Dr. Lee is what I call the typical UCLA professor. By "typical" I mean, brilliant man, horrible teacher. Let me explain...

He makes a reader for chem 156 and the reader contained over 250 pages of hand-written notes. You might think that not having to take much notes in class is a good thing...WRONG! There was way too much information and not enough explanation. I'm not sure even Dr. Lee realizes how much information he overloaded on us. For each of the midterms we had to memorize 80 pages of notes...that's like buying those 3 subject UCLA notebooks and using all three sections for one class. During lecture he basically goes over what's in the reader and glances over difficult topics while wasting time on simple concepts. His attempts at creating models to explain what's going on ends up being more confusing than the concept itself. Each lecture we go over anywhere from 8 to 10 pages of his hand-written notes. And if we fall behind (i.e. go over 5 pages instead of the 10 pages he had numbered off), he'll rush the next lecture and cover 15 pages. He is very much into derivations and mathematical equations and will dance around complex formulas which ends up confusing the heck out of everyone. Worse yet, no note cards for equations for any of the exams. I'm not sure how many of you like taking physics without being given any equations, because, like physics, this class was all about equations and problem solving. Homework was assigned every week, but the homework was so poorly coordinated that we would do the homework before the material was lectured on, or the homework was due on the day it was lectured on.

Most people I've talked to agree that chem 110A was a killer class, but chem 156 was supposed to be okay. WRONG again. Chem 156 w/ Lee was twice as difficult as 110A.

If you can wait, take chem 156 with someone else. If you can't, then my advice to you is: rely heavily on the T.A. and study like crazy.

p.s. What do looks have to do with anything when rating a professor??? (refer to comments posted on 4/22 and 4/9)