He's a great lecturer. BUT he can be very rude and arrogant. I went to his office hours and he was NOT helpful. He was very cold and unwelcoming and repeatedly said "We went over that in lecture". If I had understood it well enough in lecture, I wouldn't have gone to his office hours in the first place! He answered my questions so quickly that he was basically brushing them off. I could tell that he wasn't really interested in repeating himself or trying to explain things clearer in any case.

So basically, a talented man and an organized lecturer, but an arrogant one who doesn't really make teaching his priority.

Said this for 14A too but he's literally not that bad. If anything, he was better for 14B by a large margin. My friends that took 14B with other professors had a way worse time because the exams were harder. At least Scerri's exams are graded with partial credit in mind. He reuses a lot of questions from former exams that he provides which were my main source of studying. He had a lot of in class practice problems that were really similar to exam questions too. Attendance wasn't mandatory but I went to lectures because they were interesting enough and he's a funny and unpredictable guy. Idk I think people just hate him because they don't know how to self-study and they get mad when they don't get an A despite the class having enough resources to succeed if you put in the work. The TAs were great and made so many exam study resources that were posted for the entire class to use.

Do not take this class. This is my second class with this professor and I can officially state that I have retained and understand ZERO information. His slides are so confusing and he runs through 100+ slides in 50 minutes. His lectures consist of him reading off slides and even reading the solutions to practice problems without actually going through the way to get the answer. Chemistry is not supposed to be taught this way! It should be progressive and the professor should work throw the answer, not just read the answer off of two long slides in a few seconds as if anyone would understand that. The TA strike after midterms also meant that there were no sections so any chance of understanding the content outside of his lecture was destroyed and there was zero support given from TAs when it was needed the most. The achieve quizzes are SO long and tedious that it felt like I had numerous final exams for the class. The class is graded in the most confusing way ever that it isn't even possible to know what grade you're at and what the curve is. This is the worst class and professor I've ever encountered.

Scerri is literally the most miserable professor I have ever had. There was a midterm and final, but thankfully I dropped the class before the final. I am so glad I did because I had Lavelle after who is 10000x better than Scerri. Scerri reads off confusing slides in a monotone voice and does not work through or explain problems thoroughly. It seems as though he does not like teaching, which is unmotivating as a student trying to learn. He provides very few resources in order for one to succeed in his course.

Scerri is one of the worst professors I have taken at UCLA. His teaching online was not the best because the class requires a lot of math problems so he would mainly say how to solve them instead of actually be able to write out the steps, this of course was simply due to the online format. I think he is okay to take in person, where you can form study groups and ask questions. But he was very unaccommodating to the current situation and expects everyone to come in with solid knowledge of chemistry. His sarcasm during office hours and lectures made my blood boil. If you have the chance, take any other Professor.

I took this class with no prior experience in chemistry. Overall, I put a good amount of work into this class (took lecture notes, read through the textbook, attended office hours, completed practice questions, etc.) because I was scared of getting screwed over by curving. The workload in this class is deceptively light, so I would make sure that you find ways to study on your own time. I do not think I would have been able to do as well if I didn't dedicate as much time to this class as I did. Scerri seems to be knowledgeable and passionate about chemistry, but his lecture slides often had mistakes, which made me rely much more on the textbook. A large portion of our grade (50% I think it was) came from completing online Thinkwell quizzes. The quizzes weren't bad at all, as we could take them up to three times, open-everything, with no time limit. I was just annoyed that the questions were pulled from a bank that included some concepts we did not (and were not going to) cover. Scerri acknowledged we wouldn't be tested on those concepts, too. The midterm and final were fair and reflected practice questions done in class and discussion sections, but I would make sure to also pay attention to conceptual ideas mentioned in the lectures/textbook so you aren't caught off-guard when they show up on exams.

