If you want to regret ever becoming a STEM student, take this class. I would rather repeat my junior year of high school (with SAT stuff, AP classes, and college apps) and relive the whole of quarantine a hundred times than take this professor again. TBH Ochem is not that hard of a subject but teachers like this make it extremely difficult for students to pass the class. How is the midterm 5 pages for 2 hours but then the final is 14 pages for 3 hours including upload time? It's not adding up. In the last two weeks of class, he merely glanced over the biomolecular stuff without any concrete examples and that made up 60% of the final. He is very nit-picky with answers and sometimes it's hard to get partial credit. If you want peace of mind and a decent grade, save yourself and take someone else.

When thinking of organic chemistry in college, it can be quiet intimidating but this class was relatively out of my expectations. Many resources provided by the professor and TAs also supported our understanding of the material. There were weekly timed quizzes, weekly homework, two midterms, discussion worksheets, and a final. The midterms were very reflective of the practice midterms that the professor provided. The midterms and final were in-person and in paper format and provides enough time to finish the exam. Professor Ow goes relatively quick in lectures which can be intimidating and unhelpful sometimes, but with the recorded lectures, you can go back and reduce the speed. The lecture slides were always uploaded days before class and printed copies were provided during the lecture. He does not curve the class, but the percentages for grades are quiet flexible considering it is organic chemistry. I think what DEFINITELY helped me be successful in the class was PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE all of the problem sets provided as well as discussion worksheets.

Professor Ow is a great professor. I've had him for four quarters for Chem 14C, CL, C again (due to retaking the class), and now 14D, so some things I'm describing are what I've noticed about him as a professor from all four quarters.

First off, he's very accommodating and understanding as a professor since he drops our lowest scores in each category and started adding homework assignments as an extra category so that exams would have less weight on our grade compared to a previous quarter that I had him, which we're allowed to have two attempts on. Also, due to the TA strike, he made the final multiple choice with significantly less questions, and when I took his exams during winter quarter, which was partially online due to COVID, he gave us extra time to take the exam.

Second of all, his lectures are pretty detailed and helpful, and he spends little time being off topic. He is pretty engaging as a lecturer and he explains his slides clearly, making them a lot less overwhelming to read.

Here are some tips I have for succeeding in 14D specifically:
1. In 14D, you learn about different reaction mechanisms, so basically the whole class is you learning about a certain functional group, like alkenes or alcohols, and all the reactions that each functional group can undergo. In my opinion, because of this, it is less challenging than 14C since there is less variety of topics that you learn in class, but this does NOT mean that you should slack off in the class. Getting a good grade in this class is definitely doable, but you do have to spend time keeping up with practice problems regularly because later concepts can build on previous ones. You also should focus your time on trying to review/ memorize mechanisms once in a while, which may seem like a lot of work in the moment but will definitely save you studying time/ stress once you're preparing for exams and also need to focus on doing practice problems in addition to memorizing. This class is difficult not because of the workload or the concepts, but because you do need to make an effort to be accountable and spend time throughout the weeks memorizing mechanisms and doing practice problems regularly.

2. Homework assignments are easier in my opinion compared to textbook problems and aren't time consuming. Doing worksheets in discussion sections are genuinely helpful when I hadn't started any of the practice problems yet for a certain topic because I asked my TA to help walk me through problem solving.

3. How to overcome anxiety about not understanding topics/ being overwhelmed by doing problem sets- For me, I think the hardest part of the class wasn't the content, but that I felt intimidated by chemistry, so it took me a while to motivate myself to work on problems and not procrastinate. Once I started actually understanding the concepts, which was usually a little late because of how late I started studying, I realized the problems really weren't as bad as I had imagined them to be. I get doing problems can be intimidating, so I suggest posting discussion posts on Canvas, which Professor Ow encourages. For students who don't have the time to go to office hours, I found that having questions answered directly by Professor Ow was a helpful resource, and it was useful seeing that other students had similar concerns about the same problems as I did. I also watched Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube occasionally for topics I needed more help with, and he seemed to go through very similar problems as the ones that we do for this class.

4. His exams are doable but YOU NEED to spend time memorizing notes beforehand and doing enough practice problems or you will have little time on the test left over since the problems tend to take up almost all of the allotted exam time.

