I honestly enjoyed taking this class! I was originally waitlisted but Prof Russell wouldn’t give me a PTE but it honestly wasn’t necessary because people WILL DROP. It is a waiting game so if you do end up waitlisted just wait it out. Prof Russell is a very sweet old lady (she’s literally 70+ years old and still teaching!) and some of these reviews are extremely harsh. However, since it is only 1 50 minute lecture a week, it does feel as if a lot of it is on your own. However, I didn’t find myself having to do too much of my own learning and the only thing I really had to teach myself that was poorly covered in lecture was titration calculations. However, the final we did get a front and back cheat sheet which was very helpful for all the little things you had to memorize and also I put a whole titration problem on mine. The midterm was online and open note. Midterms and finals were therefore very manageable and I felt they fairly covered what we learnt in class and labs. I had an 8 am lab which was tough to wake up for but you would always wake up by the time you started the lab and I honestly didn’t mind the 8 am and maybe liked it more. It was done by 10 since we would always usually finish an hour early. My TA was kind of a harsh grader for prelab and postlab work but it didn’t end up mattering anyways since I ended up with an A. Anyways I really enjoyed this lab a lot more than I expected, especially considering her previous bruinwalk reviews!

Russell is a good professor and she's really sweet and understanding (when the students forgot to turn in the assignment she extended the due date for everyone). The class is definitely lacking structure though in the sense that EVERYONE had MANY questions because the questions/content we needed to know are stuff we didn't actually cover in the 1 hour lecture once a week that we have. At the end of the quarter we had over 1000 questions posted on campuswire (shoutout to professor Ohashi who answered most of them with great detail). There are two writing assignments (but they are fairly easy), and 8 labs, most of which are fun to do (but are confusing because the manual they give doesn't explain everything, so sometimes it got annoying). Nevertheless, I loved this class.

Everyone complained about the final coming out of it (it was a long final with pretty detailed-- and unfortunately sometimes vague-- questions) but it wasn't anything outside of what we learned.

Selling graded post-labs and pre-labs for $15, hmu on ********** :)

Disclaimer: Spring 2022, I technically took this with Ohashi but I basically only went to Russell's lectures. Besides the professors themselves, pretty much every single aspect of the course was the same for them (even the same syllabus)

Overall: Mediocre, not loveable but not hateable, not easy but not mind-numbingly hard.

Grading (out of 350 points):
Post-Lab Reports (x8) = each varies, totals to 121 pts
Pre-Lab Reports (x7) = each varies, totals to 45 pts
Lab Cleanup/Practice Exam Participation = 7 pts
CPR (x2) = totals to 24 pts
Midterm = 40 pts
Final = 100 pts

Post/Pre Lab Reports: Done before and after each lab, usually asking you to summarize procedure or substances before lab and making calculations and conclusions after lab. These got more time-consuming as the quarter went on, but ultimately they weren't the hardest thing in the world. Make sure to do these ahead of time though, and carefully too if you have a TA that grades strictly like with sigfigs. They're the bulk of your grade and could be easy points as long as you don't rush. Also some of them are groupwork (since some of the labs require groups) so MAKE SURE TO GET A GOOD LAB GROUP IN YOUR SECTION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CLASS IF YOU CAN

CPR - an annoying program online where you write a short essay analyzing graphs and writing on what's good about the way that graph was presented or analyzing the process occurring in the graph. They're graded on if you're eassy answered some questions correctly (yes/no x ~15). The annoying part is really trying to answer every single question correctly, since they aren't completely given to you before hand, and you have to be really explicit about it. The PR stands for Peer Review, so other students are grading urs and ur grading others, so you really have to pray that others grade easily. Overall just really annoying to do and not too useful imo.

Midterm - Online (not proctered). Open notes/book. 1.5 hours. Download a pdf and either write on piece of paper or write on tablet, then turn that in by scanning. mix of MCQ and FRQ. Average was an 85%. Pretty fair in difficulty

Final - similar format to midterm but a lot longer. In-person handwritten Cumulative. 3 hours. This was definitely a bit harder than the midterm but still fair, and I'm writing this during finals week so grades have not come out yet. Almost felt like an AP test just in the long series of questions and taking it in a big room with other people. You're allowed to bring a handwritten cheat sheet front and back, along with calculator and equations/periodic table sheet.

Lectures - tbh I heard a lot of bad things about Russell but I think she's ok. Like not the best ever but didn't hate her or anything. As an old person she is kinda what you might expect. She's pretty nice but the lectures can go a bit slowly. However I wouldn't say they're worthless, and the slides imo are actually pretty well-made. She (and Ohashi) also did demonstrations in class, sometimes with volunteers, so that broke up the monotony of lectures a bit. Russel didn't respond a lot on Campuswire, but Ohashi was an absolute god at responding, so if they ever pair up again you can dependon him on Campuswire lol. Overall, they're only once a week for less than an hour, so I would just go to them unless ur really on a time crunch or its at 8 am or something.

