I cannot express enough the regard I hold for professor Merlic; he is easily one of best instructors I have had the privilege of learning from. On the last day of lecture, I even found the triumph of finishing orgo colored by melancholy, as I realized our time together had come to an end. Though organic chemistry is often discussed with a degree of dread, Prof. Merlic's wit and contagious enthusiasm, dare I say, made the class something to look forward to. He lectures at a brisk pace, but provides ample supplementary materials with which to study. He also demonstrates CONSIDERABLE patience, given some of the more "quirky" students in class this quarter. Though he initially grinned and bore the disruptions, by ninth week he began to lay down the hammer on the hysterics; in my opinion, he could have done this sooner. Exams and grading was fair. Complemented by a very competent TA team, I would fully recommend this course with Prof. Merlic. My only regret is that I did not have time this quarter to take his Honors Seminar.

This class was one of the toughest classes I have taken. I don't honestly know if he was like this previously but he has no mercy. The professor gave us three midterms that were about 6-7 pages long with only 60 min to take scan and submit. The class was doing horrible throughout the whole quarter the average was at a 50-60%. Not only did we have an extra midterm compared to previous quarters but our final was 16 pages/16 question long which not only drains you but mentally challenges you. Not to forget for discussions we had weekly quizzes which were very hard and useless. When we asked the professor how we were doing in the class he told us to trust the curve. And look where that led....
Anyways overall I would say do NOT take this class unless you have no other options. Good luck everyone!

I'm not sure how Merlic is during a usual quarter when things aren't remote. However, if you have the chance to take this class with Merlic during remote learning, do NOT take this class. He was extremely unaccommodating during the pandemic and made the class harder than a usual quarter. Instead of having two midterms, our class had 3 midterms, one of which was the Friday before Week 9. His justification behind this was to give us a "progress report" on how we were doing, but nobody knew what they had in the course since the class was graded on a curve. The averages for each midterm were extremely low, usually around a 50% or a 60%. The exams themselves are already quite challenging to complete on time; however, we were also expected to scan and upload the exam within the given 1 hour time frame, which wasn't required for the in-person class. Merlic also made the exams more difficult and longer due to our ability to "look through our notes", but in reality there isn't any time to skim through your notes since you're rushing to complete the exams. For the final exam, Merlic gave us a sample final with 11 questions on it and ASSURED us that we would have plenty of time compared to the midterms. However, he placed 16 questions on our final, many of which required written responses which consumed a decent amount of time. In addition to his ridiculous exam formats, Merlic is extremely disorganized with his homework schedule. The first few weeks we were given a homework assignment each week; however, near the middle of the quarter we didn't have one for nearly three weeks. Towards the end of the quarter he would assign a homework assignment every 3-4 days under the excuse of trying to fulfill the 10 homework assignments for the class. There are also quizzes in this class during discussion, but those don't mirror Merlic's exams too well. Overall, I would never take this class again and I highly regret having someone as unaccommodating and ridiculous as Merlic for a professor. One last note, Merlic likes to sell himself as a "nice guy", but don't fall for this as he is usually highly sarcastic and lies about his schedule and exam lengths. Good luck to y'all!

30C with Prof. Merlic has been great (writing this right before finals). First of all, the class is hard. It is meant for biochem & chem students, and it expects people going in to know basic orbital theory, stereochem and resonance, 20B acid/base chem, dozens of reactions involving aldehydes/ketones, alcohols, alkenes, and alkynes, and so on.

That being said, Merlic does a great job in presenting his slides (which have tons of good information and are thoroughly detailed), is very receptive to student questions during lecture or office hours, and his homeworks, albeit time-consuming and difficult, are excellent sources of studying material for his exams.

For class structure in terms of grading and so, we had weekly quizzes in discussion worth 25% (easier than they sound), homework once a week worth 25%, three midterms worth 25% combined, and a final worth 25%. The exams are challenging and sometimes you may run out of time (though less than before in 30B), but they are completely doable if one prepares with the past exams he provides, problem sets, and homeworks.

At the end of the day, I'd highly recommend taking this class with him....Roberto Chavez as TA as well, if you can get him.

I feel rather conflicted about Dr. Merlic and the class in general. On one hand, 30B (content-wise) is such a weird class. The quarter is divided up into spectroscopy and synthesis, both being very different from each other, and there was an incredible amount of information that was in the synthesis chapters. In that regard, I understand why Dr. Merlic's lectures were ridiculously fast-paced compared to 30A. Nevertheless, I felt so lost during lectures and spent the time mindlessly copying down the reactions on the board, since he would move onto the next topic quickly, leaving me little to no time to digest the material. If he had more time, I feel like his lectures would've been much better, but that isn't really on him.

Examinations are fairly straightforward. He uses the same format as his tests from previous years and only changes the molecules or spectra in question. There are always one or two difficult questions that tend to trip people up, and his tests aren't cakewalks, but you won't see pages and pages of crazy, multi-step syntheses.

