The class itself is not that hard, especially after they removed o-chem. I found his thinkwell quizzes to be quite confusing and frustrating but they did help me learn the material before exams. Do all of the recommended homework problems and you'll be fine. Know everything that he talks about in his slides because that is the material that will show up on the exam. I don't consider this class unreasonable at all.

I did not take AP chem in highschool

I would not recommend to take this class with Scerri unless you absolutely have to. The grade is divided 30% for sapling quizzes, 30% for the midterm, and 40% for the final. The class is essentially asynchronous and I ended up watching all of the lectures on 1.5 or 2 speed the next day. The lectures only consisted of him reading through the (already posted) lecture slides but, occasionally, he would add new information or complain about how few people had their cameras on.
There are 5 sapling quizzes, all due at the end of the quarter. The questions come from the textbook and there was some overlap to the class content, but just as much content was never introduced during lecture. I would not recommend reading the textbook or doing the practice problems because there is just too much of a disconnect from the actual, tested class content.
The midterm and the final were excessively long and tedious. If you took AP Chem, the midterm should not be too difficult but towards the end of the course there is a good amount of new material that you will have to study in depth. Thankfully Scerri posted practice tests that were in the same format as both exams which were helpful for studying for the exams. Discussion was not mandatory, but I wish I went more often since the TAs essentially review the material from the past week. You can go to any section so I would recommend asking around to see which TA is the best.

Eric Scerri is the worst instructor I've ever had the displeasure of having during my time at UCLA, and throughout my entire lifetime of education. He couldn't care less about the success of his students and fails as a teacher in a multitude of ways. 1) His lectures are not only monotonous and boring, but irrelevant to course material and do not, in any way, prepare students for the exams OR homework in the course. 2) the homework on Achieve provides a ridiculous amount of busy work; which could be useful, however, the problems are ALSO irrelevant to the exams given. 3) the exams. Absolutely ridiculous tests, impossible to finish in the slotted time amount, always riddled with mistakes that are only given after Scerri figures them out mid-test and then has proctors write the corrections to the question mistakes on a whiteboard, piece of paper, etc. These exams are not a measure of what is taught in lectures or homework, the only reason I was able to pass them was because I had an angel of a TA (AJ, you are my savior) and had to lean on her immensely to teach the class; something she is certainly not getting paid to do (at least not to the level she should be). 3) Scerri is extremely unprofessional in his communications with students; he is extremely rude and unwelcoming and is extremely inflexible and fails to accommodate his students' needs whatsoever.
I am frankly shocked that UCLA would allow such an awful instructor to step foot in a classroom or lecture hall, much less get paid for what he fails to teach. cannot even fathom how he's kept a job here for 20+ years much less 20 days. I've never had a worse teacher, instructor, lecturer, joke of a professor, whatever you can call him; in my life. And I'm 150% sure that the majority of my classmates would agree, he is astonishingly awful.

Chem 17 offers a lot of help for first timers in Chemistry, but also is insanely quick. Scerri covered 11-12 topics in the 10 weeks and, in truth, missing a class or dropping out of focus for a minute can put you behind. I heavily recommend attending his office hours (the ones he holds in the morning I found work best for 1 on 1 time with the professor). The classwork is light, with four online quizzes that are open everything (book, professor, classmate, internet, and can be taken three times with the highest score being in the gradebook) and two graded homework assignments from the textbook. There is one midterm. If the pace scares you, I still recommend taking this class. It absolutely helps with understanding the subject and opens doors for attending professor and TA office hours.

I hated this class and only did well out of spite for Scerri

*Grading/Curve*
Dr. Scerri is probably one of the most polarizing professors I have heard about. I think a lot of people dislike his classes because he is not very clear about the "curve." He stated on the first day/his syllabus states something about not wanting too many people to get A's so some people do get curved down. This did happen to some of my friends unfortunately who had about an A and were given an A-. He is not transparent at all about how much he is curving people down or what the class average is etc. Additionally, your final grade may not accurately reflect how you performed on the assignments since Dr. Scerri does make mistakes when inputting final grades. This happened to me and my friends, but I emailed him and went through some back and forth, but he eventually changed my grade. Your grade is 30% midterm, 30% Achieve (homework), and 40% final. No extra credit, syllabus quiz, discussion, participation, etc. -- just those three assignments.