Labs - You largely go through the steps of whatever the week's lab is from the textbook. Make sure to go through the steps carefully though, since doing something wrong might cause you to have to restart and that is very annoying. A lot of things in this class depends on ur TA, especially since you're probably interacting with them a lot more than the professor. They grade your pre/post lab reports and lab conduct, so make sure you make at least a decent relationship with them. My TA was pretty chill, so it made lab less stressful and easier to ask questions if I felt I was doing something wrong. These labs a lot of times took less than the 3 hours allotted so that was nice. Labs are definitely the highlight of the course (obviously) so if you get a good TA I think overall the class will be enjoyable.

This was by far the worst class I have ever taken at UCLA. I have never written a review for anything but this class caused so much trouble for me I hope to encourages others to not take it with this professor. The TA did not come to lab then would grade very hard and the professor was unhelpful.

Honestly, I did not put as much time into this class as I should have, but for the amount of units given, this class is a lot of work. I'll be going through a few things about the class itself with Professor Russell.

Professor Russell uploads weekly lecture videos, which are often slow and time-consuming to get through.

I felt like I learnt more from my TA going through some material that's related to lab activities.

Answer keys to practice problems were sometimes wrong, which absolutely sucks if lecture material gets confusing.

What I hated the most was getting assigned group work in post-lab reports. I had a 3-person post-lab report and I basically did 2/3rds of it because there was nothing to enforce work being split evenly. It absolutely sucked that I had to stay up, lose sleep, and pick up other people's slack in the middle of the week because I'm forced to do group work.

Take my review with a grain of salt - this was my first B, so my tips and opinions are probably biased.

This class was just so so bad for me. Not for everyone, though, so don't worry.

Things I did that you SHOULD NOT DO if taking this class:
I didn't spend nearly enough time studying for the exams (started 1-2 days before the exam and nothing made sense). I also never went to live problem solving stuff sessions (they were at 8am!!). I also didn't do the practice problems until I started studying. I also didn't ask any questions no Campuswire, because I only looked at it when I started studying. Moral of the story: don't fall behind! Review everything at the end of each week and ask questions on Campuswire or in the sessions so you stay on track.

The only concepts that lined up with 14B were rate law and acid-base. I would recommend that you DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS ALONGSIDE 14B. There is no point, and it would be better if you were familiar with the concepts before coming into class.

Russell did recorded lectures only, which were painfully slow and boring to watch, AND we never got to interact with her. I understand that she is a busy person and that probably contributed.

Labs were usually just data analysis stuff, pretty straight forward. Group projects are always a pain, but it helped to divide the workload because the lab reports were kinda long.

We also evaluated videos of experimenters using volumetric pipettes, burets, and other equipment. This wasn't hard at all, but it was definitely boring.

Exams were okay. They seem very simple until you get one back and realize you don't know how to do sig figs, and that units and sig figs are what cost you your grade. :((

Overall, Professor Russell is a bit of a traditional educator that lectures and uses all of the fancy terminology, but it's hard to connect concepts. I would take this class again, and probably take it with less classes so I can focus on everything going on.

Russell is the nicest lady, but her lectures are somewhat dull and unclear. I skipped all of them after the first lecture and did fine. That being said, I definitely had to study for the exams. I found reviewing the slides, doing practice problem sets, and reviewing the assignments were more than enough. Assignments are somewhat difficult and timing consuming--the groupme for this class was very active and helpful. Good luck if you don't understand it because the lectures don't help. Another portion of the class is assessments that I think were modeled after LS 23L classes, but this was poorly incorporated and relied mainly on Russell's opinions, which I found were not always right. TAs are also very important because they provide help on the assignments. I had Katie White and she was super nice but somewhat clueless. It turned out okay because she graded based on what she told us in class (which wasn't much). In total, easy and passable class.

Selling lab coat (medium) + goggles
And chemistry experiments for life science majors 4th edition by Russell and Pang
btw they're changing all the labs, you might waste your money buying old labs.
text **********

Chem 14BL is awful regardless of how good or bad the professor is. Lectures aren't helpful, especially if you've already taken 14A and 14B. Russell is really sweet, but the material is innately dry and difficult to absorb early in the morning. My biggest advice would be to complete all practice problem sets and exams. Understand the math and concepts behind each question so you can do well on the midterm and final. Both exams have a component that involve technical lab skills, so make sure you have a basic understanding of the lab procedures as well. Aside from the midterm, final, and labs, there are also two writing assignments that are peer reviewed. They aren't worth much but definitely look at Piazza and read the questions in the prompt thoroughly so you can answer it to the best of your ability. In terms of the actual lab section itself, don't forget to do prelab assessments on CCLE. Although there's not much you can do to ensure you have a good lab partner or good TA, it's important that you have a general idea of what you are doing going into lab in case you have a lab partner that doesn't. Most of the people in my lab section were reckless (e.g., constantly breaking things, not neutralizing substances before pouring them down the drain, leaving bottles of chemicals open). And do not underestimate how long the prelabs and postlabs will be; this class is three units but feels like five because of how much work these are. Even though the class itself is trash, you can still learn a decent amount of lab skills and their applications in real life. Shoutout to my TA Daniel Zweerink- he's a gem!

Selling Chemistry Experiments for life science majors fourth edition (very good condition. no marks. ) $25 OBO

Blue flame resistant lab coat (Medium) $30 OBO

Selling both for $50

if interested message me at ********** cash only please