This guy taught me to always listen to Bruinwalk.

Yeah, the lectures are awful. You have to spend all your time writing stuff down, so you don't have time to listen to his convoluted buffoonery. He was always either late or slow, and since he had no communication with his TA's, they were always 2 chapters ahead of him.

The final was the worst part though. It is anywhere from 50-80% of your grade, depending on how you do with the midterms. Unfortunately, he uses the final to test us on things he doesn't cover: problems bearing no resemblance even to the homework. Most of his lectures were spent on quantum mechanics, but half the final was made of topics that he may have covered for at most, 10 minutes total.

He is a good professor who can actually explain concepts in details and more in depth than the book. People obviously complain all the time about how hard he was but he actually isn't. Probably most people just rant about him because they failed his class. He is a funny and humorous guy who actually wants to talk to students (that's what I hear from his office hours) but I regretfully didn't go because I was too lazy. What you should expect from him that his lectures do follow the book but certainly go into more details. The best way to prepare is to read the chapter ahead of time so you know what he is talking about.

the worst professor ive ever had.
midterms and final are impossible, contain many spelling/grammar errors, and your life will simply suck.
On the final I literally only answered 2 of 8 questions, god knows if my answers were even correct. about the same on midterms. Came out with a C in the class.
literally learned nothing. now you tell me if this is worth taking? no? didnt think so.

Funny/nice guy but this class is a complete waste of time! DO NOT take this class! I have gotten straight A's my whole life except for this class. You learn absolutely nothing from him. If you can't avoid him, just study the book like crazy: it's the only thing that'll help prepare you for 20B, too.

If you like chemistry and don't wanna change that... STAY AWAY FROM BAUGH! I'm a chem major and I seriously considered changing my major about halfway into the quarter. I talked to people who took him before me and it was the same story so they told me to hold on for a while and that chem isn't want Baugh made it out to be. He's bad news for anyone taking chemistry. Lemme explain, 20A is deals with the structure of atoms and molecules but that's what you're gonna learn in Baugh's class. Instead you get to do atomic level physics that even my phyiscal chem TA said grad students can't do and leaves you wondering what the **** does this have to do with CHEMISTRY?????? He seems like a nice guy (he is, I'll give him that, but too bad he's such a shitty professor...) so you take his advice and do his homework. You should be well off and be able to do the midterms and final without a sweat, right? I mean he DID say if you do his homework you'll do fine in his class, right? WRONG!!!!! Don't do the hw, it's a freakin waste of time cuz the midterms have nothing to do with them. I did the hw 2x over to prepare for the 1st midterm and you can guess what happened. So for the next midterm I skipped ALL his lectures (cuz they didn't even make sense anyways) and didn't do the hw and instead read the book really carefully (make sure you read the bullets at the end of the chapters too cuz he asks you random-ass little facts here and there) and guess what? I did fine. Same story for the final and I ended up on the higher end of the curve. Bottom line, if you want to pass Baugh's class with a decent grade make sure you become an expert on quantum mechanics (which the other professor covered in about 5 mins) and study your ass off for the whole quarter.

baugh is TERRIBLE. almost everyone just sits in his lectures confused and wondering what in the world he is talking about. he didnt stay on schedule at all. we were supposed to cover 4 chapters before the first midterm and had only covered three. the same thing happened on the final. he still had two chapters left on the last day of class and covered them in his review session. from his lectures, you have no idea what you are supposed to get out of the class or what you are expected to know for the test. the midterms awere ridiculously hard with means of around 45%. he is an awful lecturer, and completely unconcerned with his students. the TAs couldnt speak english, so they didnt help much either. baugh focuses more on his own research topics than anything else and hardly talks about what is on the midterm. do not take him... your GPA will suffer and you will spend a whole quarter wondering how such a terrible teacher was hired at UCLA.

Baugh gives two midterms, both of which have bad wording and can confuse students. However, the curves for both midterms are in the mid-40s, so you're good as long as you do perform average on the midterms. His tests are hard, but remember that they are hard for everyone else, so the curve will be generous. His lectures are useless 90% of the time, and it's just better to read out of the book or go to your TA office hours, assuming that you had a better TA than I did. Take him if you don't mind self-studying most of the course.

If possible, avoid Baugh for 20A. He really knows his information, but he has trouble articulating it in lectures. His lectures really didn't help and the problems he assigned didn't help with the midterms either. Reading the book can only get you so far. Unless you have a LOT of time to do outside studying and go to his office hours every week, I would avoid this class!

On a positive note, he does make himself available for office hours and is willing to make separate appointments if necessary.

He's a nice guy, always open for office hours and everything. He doesn't teach very well and you might have to do a lot of the learning on your own or with people.

He is a really good guy, but take into account he received his education (undergrad AND grad) at USC. When I found that out, it explained a lot. He teaches the course as if he is intentionally sabotaging UCLA students. His lectures do not really help much for the quizzes, midterms, and the final considering he really doesn't go over what types of problems you'll see on tests. The fact that homework is optional doesn't help either. You will want to commit suicide after the first midterm, but TA's always say it only gets easier from that point, which is not necessarily true. You will learn almost nothing in this class. If you do learn something, good luck with understanding it. Concepts will go right over your head. Just say no.