*Homework*
Achieve is a pain since it is graded on accuracy and some of the problems require sm time and are too extensive for what we are tested on. DO NOT LEAVE THIS TO THE LAST DAY. I think it is manageable to do in the last week, but this can be VERY stressful when studying for other finals, so I highly do not recommend doing the whole thing the last week either. The numbers will also vary from student to student so you cannot "divide and conquer."

*Exams*
Personally, I am very bad at chemistry and only took one regular chem class early in high school so everything I learned in 14A and 14B was new. However, I did some of the old midterms and finals Scerri posted and they were highly similar to the actual exams since he reuses his exams. I definitely recommend doing the old exams before studying your notes because it will help you narrow down what you need to study. The answer key for these exams are usually wrong though so you have to check with a TA for the right answers. He does not use the textbook at all and all the concepts/problem types can be found on his lecture slides. Study his slides if you have time!!

*Lecture/Content*
Lecture attendance was optional since they were recorded, but I actually really loved attending lecture. Dr. Scerri is a very amusing lecturer and I found the content very interesting. His slideshows are unorganized since everything is in different colors and fonts for no reason, but his slides have a lot of useful information and diagrams (some of which you will have to draw on exams!!) Honestly, if you put in a decent amount of effort, the slides aren't as hard to understand as other reviews state. People say that Dr. Scerri is a confusing professor, but I think that's just the content in general. He really does try to thoroughly explain the material and pauses to ask if we have questions. He even makes jokes and takes a break every now and then.

*Professor/TAs*
I had Dr. Scerri for both 14A and 14B and I had very low expectations because of the previous reviews, but after finishing both classes with him, I actually really liked him and his classes! I wouldn't say he's the nicest professor, but in both quarters, I have never heard him be rude to a student. He is very open to answering questions and usually is responsive to emails. He definitely gets a bit confused from time to time during lecture, but he will correct himself after a couple of minutes. Your understanding of the content is definitely reinforced/enhanced by the TA. I had Hootan, who I 1000000% recommend, but I've heard Spencer and Kodi are also amazing.

My biggest piece of advice to do well in this class is to GO TO DISCUSSION SECTION WITH YOUSIF. He opens it up to everyone and you can go to any of the available times he has them. They were incredibly helpful and he cleared up concepts that were explained in convoluted ways in class. ALSO, if you go to class and discussion you should do well on the tests because every single problem on the midterm and final comes straight from the slides.

Aside from that, I really don't think Scerri is as bad as the reviews say. I took the class fall 2021 with the expectation he would be a completely unfair grader and horrible lecturer with a 2.9 rating on bruinwalk. Maybe it was because it was online, but the class was very easy to follow along and take notes on. Sometimes Scerri wouldn't answer a question adequately or explain a concept in a way that would just confuse people, but for the most part, I feel like I sufficiently learned all CHEM 14B topics .

Lastly, Achieve quizzes. For the quizzes, I had done 2 of them prior and I did the last 5 from 10pm to 9am the day they were due without any distractions, so that should give you an idea of how to space them out/how much to procrastinate.

I agree with most of the negative reviews. My philosophy to a happy life is to try avoid thinking about this class and the professor as much as possible so all I'm going to highlight is that it is evil to have the midterm and final on Sundays. I missed meeting Timothee Chalamet at the Wonka premiere because of him... That alone... is evil. When I hear the words "Schrodinger's" or "quantum" it's like I'm a soldier waking up to trumpets in the break of dawn. Avoid this class as much as you can. I put my entire chest into this class and got As in all of my other classes, but this one really takes the cake. What do you gain by curving down grades? CHEM 20A with Prof Scerri is the mysterious looming figure that haunts me in my sleep. But I digress. I feel like I got all the content down if I'm being honest... he just seems... a bit unfair. If they're trying to weed me out... they almost got me. To the C+ I got, thank you for allowing me to pass. But I hope to never see you or anything lower than you again. THEY CAN TRY TO WEED ME OUT BUT YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO TRY HARDER! IF YOU EVER SEE ME FIGHTING A GRIZZLY BEAR.. HELP THE BEAR!

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.

