Talk about an absolute disaster. In previous quarters, it seems as though his lecturing style may have largely been the same, but the tests/quizzes, as previously mentioned, were written by generous TA's with material pulled directly from the homework. Therefore, any student willing to put in a basic level of effort into the class would, without a doubt, get an A.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

Baugh, based on students' previous end-of-term comments, has decided that he would start writing the tests and quizzes himself. One would think that this would be a good thing, but this judgement could not be further from the truth. Before I even talk about the material covered by the questions, I must address how they were written. Every single form of assessment has had some form of crippling error/lack of clarity (ESPECIALLY the 1st midterm, which would have been strictly impossible had the TA's not rushed in to clarify basic grammatical or numerical errors in the writing of the questions). In discussion sessions, even the TA's are not sure what could have possibly been on Baugh's mind when writing them.

On either of the midterms, the questions themselves were, in fairness, a mixed bag. While about 1/3 of the questions had clear influences from the homework, allow me to be clear: there was no case, either on a quiz or a midterm, where a question asked on the midterm was of comparable difficulty to a question asked on the homework. The 1st quiz had one question based on the homework that was far harder than any homework question. The 1st midterm, same deal but with two questions. The 2nd midterm had a question on molecular geometry that was legitimately impossible to complete based on knowledge that one would have gotten from completing the homework - it would have required prior knowledge of geometry not covered in the class.

On a 6 question midterm, one could expect two problems with faint roots from the homework, two problems based on the reading, one question based on some topic that was particularly stressed in lecture, and a final question on a topic with origin unbeknownst to anybody, including the TA's. This would be alright, if there was some form of overlap between these materials. Unfortunately, all of the material covered by each of these ideas is completely mutually exclusive - the textbook is weak in that the problems rarely have anything to do with the reading, and Baugh is on a whole other tangent altogether.

In short, do not be deceived by previous grading curves in this class. I have yet to see the final or my final grade in the class, and, despite my scoring significantly above the average on every single assessment thus far, I could hardly have less confidence in what my final grade will be based on the grading system in the class (midterms don't even matter). Beren may appear to have a harder grading curve, but I assure you, it is a strictly easier and less stressful environment than you will ever be in while in Baugh's class.

Are you religious? If you aren't, it's best to start praying now.

Before the quarter started, I read the reviews and thought it would be an easy A, probably pretty rough, but I also wondered how bad it could really be. Well it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought; it was a thousand times worse.
Apparently in past years TAs made the tests so they were super easy as long as you did the homework, but this year for some reason Baugh started to write them himself. So not only are you not learning the material, but the tests aren't even similar to assigned homework problems. One time someone asked my TA what topics might be on a quiz and she said she had no idea, Baugh didn't even tell them. It was like lecture and section were for two completely different classes. Granted, I only went to lecture a total of maybe 10 times, and that's a generous estimate; he was such a confusing lecturer I swear not one person in that 300 person class could comprehend what he was trying to teach us. The only reason I learned anything was because of the textbook and from Derek the TA (I wasn't enrolled in his section but he was extremely helpful!). Midterm averages were 78 and then 70, with highs on both being 100 and low scores 16 and 5--yes, percent. And he does not curve anything because of his stupid grading scale!! It's a 1000-point system so any points you lose on the 400-point midterm get added to the final. Normally this makes the class average an A, but since the tests were so hard I think he said this year would be a B average, which is actually quite impressive, considering I don't feel like I actually came close to learning all of the course material. Also, he was so unorganized that he ended up having to take out 2 chapters from the final that were originally listed in the syllabus, and tried to teach an entire chapter at the review session 2 days before the final exam.
I have no idea what my final grade will be, but I wanted to write this review ASAP after having finished the course. Final verdict: avoid Baugh at all costs.
Also, this man cancelled office hours the day before the final. That's all.

This class serves to remind you and everyone else how subpar our PChem education is coming up to taking this lab. When did we learn anything proper about kinetics? How deep did our spectroscopy education go? Definitely not time-dependent spectroscopy but there's an experiment on that so have fun. Electrochemistry? Good luck.

To survive this class, be proactive and learn as much as you can before you enroll. That way you won't have to spend hours teaching yourself how to code, hours teaching yourself the basic theory behind your experiment, and hours learning error analysis. That way, it will save you time so that you can use 10-20 hours to write your fucking lab reports that come for your throat every 2 weeks.

Baugh is literally useless which makes him one of the best professors to take this class with because he doesn't give a fuck. He doesn't talk to the TA's at all so there is constant miscommunication. His lectures are hallucinations. If you've ever taken a class with him before you'll know what I am talking about. How he has managed to stay in this department after all this time is beyond me. Possibly because there is a dramatic lack of pchem faculty that step up to take part in our upper division education other than the same few people like Baugh.

Don't believe him if he says the exam is open book.

