Baugh is kind of entertaining, but not in the laughing-with-him sort of way. He's a very smart guy, but his approach to chemistry is on the border of sanity. He gives off a mad scientist vibe: the laugh, the lazy eye, the way he says the machines will rise against us...it's unnerving, to say the least.

Regarding success in the course: obviously, your best approach is to take another professor (Gimzewski's final looked like cake next to Baugh's). However, if you're stuck in Baugh's class, make sure you read the book thoroughly. You should not be going to Baugh's lectures to learn the material. You should be going to learn his personal nomenclature for the course (eg. Eigenvalues/functions). Use the book, section, and old tests to prepare yourself for the midterms/final. Use lectures as a study guide and tool for coordinating your language with Baugh's. It also might help to forget everything you knew about chemistry from high school. WORKED FOR ME.

I love Baugh very much. Not only because I get an A on his class, but also because of his talence on chemistry. some of the students said that he was really tough and his final was really difficult, but as the fact shows, his average on the final is 60% and some of the students loves his office hour, in which he taught a lot. I love him.

I hope all of you took AP Chem in high school because 20A with Baugh is a nightmare. Not saying he's not smart, he's just really not that good at teaching. If I learned anything at all from this class, it is how to teach myself. Honestly, reading the book and going to discussion will probably prepare you more than attending lecture.

Baugh's tests and quizzes are ridiculous. It's as if he spent 5 minutes typing them up in notepad or something... they are always filled with typos. The problems themselves are usually not like the ones in the book. Oh, and he likes to mess with your mind, like purposely wording a problem to sound TOO easy, or giving you equations you don't need to throw you off.

I personally loved the way he teaches and tries to make students passionate about the subject. A very personable and likeable professor, I would say. Though admittedly the tests were really tough. I'm done with the finals and honestly don't think I would get a good grade. But I have a good impression of him. The topic (quantum mech of matter) is pretty darn difficult to teach to begin with. So anyone would find it really difficult to make the lectures interesting and understandable to us newbies in quantum mech.

I believe Dr. Baugh is kept as the Chem 20A lecturer for one purpose.... to get people to trust Bruinwalk ratings. In all honesty, avoid this class, if you're not going to become a doctor and your grad school will accept AP credit, skip this class in general. If you have to take it, read the book instead of going to lecture. It really is the mark of a bad professor when an inanimate object explains the material better.

He went to U$C. 'Nough said. Can't teach, all tests don't have one thing to do with the book or homework problems assigned. Best of luck if you take his class.

At first I did not know what bruinwalk was talking about how he is a terrible professor. I must say that for the first half of the course, I actually did learn from him. However, as the material got a lot more complicated, he was impossible to understand. It almost felt like he was the only one who knew what the hell he was talking about. Honestly, watch you tube videos chemistry lectures from MIT if you want clarity. Also some tips are to look at his past exams... many of the questions reapear. Also, he always asks to define things so if you use a cheat sheet, write out the definitions of the discoveries and discoverers... Also, go to discussion, it is very helpful.

Professor Baugh is extremely smart - so smart that he teaches at a level that we cannot understand. He fails in the analogies he uses to make us understand.
His tests are hard, but you should be able to answer 50% of his questions because of his repetition about these subjects in lecture.
Discussions are a MUST because the TAs can actually teach at our level.
Don't be discouraged if you don't understand some of the stuff because even my TA didn't know some of the stuff Baugh was teaching. Just score above 50% and you'll be fine!
I didn't go to many of his lectures toward the last 6 weeks and instead watched supplementary lectures from YouTube and used Wikipedia a lot. I read EVERY page in the chapters assigned and EVERY slide in his powerpoints. I scored 176/200 on his first midterm, 155/200 on his second miterm, and 320/400 on his final while the averages for all of these were 50%. I got an A, but the time I spent on this class was ridiculous.

Do yourself a favor and take Scheri for Chem 20A instead of Baugh. He isn't an effective professor, but his tests are the reason why you should avoid him. You have no idea what his tests will cover and lectures are impossible to understand

Baugh is a pretty bad professor overall. The only reason to go to lectures is to tell jokes because his lectures and lecture slides are incomprehensible. You can't learn anything from the lectures, but the problem is, he tests on his lectures, not the book. I decided my best bet was to study the book because at least the book made sense. I ended up with an A-, which is decent because I thought the final was impossible. He has a pretty decent curve, so it's not the most difficult class in the world, but it can get frustrating at times. One nice thing he does is all the points you lose on midterms get transferred to the final, so if you screw up one or both midterms, you can still get a high grade in the class if you clutch out on the final.

If there's a better professor teaching 20A I'd take him or her, but I wouldn't necessarily say avoid Baugh at all costs. At least you can laugh at his jokes.