I'll do my best to give a fair, comprehensive evaluation. Here's a bit of background where I am coming from:
Grade: A.
Bioengineering Major.
Relevant High School Coursework: 5 in AP Chem, a 5 in AP Physics.

That being said, Scerri's class was definitely a challenge but doable.

Class lectures: Overall, Scerri does a decent job teaching. He is a fair teacher, but what throws off many of his students is the fact that his lectures are supremely conceptual, while his tests are primarily computational (of a sort). During lecture he goes over concept over concept but does very little practice problems. That being said, there is so much content being said during lectures, many of which is not in the course reader. In order to have true success in the class, it is not enough just to attend lectures but to take meticulous notes. One detail he might say may be covered verbally but it might be key on the actual exam. Even though he has a course reader, there was stuff covered that he had to use seperate slides (not in the course reader). Though this content seems extra, take it seriously, download it when he sends it in an email, print it out, and put it along with the stuff you want to study. On our final for Fall 2013 he had content he had barely grazed over.

Secondly, do your best to attend lectures. Though he does give podcasts and an excuse not to arrive, sometimes stuff happens to the podcast that makes it cutoff some of the lecture. Other times the camera angle does not capture things he writes on the board.

Studying for Midterms and Exams: Personally, people say to memorize the course reader as if section by section. The best way to prepare for the course is taking the big concepts and linking them all together, filling the holes with the details from his lectures, rather than memorizing them forthright. If you can connect all the concepts together and use each one to memorize another, you will have a much easier time than memorizing them fact by fact. One example of this is how he arranges all the content up to the Midterm. Rather than memorizing each theory up to Schroedinger's equation in preparation for the midterm, it is better to study with the guiding question of "how does all the content that I have learned build up to the prevailing theory of Quantum Mechanics and Schroedinger's Equation?" Arranging the course and the content through a series of large and smaller questions will make the whole course of CHEM 20A cohesive and you will get a better understanding with less studying. Linking concepts of the course rather than memorizing each piece by piece will be beneficial.

In the course reader, Scerri provides a number of practice exams. For a SOLID GRADE in the course, the best thing to do is to know every singe problem in the practice tests. His midterm and final mimic the finals and midterms he gives in the past (shocking, right?). When it comes to doing these problems, it can't be a matter of going through each practice exam once and being done with it. You really must practice the problems that give you the most difficulty if you want to succeed. Another important thing is to try these practice exams at least a couple weeks before the actual final. Start studying week 8 or 9 with these practice finals for a couple reasons: Firstly, he gives a lot of practice exams. Secondly, each practice exam takes at least a 2-3 hours to complete if you are studying correctly. Starting these practice tests the weekend before Finals Week will be utter hell.

Lastly, study with the right people. That is what helped me most in the course. Whatever holes regarding one person has can be easily covered by the other. This will help you immensely in studying the for the midterm, the final and those pesky Thinkwell Quizzes. One note regarding Thinkwell quizzes. Their questions are not nearly as hard as the exam, but do them with friends and you will likely get an A since questions are recycled and you can take the quiz 3 times. Take it all three times even if you do get a 100 for mastery of content. Again, group work will help manipulate the system to your advantage.

Discussion Sections and Office Hours: When it comes to discussion sections, dominate the section with questions. Get these questions from stuff you don't understand from notes, or from the practice exams (another reason why you should be starting these practice exams early). Everyone else will not have questions until weeks 9 to 10, by then it is too late. Take advantage of everyone else's complacency during the early weeks to have all your questions from the practice exam answered. You will be much less stressed. If you are to attend office hours, again be the one to ask questions about content. Likely whatever questions you may have are the same ones others may ask, but if someone else asks the question, there is a possibility of being stuck there for another 10 minutes listening to content you already know.

Misc: Scerri has a decent class. He is a funny professor whose arrogance can come off as amusing and somewhat charming. Get him to play his guitar and you'll be listening to him jam away. Quite impressive really, but we all know he's playing for the ratchets. Be the one to ask the questions and answer the questions. One warning when talking to Scerri however: don't be stupid when talking to him. He ostracized one kid for saying "like" too much. Poor kid. If you have decent grammar skills and aren't too socially awkward (thats for you engineers), then you should be fine in navigating Scerri's sharky waters. Best of luck.