As an incoming freshman, I was really apprehensive about Professor Scerri because of all the negative reviews about him. But personally I really enjoyed his class and I think he is a solid professor. Of course he gets irritated when students ask unclear questions, but for the most part he is willing to answer questions. He also stays outside of the lecture hall for 10-15 minutes after lecture just to answer any more questions. Overall, Scerri wants his students to do well. There are 4 online quizzes that are fairly straightforward, for you have all the time and resources with which to complete them, and 2 homework assignments that are also fairly straightforward (though some TA's grade easier than others). There is one 2-hour midterm and one 3-hour final, which was significantly harder than the midterm (tested us on things he explicitly said would not be on the final). Future students should be wary of the fact that the midterm and final not have common questions between Scerri and Lavelle's class. Therefore, for both Scerri and Lavelle's class, there will be conceptual AND lavelle-type mathematical questions on the tests. This class definitely requires a lot of effort. To do well in the class, you definitely need to familiarize yourself with the course reader to the point that you have it almost memorized (which is the point of studying). Also, utilize his office hours and the time he spends answering questions outside the lecture hall after lectures, and do the suggested practice problems on the syllabus (those will help prepare you for lavelle-like calculation problems). I definitely recommend Scerri (overall conceptual) for 14A over Lavelle (overall math-oriented). I certainly agree with the popular notion that Scerri is EASIER than Lavelle. Final Grade: A+

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I think for the most part he's definitely easier than Lavelle. Most of my friends took his class and definitely struggled. Scerri is very condescending and sometimes his jokes are harsh, but some are very funny. To get a good grade in this class, you must attend TA office hours, attend his lectures, rewatch the lectures on Bruin Cast, and MEMORIZE THE COURSE READER. Everything and anything covered in the lecture is in the course reader. This means that the midterm and final covers that too. I pretty much wasted my money buying the textbook and solutions manual because you really won't need it (only looked at it to review Stoichometry). He's teaches the conceptual part whereas Lavelle is more mathematical based.

My class was comprised of:
1 midterm, 1 final, 4 online quizzes (which the last two were VERY hard because we didn't cover most of it), and 2 homework assignments.

One piece of advice:
If you don't understand it better in your TA discussions, check out other TA discussion hours and office hours. The best part about taking Scerri is that attendance and class participation isn't part of the cumulative grade. I had a really sucky TA and I literally had to stop going to his discussion and started going to another one. The best TAs are definitely the ones that give out worksheets that summarized the week's lecture.

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CHEM 14A - FALL 2015 FY

1- Don't take this as an easy GE, only if you need it for your major. With that said, if you need it for your major it's not that bad if you have high school background in chemistry.

2 - topics: history of periodic table, stoichiometry, quantum chemistry, shapes of molecules, trends in periodic table, equilibrium, acids and bases, and pH, Kc, Ka, etc, and transition metals.

3 - workload:
40% final (cummulative - everything form day 1)
30% 1 midterm (this year half of it was identical to Lavelle's). 8 questions with a-d or something like that.
15% 3 written homework - 5/6 page exercises, about 1h to complete really not that bad
15% 4 thinkwell quizzes - online quizzes of 25 questions without timer and with the chance to repeat up to 3 times and choose your best score. Most of the answers are on google. I scored 100% on all except 2 (24/25!)

4. Class is PODCASTED - you can skip lecture and just watch it later, although they usually pile up if you're not on top of things!

5. You can attend any discussion, your TA simply grades your exams/work, and if you have a clash with your discussion you an easily change it another student who's willing.

Overall I had a pretty solid chemistry background form A2 in Chemistry so I knew most of the topics coming in. However if you don't have any bases I think he complicates things a little bit and you will probably need to put in some extra work to study at home. So far I only did the homework and quizzes and studied for the midterm the night before and day of and got a B+/A-. Hopefully I actually put in the effort for the final and get an A. If you know chemistry form before and put in normal amount of effort (i.e. revise topics after they're done and make simple notes to go over for midterm/final) you shouldn't struggle to much. If you don't have a chemistry background you can obviously still learn, but things will be new and therefore probably take a little longer to make sense.

Scerri VS. Lavelle - haven't taken Lavelle so can't say for sure, but the myth is that Scerri is better!

Winter 2015 grade distribution:
15% Thinkwell quizzes
15% written homework
30% midterm
40% final

Professor Scerri:
I don't think he's mean like some people say. He can be sarcastic, and if you're disrupting his class he'll call you out on it. You don't need any of the books except for his course readers. YOU NEED THOSE. His lectures go over exactly what's in the course readers. You can get old ones, but I recommend getting the new ones so that they aren't marked and are formatted most currently. I thought he was pretty good at teaching, though lectures could get boring at times. His lectures are podcasted too, one lecture would be just audio while the other would be audio and video, so you could essentially skip class and learn on your own, except for turning in homework.

TA:
I had Amal Katrib and she was sort of helpful. I didn't go to discussion that often, but she was mildly good at TAing. Not much else to say.

Thinkwell quizzes:
There were like 25-question quizzes online every so often. You have to pay a small fee to register. You can take it up to three times, and the highest score is your grade. The questions are mixed up every try, and you can't see which questions you got wrong until the deadline. These were very easy and you just needed your notes to get through them.

Written homework:
There were also written homeworks inbetween Thinkwell quizzes. These were just assigned problems from the course readers and/or attachments to emails he sent out. These were fairly straightforward too.

Midterm grade: 47/58 81.03%
The midterm was out of class for an hour. It was 4 questions with multiple parts. Number 4 was all multiple choice. This wasn't too difficult of a midterm. There were review sessions hosted by TAs, but I didn't attend.

Final grade: 104/154 67.53%
The final was 8 questions with multiple parts, with questions 7 and 8 being all multiple choice. This was a lot more difficult, and 60% of the test was on material after the midterm. There were also review sessions hosted by TAs.

Overall grade: B+
Overall, I think the class was mildly challenging. Not impossible, but it took a lot of effort to get a good grade. It's curved a lot, so you just need to work a little harder to get above the class.

This has by far been the hardest class I have taken here at UCLA. Maybe my brain cannot function conceptually or something. Not sure. But I have gotten an A- both in 14B (Lavelle) and 14BL (Wilson). I got a f'ing C in this class the first quarter of my college career! I was f'ing BUMMED. This guy took a crap on my GPA and I will never forgive him. He was quite cocky as well from what I saw going to his office hr and just his attitude/tone in general in lecture.

So beware folks, if you like math, take Lavelle!

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SELLING Atkins textbook with solutions manual! Condition is like new! Also including Scerri's Periodic Table Book! Great Price!
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(textbook is good for 14A and 14B)

Selling my textbook for 14a and 14b. Make me an offer. Also, selling my lab notebook with more than half the pages left untouched and the labs.

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