Clearly, the two people below me are retarded. Russell is the EASIEST and NICEST Chemistry teacher I've ever had. Sure, her lectures are not especially helpful. But, she provides insane amounts of practice to extremely easy problems. Anyone that attends lecture knows exactly which questions will appear on the midterm and final. She even lets you use your notes on both tests. I definitely scored below 90% because my TA was a tough grader, but she still gave me an A. So, overall, easy material, easy tests, and super generous curve. I can't see how anyone would have a problem with her.

Professor Russell teaches this class on the assumption that you remember everything from your previous chemistry classes. As a teacher, she is remarkably ineffective, and as the person below me has stated, you will be required to learn everything on your own. Despite her terrible teaching skills, it is much better to take this class with Russell than with Pang, as her exams are easier and they are completely open-notes which helps quite a bit. Although her lectures are pointless from a teaching perspective, go to every one because whatever she talks about will be what you are required to know for the exams. The exams themselves are not too difficult provided that you have done extensive practice. She also generally has a good curve at the end of the course. I suppose that she is the lesser of two evils, take her.

I have taken professor russell for 14bl and 14cl. Professor Russell assumes you know everything from the 14 series and 14bl that she doesn't bother going over ALOT of material. Her lectures are very unhelpful and don't help at all with doing the lab problems and lab reports, i wonder how all these people even do it (wink;wink;you know what im talking about). Anyways, this class is purely a self taught one in that you basically teach yourself by going to a lot, i mean a lot of TA's office hours. Russell generally never finishes her lectures in the allotted 50mins since she is always talking about irrelevant stuff, whats frustrating is that although she doesnt finish your still expected to know the concepts. Hopefully you guys have good TA's because the spring quarter 2010, i took the class ALOT of TA's didnt even know how do the problems assigned by russell there were only like 2 out of 6 that knew what they were talking about. Also russells OH are very unhelpful. It took her 45min to explain one problem when it could have been explained in 10min. However, i think russell has a good curve at the end of the course. I still think that she is better than pang based on rumors about pangs test being very hard. Russells test are somewaht doable, but you really dont have the time to actually finsih in the 50min for the midterm.

Two words. Horrible professor. Her lectures teach the theory behind o-chem concepts, but her tests go above and beyond what was actually taught in class. And it's not meant to be an efficient challenge-my-students method that forces you to really learn (and the straight scale guarantees you will lose the points first, learn the new material she never covered but put on the test second). She basically posts packets and packets of problems online for you to do, and subsequently posts answer keys online for you to check your answers. HOW THOUGHTFUL OF HER!? All 'learning' per se is really done on your own. Now I don't know about you, but I can buy a textbook for $100 and learn that myself. I don't want a professor to merely post questions, and then literally 'be there if you get stuck on it.' I can hire tutors for that if I'm ever stuck learning/studying new material e.g. MCAT prep. You're telling me I paid several thousand dollars (plus the convenient $40 lab charge by yours truly URSA) for this 4-unit class at UCLA to be fed packets of questions/answers? It's become such a routine and easy class for her to "teach" that I doubt she really cares much about student learning.

She's constantly raving about teaching and education (due to her oh so glorious Ed.D from UCLA, gotta thank her for the wonderful CPR too). She spends precious lecture time justifying what she does and how CPR is the most wonderful thing ever invented. Hello? 50-minute lectures once a week? Midterm during lecture and she's actually wasting time/joking around before passing it out (people did not finish the midterm and let me remind you again there is no curve)? This all results in a very unfair midterm/final that is designed to screw you over. And there's not much in terms of sample problems resembling what she ACTUALLY PUTS on the tests. The conceptual problems are OK because tests are open notes and you can refer to lecture notes/lab procedures if she asks why did you do this/what happens if you didn't do this. BUT the calculation problems are horrible and totally unexpected because they do not even remotely resemble sample questions she posted (12-point blood pH problem on the Winter'09 final anyone? It was ONLY 9% of the final).

Ultimately, it's not like you can do much about it anyways, because she's here to stay. Why? Because CPR has saved teachers A LOT OF TIME; just set the due dates and voila you only have to grade something when someone asks you to; hell the TAs don't have to do any grading whatsoever for the CPR. And about the CPRs, I would've respected them if they actually had ANYTHING to do with what we learned in 14CL. But NO, we learned about things like BUCKY BALLS and were never even tested on it. Complete waste of time and they're impossible to get 100% on, thus hurting your grade further because of the straight scale.

Last but not least, she explicitly said +/- grades "may be assigned if appropriate." I guess anything higher than an 88% is still a solid B according to her. Are you kidding me? Thank you Dr. Russell for this GPA dropper because you know, it really made me THAT much more competitive not only in the real world, but in this shattered economy. Thank you SO MUCH! This class was such a waste of my life and time that, in the words of a previous student, "it doesn't make sense to not get at least an A- just for your time and effort."

She is an alright professor. she seemed to get angry in office hours the one time i went. her midterm and finals arent bad but she really wants you to know whats happening in labs so tahts what she will test you on. it would be helpful to go to office hours as there are things she didnt cover in lecture that definetly would be helpful on the midterm.

Ok, so she is not that great of a professor. Her lectures were more confusing than helpful and the only reason I went every week was to get the lecture guides. In terms of teaching, Pang is a better teacher. In terms of grading, I would say that Russel is much easier. Although the average for the midterm was low (i think) it was not that hard. The final I thought was a LOT harder than the midterm (and super long...most people stayed for the whole 3 hours). However, I've heard she curves A LOT, so because of that, I would recommend her over Pang. I had Pang for 14BL and his midterms were really hard and it is super hard to get an A in Pang's classes, while i think it is easier to get an A in Russell's class. Russel also did not seem that friendly whenever I went and asked her questions. Even though my friends said she was helpful, it always scared me a little to go and talk to her about things because she seemed rushed and kind of mad.

So I just finished the final for this course. I thought the midterm was harder. There was a problem that was aimed at her 14BL students because that's where she went over it and the rest of us were left in the dark. As for the final it wasn't that much different from past finals nor was it that much different from her review material before the final. By no means did I ace the final, but the class is an easy B if the distribution for grades is accurate on bruinwalk. However she cannot teach. I felt like I haven't learned anything from her during lectures. Everything that I learned I learned from the materials she posted and notes from an AATP tutor that was handed down to me. If you can get notes do it, even pang's lecture notes are better. In the end I'm pretty neutral about the class, if she graded harder I would definitely advise avoiding her, but since the grading is easy.. sure why not.

I took BL with Russell and am currently taking CL with her too. I would recommend taking these labs with her because her tests are open notes! She is genuinely concerned about her students. I was on the BL waiting list initially and she kept sending me emails updating me about my status and I luckily was able to get in.

She doesn't even know her O-chem HERSELF... how can we learn from her? Also, she's demanding and unfriendly. No thanks! I liked Peng better, as unbelievable as you might think that is.

Don't know why so many think she's ineffective. She was really helpful, even spent an extra lecture going over the material again when we were unsure about it. Labs are full of busy work, go to OH if you don't know how to answer something, she pretty much hands you the answers if you at least make the effort to see her and ask for help. CPRs are always stupid for any class, not difficult or long for this class. Midterm and Final was overall straight forward, but nothing that we didn't go over before. There was open notes during my tests as well. I did lousy on my midterm, but seemed to have pulled it off on the Final and still got an A. She also gave extra credit opportunities which helped greatly. I'd take her any day over Pang.