Spring 2015 grade distribution:
30% Thinkwell quizzesand 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 Haroula Kyriacou and she was AMAZING. She was so funny and incredibly helpful with explaining concepts more simply so that we could understand them. She really broke things down and gave you that aha moment. I really appreciated her as a TA and I highly recommend her.

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: 48/61 78.69%
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: unknown
The final was around 8 questions with multiple parts, with last questions being all multiple choice. This was a lot more difficult, and 60-65% 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.

Here I sit again back in his class as a senior. I had him for both 14A (B) and 14B (C-) as a freshman, and this time I tried to correct the C- I pulled in 14B. I say this as a means for feedback hoping he will read this at some point. His pedagogy skills really really are in need of some serious improvement. Nonetheless, I haven't experienced piss poor teaching like this since I was a freshman taking some of my intro level classes. Mind you I have experienced the spectrum of wonderful instructors that teach at UCLA.

Chemistry is hard, I get it, but with proper instruction it shouldn't seem impossible. Dr. Scerri takes a lot of things for granted when it comes to planning his lectures. He will briefly discuss major topics that need very in depth explanations, and goes off on some tangent on a brief aspect he finds interesting. Thermodynamics, Kinetics, and Redox are all topics that are intensely math heavy. His lectures do not well equip you to tackle a problem that you will encounter on the exam, and you really have to be able to intensely self teach. In your best case he will have a problem that was pre solved in his course reader, but certain "elementary" steps will be left out leaving ambiguity.

In my experience at UCLA, lecture composition will mirror what will happen on an exam. In his class it doesn't. 85% of his lectures are dedicated to the theory of chemistry, while you are lucky if you see actual problems being solved. Your exams will mostly be those problems he glanced over, not straight forward by any means. The course reader is still the exact same thing I saw 4 years ago. Nothing has really changed, meaning the exact same teaching mistakes are happening.

Not everybody was exposed to college level chemistry in high school, however; his lectures are structured as the assumption that all students have a solid science background. If you came from an educationally disadvantaged high school, chances are you will be royally fucked. Not just in this class, but all basic sciences and writing. I went to a LAUSD school and that was totally the case for me.

This week we had several guest lecturers, as Dr. Scerri was out on leave for bereavement. Everybody we had was excellent and provided great lessons. Dr. Lavelle guest lectured, and I found him straight forward (building from the basics to the top) and easy to understand. I could honestly tell he had a calm and patient approach to his teaching. You need to think really critically when you decide who fits your style of learning.

You have two extremes of reviews on bruin walk, the glamorous and the ugly. Glam being "Oh my god, I got an A!!!", and the ugly "this class sucks". I present to you the intermediate. Know your learning style and don't feel compelled to have to take everything right when you enter UCLA. Sit through and listen to both of them lecture. You ultimately need to decide who fits your learning style the best. Lastly, never never ever give up on your dreams, professors don't deserve that power over you.

I'm currently taking 14B right now and the way he explains thermodynamics is not nearly as clear as the Physics lecturers do it. It's only been a week, but I would recommend taking Physics 6C before doing Chem 14B. I'm a second year and couldn't get chem all my first year, so I did physics instead, and I feel like it was a blessing in disguise for the thermodynamics portion of the course so far.

I took both 14A and 14B with Prof Scerri. Honestly, he's a pretty fair professor. If you go to lecture and review the material in the course reader, it should be pretty easy to get an A in the class. Also, if you ever skip a lecture, just make sure to review the podcast, which Scerri records for every lecture, and you should be fine.

His midterms and finals are pretty much exact copies of previous midterms and finals combined. I never went to discussion for both 14A and 14B and didn't seem to have a problem. Sometimes the TAs make it more confusing.

Overall, Scerri is a great professor for general chemistry and I would recommend taking him. Just make sure you don't just memorize concepts, but learn to apply them.

Just don't take Renato's section. He will send you down a spiraling loop of despair. Scerri teaches the course at a basic level, but Renato is under the impression that students have journeyed from far and wide to learn from the master of acids, bases, and titration. He's under the impression that we need to master the material on every level. Just when you think you understand the material, Renato will try to relate chemistry to string theory and multi variable calculus and will mentally obliterate you. Just don't take Renato.

He is the rudest professor I've ever had. I found his "dry humor" to be annoying and unprofessional....he's here to teach us, not to make fun of us, even if we do ask stupid questions sometimes.

If you do end up taking his course, buy the course reader and read the text book for the first half of the course and do the practice problems in the text book. For the second half, the intro to organic chemistry part, get your hands on a copy of Lavelle's course reader (treat this reader like it's your best friend). Also, Scerri's office hours are useless; there are too many people and he will still make fun of you and sometimes he doesn't even know how to answer your questions. Go to a lot of TA's discussions and office hours; learn how they would answer exam questions. Scerri doesn't give an answer key to the TAs when grading, so it's completely up to them on how they grade you. His curve is also usually very generous (for my midterm is was 25%)-don't depend on this though, the final is a lot harder than the midterm. Basically, if you do well on the midterm, you have a cushion for the final.

Overall, I got an A+. I studied hard, at least an hour everyday, or a few hours every couple of days. I went to a lot of TA's office hours and asked for a ton of explanations because Scerri's lectures usually didn't suffice when learning the material.

His chem 14B class was harder than his chem 14A class. The final was pretty hard. His tests are not entirely fair but his course readers are convenient.

This guy is the biggest a**hole you'll ever meet. Don't buy the books just the course reader. And he will f*ck you over on the final. I've had him for 2 classes--yes they were hell. I got B's with moderate effort. He is very picky with wording so make sure you have key concepts of ideas. Homework is worth A LOT, it might not seem like it but it is. Don't bother going to office hours, he hates his students. Nothing really good to say about him--he's obviously intelligent, but very rude. He's sarcastic and it sounds worse with his British accent. He's lucky he's attractive--that's the only thing going for him. Avoid him--than again the other teachers suck too. If you take him make sure to know the course reader and be concise & precise with concept questions. If his midterms are easy beware of the final because it'll be a curveball! The average in his 20A class was 21% (that's what a friend told me), 14A was better, 14B midterm was good but the final was from left field. Good luck!

I had Scerri for 14A/B. I thought he was actually a really great professor. His tests are exactly what his course reader covers, so you don't have to waste your time reading the book. And the material he covers is not as random as some people make it sound. I have taken Chemistry 14BL and 14C, and the concepts I learned from Scerri have greatly benefited me in those classes.

F U Thinkwell