Avoid this man at all costs: like seriously no matter what you have to do don't take chemistry with Scerri. Currently taking 14A and its not even over and it's absolutely terrible. Day 1 I began and on zoom was this old man who did nothing but self promote his work and confuse me beyond belief.
Spoiler Alert: His slides are screenshots from textbooks or random questions online. So they are not cohesive and don't make a ton of sense. He just reads the pictures during lectures. During lecture he does a lot of self-promotion for this book he wrote on the periodic table (1/2 his lectures thus far *its week 6* have included pictures of the book). He hosted a review session for the midterm where he covered 5 weeks of content in 10 minutes, he clicked through the slides so fast you barley had time to read them let alone write anything down. His midterm was on a Sunday, mind you(who does that?), in-which included far too many short answer questions for the allotted time and had an entire 4 part question that was based on fake/made-up chemistry(I really wish I was making this up). His tests have typos, he doesn't explain topics that shouldn't be that hard and causes a lot of confusion. Overall he is one of the worst Professors I have ever had. Every lecture literally makes me more confused. He might be a nice guy but he is definitely one of those people who know what they are talking about so well that forget that we aren't on the same level. Organic Chemistry Tutor is the only reason I even know what the vocabulary words mean and what the equations are for this class. If you have to take him, don't do it. Please save yourself the head-ache and the stress.
-Thank you

Scerri is the worst teacher I've ever had. He's a MESS and very unorganized. During lecture, the only material he uses are powerpoint slides, which are some of the ugliest and longest slides I've ever seen, that have a lot mistakes. Even though he only reads from the slides as his "lecture," he somehow confuses and contradicts himself throughout the lecture (this happened on multiple occasions). When students ask him questions about the content on the slides, all he does is respond by repeating what's on the slide and doesn't actually respond to their question. Also, the practice problems are elementary questions that aren't even close to the difficulty of the exams. In order to learn the material, Khan Academy, the Organic Chemistry tutor, and your TA (if you can get Kevin, GET HIM, literally the best TA.) will be your best friend.

As for exams, they are really LONG (midterm was 6 questions with 3+ parts and the final was 7 questions with 4+ parts). The questions can be really tricky because they aren't like the ones on his slides or on Achieve. The best way to prep for them is to use practice exams because he does recycle questions.

At the beginning of the quarter, Scerri assigns a bunch of Achieve/Sapling quizzes (worth 30% of your grade) that's due at the end of the quarter. Achieve is probably almost as bad as Scerri ngl. The man even said that some of the content covered in Achieve are out of the scope of the course, but of course he still assigns it. Literally the only good thing about Achieve is that there's unlimited attempts.

Finally, the worse thing about Scerri and his class is the way he grades. THIS MAN STILL GRADES ON A BELL CURVE. Like what other professor still grades on a bell curve. It doesn't help him or students, like it's even more work for him to do the math. It also forces us to compete against each other rather than help and feel for one another. Although the curve can help you, it can also SCREW you over like me 🤡. Before adding the curve I had a solid A, but after the curve HE CURVED ME DOWN TO AN A-. Never think your grade is fine in this class.

IF YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO SKIP SCERRI, SKIP SCERRI. TAKE 14B WITH ANOTHER PROFESSOR OR WAIT FOR THE NEXT QUARTER TO TAKE IT. AVOID THE PTSD (POST TRAUMATIC SCERRI DISORDER).

I thought this was a solid class. I took this my sophomore year for the psych major, and I hadn't taken chemistry since sophomore year of high school. lectures often have mistakes in them that do get corrected, but overall they were informative. they also had great practice problems. what really helped was lab. Spencer was probably one of the best TA's I've ever had, he was so clear and explained everything really well. Definitely attend section if you need help and clarity. Scerris was also nice and I did think he was approachable, you can stay on the zoom for a good while afterwards to ask questions. if you follow along the practice questions and do the homework, the exams really shouldn't be difficult at all. don't shy away from this class, I was scared at first but really there is no need to be nervous.

You can't be a bad professor and be rude. Seriously the worst professor at UCLA. Whatever you do try to take this class with Lavelle! Received an A+ in his class due to the enormous amount of support material he gives his students. Scerri on the other hand, reads off of his bullet points and insults his students when asking a question.