. TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM HE’S THE SWEETEST PERSON EVER!!!

Dr. Courey is an incredible professor. point blank. He is VERY accommodating and understanding to say the least. Personally, I loved the enhanced series. I thought the structure was very similar to high school in that you have assignments throughout the week and tests every couple of weeks, unlike other classes like Chem 14A, where essentially your test scores are what determine your grade.

Overall, if you are good at keeping track of your assignments, communicating and asking for help, and don't like the idea of a couple of test grades determining your overall grade, I definitely recommend this class.

General chemistry is not supposed to be easy by no means, and there is not an easy way out, so you have to expect that you are going to be doing assignments and putting in many hours outside of class studying the material. However, this professor is very clear and easy to understand and engage with.

This professor was very reasonable except for the final. The final was extremely long and almost nobody finished; however he did curve upwards after the final which was good. He also is very good at explaining things, and although the course material is extremely dense, his office hours are helpful in clarifying everything. Overall, I think I learned a decent amount.

Take most of these reviews with a grain of salt—in my opinion, to be successful in this course, besides learning the content, you really have to get used to the types of questions that are asked on exams vs. quizzes. For me, the quizzes (CMC's) and exam multiple choice questions were harder than the free response portions. This is because they are very conceptual and REALLY try to trick you. This sounds stupid but you kind of have to ask yourself "what concept is the professor trying to test me about?"/"how is this question trying to trick me?". I think a lot of people get confused by the terminology, so you just have to read carefully and check your work. Free response questions were super straightforward if you're allowed to reference your notes—they were mainly plug-and-chug type problems, you just have to recognize what equation to use. To study, I'd suggest focusing on the discussion worksheets especially, slides, learning catalytics, and maybe the PRWA's. I was too lazy to do the LA worksheets and I was fine. For the PRWA's, just make sure you hit all the rubric points and be nice when grading others. The final was a bit of a time crunch, but what helped me was creating an equations sheet with everything on it and the TA's giving partial credit. I took AP chem in high school, so I do know my experience might be different from others, but I don't think anyone should be discouraged from taking this class. I really would suggest this class if you have the time for it!

What can I say, Courey is the GOAT!! Definitely take this class. If I could do it, you can too, trust. For context, I'm not even a biochem major. I barely got a C in 153A but needed 5 quarter units of biochem for professional school prereqs, so I was hesitant to enroll in this class. The material itself is complicated, but it's totally doable. I ended up finding this class super interesting too. It's different than 153A in the sense that you aren't memorizing a bunch of pathways, so if you're better at understanding structures, this class is for you. Courey makes sure you can visualize concepts by using 3D digital models which is rly helpful if you're a visual learner. His slide decks are super clean and very well organized. There's lots of extra credit opportunities and the exams are super fair and you'll do great as long as you keep up with the problem sets (which is not graded but many questions are representative of exam content + he goes over some of them in tutorial) and do the discussion worksheets (you can keep doing corrections until you get 100%).

Overall this class was so much work and the quizzes were crazy hard. But the midterms and final were VERY reasonable, especially if you studied. Definitely rely on your TAs for help

Courey is very research-oriented when it comes to CHEM153B - a lot of the slides are based off of research papers that were conducted to study DNA and RNA structure/mechanisms. As an MIMG major, I was very daunted by how like 90% of the class were biochem majors, but I fared fine because I did well on the midterm. There's an in-person and take-home portion for the one midterm of this class, and as long as you did the problem sets that he posted and studied the learning objectives he emphasized, you would've been fine. I will say the material is very dense, and he often does not put summarized information on the slides (it's mainly diagrams and like 1-2 sentences). You might have to go back to the lectures and rewatch what he's verbally saying. Discussion is group-work based, and there's a weekly worksheet. There are 2 journal articles that you have to read and discuss with your group during discussion, and he does test you on the diagrams that appeared in the journal articles on the exams (for our quarter, it was just the final - it was 1-2 questions about specific diagrams). On the midterm, I got 91.3%, so I had more wiggle room for the final. I thought the final was kind of tough because there were select 1 or more answers, so I kept second guessing myself. However, I got an 81.3%, which I'm fine with because I honestly thought I bombed it. I left like halfway through the final (1.5 hours in out of the allotted 3 hours). For the final, I studied for 4 days and did all of the learning objectives (he didn't give a specific emphasized learning objectives pdf like he did on the midterm ; he said any learning objective was fair game for the final) as well as all of the problem sets. The problem sets are optional, but I swear if you want to get a good grade on the exams, do the problem sets. Sometimes he asks questions that are similar to the concepts/set up of the practice problems. Courey is also very engaging and he answers questions concisely. I sat in the front row during the final review session he held, and I wish I sat in the front row when class started during Week 1 because I learned so much in those 2 hours of that review. He also gives a practice exam for the midterm and final. The weekly quizzes can be kind of challenging, but I got 25/25 on most of them except for one quiz. There's 2 in-person quizzes, but they're memorization based (so you just have to keep drawing the things that are going to be tested - he also literally gives you the quiz template, so it should be free points). He also offers some extra credit (although he graded kinda harsh for the haikus we have to make LOL I got like 3 points out of 6 because my CHEM153B haikus were not evocative enough but at least it's free points). Overall, I think if 153B is offered with Courey, you should take it because he's honestly a professor who cares. I also highly recommend you attend tutorial because literally he goes over stuff that'll help you on the weekly quizzes.

Professor Courey is one of the best professors I have ever had at UCLA, and as a Biochemistry major, his class made me believe that I chose the right field of study. I was initially a bit worried about the workload and time commitment of this class, and although there definitely is a lot of material, Professor Courey makes it super clear and adds fun videos and even poems to engage students. It's so obvious that he cares deeply about student learning and is genuinely passionate about the material he teaches. Additionally, his class dives into past research innovations and how they helped shape our current understanding of biochemistry, which was really cool to hear. I have zero complaints about this class and would 100% take another class taught by him.

The others that posture this class as easy are either prodigies or liars. Great professor tests and problem sets are hard. The professor bases his work in research and teaches to reflect that. If you are not in his class for the love of Biochemistry then don't do it. If it is just for a passing grade don't do it.

COUREY MY MANNNN. The first class, you're gonna think to yourself: "why did I take 14be, I should've taken 14b like everyone else," but do not drop! Courey is such a sweet and kind professor (gave out multiple extra credit assignments and extensions and made changes to the syllabus to boost grades), and he genuinely cares about you learning the material in class, not just skimming across it for the grade. Give him a chance, and Courey is gonna grow on you over all your other professors. Tip: lectures aren't the greatest, but so much of the exam material comes from the POGIL worksheets, homework problems, and weekly quizzes. Just do all the work and try your best to keep up with the reading, and this class will be super manageable.