By far one of the worst instructors I’ve ever had. He mocks students who ask questions, has very disorganized slides, and gives the impression that he actually wants students to fail. Perhaps someone with a strong background in chem classes will have a different perspective, but as a student who last took chemistry sophomore year of high school, my experience has been that Scerri is an ineffective and unhelpful teacher who vastly over complicates concepts. The content itself is pretty straightforward, but be prepared to teach it to yourself. He’s the only lecturer teaching 14B next quarter, so safe to say I will be waiting for Fall 2024 to continue this series. There’s a good reason he’s known as Scary Scerri!

The course has hard content, but what makes the class a bit of a struggle is the lack of structure. There are only achieve quizzes that all have 1 due date at the end of the quarter. Know how to self-pace these, because they're worth 30% of your grade. Because there really isn't any homework or review until one or two days before the midterm/final, it's easy to fall behind and panic over forgotten content. Study consistently throughout the quarter for this class, it'll help!

Honestly, I strongly disliked Scerri because he was egoistical and made fun of students for asking questions during lecture. He also read off of his slides and did not do a great job at explaining pretty much anything. But besides this, the class wasn’t so hard because he reused A LOT of his past midterm and final questions. So, if you review and do his practice midterms/finals religiously, you will be more than fine. I would probably recommend Scerri but only for this reason because he is a terrible lecturer but he will make you laugh when he roasts students publicly.

If you take this guy, you’re asking to be depressed. Legitimately begging for depression. You’ve been warned. As someone who loved AP chemistry in high school and was one of the top students of this course, he made me hate chemistry instantly. He jumbles between topics during lectures and legitimately makes no sense ever. His exam questions are also always wrong and he makes corrections mid-exam which is beyond annoying. I truly don’t even know if he speaks proper English, nor understands how to create a fair exam that actually reflects anything we’ve learned, and he also treats every student like it’s easy and everyone should know it, yet as an AP chemistry student in high school even I struggled hard and used to love chemistry. He’s also rude if you ask him questions and will embarrass you willingly in front of the class to get everyone else to laugh, not kidding..

horrible !!!!!!!! do not take !!!!!! he is so mean and a horrible teacher. he does not explain anything and rushes through all the slides. the midterm was so hard and the final was even worse. the TAs saved me in this class but even showing up to class was a waste of time. if you didn't take AP chem do not take this class.

Professor Scerri is truly a sweetheart! He does make quite a bit of snarky jokes throughout his lectures, but he genuinely cares about your learning and understanding. In order to succeed in the class, my biggest tip is to review the lecture content immediately after each lecture and attend office hours to ask any questions you have. Also, if you can get your hands on other previous practice midterms/final exams, then you'll be able to do well on the exams. His exams are fairly difficult, but as long as you attend office hours and practice, practice, practice, you'll succeed. I overall loved this class, and this is coming from a junior who tried to avoid chemistry at all costs because the last time I took it was in high school junior year. I basically had zero AP chemistry background too and was still able to succeed. Good luck!!

Initially terrified going into this course, and without a solid/positive chemistry background to rely on, I had meager expectations for my performance. Other reviews on Scerri did not do much to help my apprehension. However, I found it remarkably easy to succeed in this course. All that was required was to show up to lectures, pay attention during lectures (or diligently watch the recorded lectures), and take sub-par notes via annotations of the slides. This by itself helped solidify the course material, with the occasional youtube video that cleared any questions up. To study, all you needed to do was thoroughly review the past exams he posts and ensure that you understand the solutions to all questions. I made a study guide before the midterm and final where I wrote down everything I learned in my own words, and that was enough to understand the concepts. Overall, I found Scerri to be an entertaining lecturer aside from the occasional sly British humour that sometimes took students off guard. Don't be scared of this class!

Chem 14A with Scerri was definitely not my favorite class. All of his lectures involve him clicking through the same slides that he has used for the last 10+ years. As such, class is very boring. All of the lectures are video taped. In the winter, he held a 12:00 and a 4:00 class (they are the exact same) and you can attend either class. Scerri drones on about various concepts but seldom provides helpful examples. So, you might think you understand a lecture, but by the next class you are lost again. I recommend taking minimal notes in class and mostly listening to try to absorb as much understanding as possible, and after class taking through notes using his posted slides before the next lecture. Sometimes he will attempt to crack a joke, but it is often lost because most students don't understand his dry British sense of humor. You can ask questions in class, but unless you are one of his 'pets', expect to be dismissed. If you ask a stupid question, he will call you out on it and slightly mock you. The only homework is quizzes accessed online via achieve. The quizzes have unlimited attempts, so it is essentially a completion grade. They correspond to weeks 2-7 of material and are all due week 8. I waited till last minute, but in hindsight would have done a little bit each week. They definitely pile up! Discussion sections vary between T.A.'s , but my TA Elijah was great! He basically gave a simplified mini lecture every week that summarized the lecture content.

The grade distribution was:
30% achieve quizzes (easy 100%)
30% midterm
40% final

The midterm and final were fair, but you definitely need a good understanding of the material (and there's a LOT of it). There were many 'why' questions that weren't specifically addressed in the slides and require further inference. There was a sizable curve on the midterm (I got a 67% which ended up being a B with the curve)

Overall, the class is not impossible, but it's not very enjoyable either. To succeed, you definitely need to stay on top of the material, cramming is very difficult!

AVOID HIM
In high school, I had a really poor chemistry class and so I came in with virtually nothing. We completely skipped the basics. The way that Scerri approaches the class is that he assumes everyone has a very good and kind of advanced knowledge of chemistry which he verbally expresses in a very snarky, indifferent, rude manner. When asked questions he a lot of the time just either says "that's easy you should know this", doesn't answer the question, or goes into something more complicated. This really doesn't encourage others to ask questions. His grade is composed of 3 things: Achieve quizzes, midterm, and final. A lot of the time the achieve quizzes and what Scerri was lecturing about did not correlate. And his lectures are him droning on. On the midterm, there were a lot of typos and mistakes on the tests that they were writing down on the board, some of which were hard to read and locate. They completely missed correcting one and kept it that way. The midterm was also regarded 5 times and the rubric was changed as well. My grade fluctuated within 30 points within a day, went up, went down, down lower, and then finally up by one point. There was never an explanation for why. I ended up dropping the course because I felt that I had learned more from my PLF than from Scerri and that was not enough.

These students are on crack. I worked my ass off for this class got a damn B+ that ain't bad but still not ideal. He is funny but when students would ask clarifying questions he would make sly remarks that could easily discourage a student from wanting to engage with him further. There is a lot of room for you to make your own study plan so if you need a lot of check ins this class is not for you. This class is structured to make you responsible for your education and if you don't understand a concept it is up to you to use resources both from class and outside resources. The upside to this course is that there is not a lot of homework, there are these things called sappling quizzes but those are all submitted at the end of the quarter and you have unlimited attempts for every question. He speaks fast but in a monotone voice so if you have difficulties paying attention in lecture...best of luck on staying engage. You have to put in a lot of focus because on second of distractions you went from mole conversions to orbitals really quick.

as for the practice exams he gave us the wrong solutions to some questions and the exams had a few questions drawn from previous exams but not all.

he also doesn't tell you the curve so you don't really know how your grade was determined. i heard students who had gotten A's on the midterm but got a B or B- in the class where as other students failed the exams but got an A in the class. It is subjective and not my favorite class.

I would recommend taking it with a different professor.

TLDR: if you need constant homework assignments to keep you on track this isn't for you. if you are better with less work to allow you to have more time to study then yessss take this class.