If you can skip this class and take 20B just skip it its not worth wasting your time and dealing with this class

DO NOT TAKE BAUGH. Also, skip 20A if you can, it's quantum chem and I've heard from people who took 20B and above that you don't need it for the other classes. Everyone signed up for this class because of the very generous grading of the two previous years. However, it seems the department got mad at him for giving too many As (more than 90%), so he changed it so that the average of the class was a B. At least that's what he said. I got an A and I really don't know how if he grades how he says he grades because I would've needed an A on the final and I definitely didn't get one. So in retrospect, I would guess most people got pretty good grades and I don't know if I believe that the average was only a B. However, the only good thing I can say is that I got a good grade. I was stressed, annoyed, and learned absolutely nothing and would've failed if it weren't for the cheat sheets.
The way his grading works: 2 quizzes, each worth 10%, 2 midterms, each worth 20%, and a final, worth 40%. However, any points you miss on the midterms you can get back on the final (does not apply to the quizzes). For example, if you only get 100/200 on the first midterm, it will go into the gradebook as 100/100 and your final will now be out of 500 points (50% of your grade). This makes the midterms practically meaningless and thus stress-free (although you should still study for your peace of mind and to avoid a mental breakdown before the final) and the quizzes REALLY IMPORTANT. If you do well on the quizzes and badly on the midterms you are much better off than someone who does the opposite. Also, he reuses some of the questions from previous quizzes/midterms and he will tell you that he's going to do that. Each midterm had 6 questions and 1 of the questions had been on the previous quizzes/midterms. The final had 8 questions and 3 of those were repeats. He also allowed you to make very large cheat sheets (1 page front and back for each midterm and 2 pages front and back for the final). Those were the only nice things about his tests. The first midterm and quiz were easy, but every other exam was very unpredictable and relatively difficult. Some questions were unclear, confusing, and poorly written. On the final, I asked one of the TAs to clarify a question and he said he didn't know what Baugh meant and had no idea why he put that on the final. The TAs also graded the tests differently.
As to his lectures, as all the other reviews say, don't bother going. I went to most of the lectures, but honestly even when I tried to listen I could not understand a single thing the man was trying to say. Extremely unorganized and confusing. Additionally, later in the quarter there is a lot of math, equations... and the way he shows that in his slides will make you much more confused than if you just read the textbook.

In conclusion:
-Don't take Baugh
If the universe chooses to punish you with a bad enrollment time because you were a bad person and have bad karma and you are forced into this class:
-STUDY FOR QUIZZES
-Write super small on the cheat sheets and fit all of the material on there
-Go to discussion with the good TA, even if he/she is not your TA (shoutout to Derek)
-Go to the good TA's office hours
-Don't go to lecture, and if you go, bring homework from another class
-Read the textbook instead and do all of the example problems and the problems at the end of each chapter (very important)
-Good luck sucker

Derek is the best TA ever, and honestly I already accepted that I was going to fail the class early on so I stopped trying but this class definitely is no longer an easy A and despite Baugh not teaching much, look at what sections he’s covering and make sure you know those topics like the back of your hand. Also he’ll include random questions that are on his lectures so those are important too. Also if he says something won’t be on the test/ will don’t trust him, he does whatever he wants. Definitely will never take him again, this taught me the importance of having a decent professor

If you love off-topic lectures, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you love not understanding anything in class, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you love being entirely dependent on your TA to learn any of the material, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you like not knowing whether you will have an A or an F at the end of the quarter, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you like suspiciously seeing "grade changed" on your transcript, even when it didn't, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you like not attending pointless lectures, then Baugh is the professor for you.
Baugh was not the professor for me.

Had to take 20B to fulfill requirements, even though I had already learned the content way before. About 70-80ish students were enrolled in the class, but if you ever went to lecture you could expect to see less than 20 students, unless there was a quiz/midterm.

The content is pretty simple, but Baugh can't explain it well at all. However, that's okay. He moves through his own syllabus very slowly (a week's work in a month). It's easy to keep up with the course through the textbook and a few practice questions. What's really annoying is Baugh's quizzes and exams. He is very unclear on what will be tested and keeps changing the date. Then, when you take the quiz, you'll spend half the time trying to understand what the damn question is asking you because the English used in his questions is just SO UNCLEAR. He writes them out as if he's talking, and it's hard enough to understand what he says anyway.

Once you get the exams back, you'll find that the grading is frickin inconsistent and your classmate may have written the EXACT same thing as you, but you get 0/50 and he gets 50/50. His questions aren't hard, but they're stupid questions.

I really thought I'd get an A in this class, because I know the topic really well. If not for his grading errors, I probably would've got it. It also felt like his final grades were quite random. I don't recommend anybody take this guy's class, and don't know how tf he is teaching at UCLA.

FYI, he was "under review" this quarter for about two weeks and then he said he would improve, but that was complete BS. Don't enroll in his class.