Quizzes were nice because they help you stay on track. Without them, I probably would've started slacking off mid-quarter, probably to the point of no return. In addition, do all the synthesis and spectroscopy problem sets. I slacked off a bit during spectroscopy because I thought I got the concepts down, but actually interpreting spectra is a whole other beast in itself.

Dr. Merlic is a character, and I feel like you either love him or you don't. He can be intimidating due to his frequent sarcasm and blunt answers. I personally didn't really like that, but that's just me.

Although this is technically a lab class, you should honestly treat this class as a lecture class that has 8 hours of lab every week. The lectures are fast and go through all of Chem 30 with around twice as much content in each unit, and you'll need to study a lot to understand and memorize the reactions Dr. Merlic covers. He also assigns problem sets and pop quizzes during lectures. The content is pretty interesting esp. if you enjoy synthesis, but the sheer amount of information can get overwhelming. Every week or so, you basically learn a new set of organic reactions (oxidations, organometallics, aldol) and each set has its own set of stereochemistry rules.

The lab component is not too bad (s/o to Tony and Roberto!) but the procedures are sometimes long and difficult. Labs are independent and self-paced, so your ability to get good NMRs will depend mostly on your own synthetic and purification skills. There will be times when your yield is incredibly low, requiring you to redo 2-3 entire lab periods of work. Hardest part of the lab reports is analyzing your NMRs, so really try to purify your products to make your life a lot easier.

Merlic is a good professor but he goes through the reactions too fast, he includes unnecessary information and has a huge ego. That being said his exams are very and this is a really enjoyable class. For the NMR and spec portion of the beginning of the class, ignore everything that has nothing to do with the study questions. You don't need to know how NMR works or the equations. Don't get intimidated by his slides because he only uses them in the beginning with spec. Rather focus on being able to identify molecules from spectra because that is all you need to know. Pretty much if it's not in the study questions, it won't be tested. You do not need a conceptual understanding of how spec works for this class so don't be scared!
Just review your lecture notes, get your hands on previous exams (this helps so much), and most importantly do all the problem sets. It is a lot of reactions and very synthesis heavy after spec but everything is fair and makes sense. Merlic is a good grader and he understands that hard work deserves good grades. Just make sure you keep up with everything and go to office hours if what he says doesn't make sense. My TA's Rob the God (now professor Tobolowsky because he was such a great TA) but Carl was a dumbass. Take 30B and 30C with merlic if you can. Chocolate frosted covered sugar bombs 4 lyfe

This class was by far the most difficult in the CHEM 30 series, especially because of the carbohydrate and lipid chemistry that was squeezed in the last 2 weeks of the course. Since the course had both weekly quizzes and three midterms, I was constantly studying for this class. There is no mandatory homework in this class, but you need to do all of the practice problems and go over the textbook to do well. The exams are definitely fair, as Merlic's practice problems are far more difficult than the actual test questions. Also, the practice questions that accompany the slides are fairly similar to the midterm and quiz questions. The final was more difficult than all of the midterms. Overall, what made the class stressful was that it was graded on a curve, so only a certain amount of students could get an A, A-, etc. This made the class more competitive than others and essentially discouraged cooperation. As for Merlic, he was an interesting and engaging lecturer but sometimes glazed over difficult concepts because he understands them so well. We would go over lecture slides very quickly, and Merlic would tend to focus on the real life applications of the concepts which was definitely interesting but not very helpful for doing well on exams. Understanding all 30A and 30B concepts was essential for doing well in this class, specifically visualizing stereochemistry. If you keep up with all of the lecture slides and review them after every lecture, you'll do well in this course; it just takes a lot of additional work.

I wouldn't recommend taking 30B with Professor Merlic. This class was an absolute beast in terms of content, similar to 30A, however Professor Merlic definitely did not make it any easier. The pace of his lectures was incredibly fast, which is understandable due to the sheer amount of material that needed to be covered. Nevertheless, I barely learned anything from his lectures simply because of how fast he went, and my notes were basically useless because I had no idea what I was writing down. I had to spend hours taking notes from the textbook at my own pace and doing problem sets on my own to learn the content. The practice midterms and finals were helpful though, as they were basically identical to the actual tests except with different spectra/molecules.

As a professor, Merlic is pretty funny and wants all of his students to succeed, although he is also very sarcastic and blunt as other reviews have mentioned. I personally found that offputting but I bet if you went in to ask for help he would definitely provide you with the support you need.

If you are okay with learning the content on your own then go ahead and take him. Otherwise, wait for another professor to teach it.

I overall had a great time in this class. I think that Merlic is a great professor and truly wants us to learn. I personally went to office hours once a week and thought that he was very accommodating and willing to help his students. My biggest piece of advice is to learn and review the material the day of which will make sure that you will not fall behind.