5. Skipping lectures does not help you save time. I tried to make an effort to attend each lecture, and I found that when I made it a habit in the beginning of the quarter to keep attending, it made it easier to continue this habit. It's fine to skip one or two lectures if you are really stressed, but I would recommend to not let it happen often. I find that when I did attend lectures in person compared to watching them online, I felt a lot more engaged with the content because he hands out physical packets that you can write on during lectures. Also, when I did skip lectures, watching lectures later in the day felt like an extra chore, so MAKE SURE TO ATTEND LECTURES!

5. What to do if you fall behind- It happens, speaking from experience. If you're studying for the exam, it's sufficient in my experience to just focus on doing practice problems rather than reviewing homework or quiz problems because you will not be able to able to answer the exam questions quick enough if you don't physically go through the process of trying out practice problems. If you're really in a rush, extra problem sets are sufficient instead of both extra problem sets and textbook problem sets but ONLY if you don't have enough time. Focus on doing problems related to his learning objectives. Discussion posts are again helpful if you want a quick answer on how to solve a problem without having to go to office hours.

tldr- The class is not hard in terms of content, but you have to be accountable with taking the time regularly to do practice problems and memorize mechanisms in order to do well.

he has engaging lectures and is good at explaining but he goes super fast and does NOT give you relevant practice problems, so the quizzes and exams are super hard. the second midterm was not as bad but since each midterm is 50 mins, each problem is worth A LOT so it is very easy to miss a lot of points for dumb mistakes. he is funny but also very condescending in office hours and unapproachable. if you are great at self studying and keeping on track then go for it but i would try to take an easier professor if u can.

TO BREAK IT DOWN:

Dr. Ow lectures very well! He's straight to the point and things make sense when he explains them.

Concepts can be hard, but are explained exactly at the level which we are test on. No extra fluff in lectures. No extra deep-level test questions.

Your grade is gonna be well cushioned by HW, open-note quizzes, and section. These make up 45% of your grade, and are easy points.

The workload is light, BUT you cannot rely on this alone. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

Professor Ow’s 14C course was honestly one of my favorite courses I took this year. It was also the only lecture I didn’t fall asleep in during spring quarter. He presents the material in a very clear and engaging way. Although difficult, the exams are an accurate representation of the material covered in the slides. He also gives ample time to complete both the midterms and the final. I finished both in about half the time given and was able to review my answers before submitting. The material is definitely pretty difficult (it’s ochem so that’s not really a surprise), so a lot of studying is required to understand the material. However, Dr. Ow provides practice problem sets and homework assignments that help with this process (do all of them!). I would definitely take another chemistry course with Professor Ow.

I was a little nervous going into this class because Dr. Ow's bruinwalk reviews. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was. He is a really engaging lecturer. I have a reputation for falling asleep in my chem classes, but Dr. Ow makes it pretty difficult to fall asleep. You can tell that he is very passionate and knowledgeable about the content. OChem has a lot of content and it doesn't really help that we only have 10 weeks to learn everything. It will be hard to catch up if you fall behind on lectures. But I think Dr. Ow provides a good number of resources to help you understand and master the content. He understands that some content is harder to grasp than others and tries his best to spend more time on those topics in lectures. I felt that his exams were pretty fair at evaluating our understanding of the course material.

I was scared coming into this class knowing organic chem is extremely difficult, especially because I found general chemistry to be incredibly hard. I was pleasantly surprised by Dr. Ow because he made his class extremely engaging and I actually found myself enjoying the lectures (the bar was low from 14A and B though). I did have to study a lot to get 80's on the midterms and the final, but due to his generous grading scale I ended with an A-, because he gives out participation for discussions (completion only/just show up), homework (canvas quizzes with unlimited attempts) and quizzes (harder than he made it sound like they would be, frequently got 20/25 on them) and offered 0.25% extra credit (not sure what that was supposed to help with considering it's such a small percentage but glad it was there, could be the thing that got me past a B+).

Overall I would 100% take this class with Dr. Ow again. He was super accommodating, made the material interesting, and while it did require around 3 hours of studying per day to get by I would say it taught me to be a more productive student. If you're taking this class with Dr. Ow I suggest to go to every lecture even though they are Bruincasted. The minute you get behind in this class it is IMPOSSIBLE to catch up again, but it's easy to get ahead because Dr. Ow posts his slides in advance.

I was super intimidated by the bruinwalk ratings before I took this class, but DO NOT LISTEN TO THOSE. Dr Ow was one of the most passionate and straightforward professors I've met at UCLA. One main aspect that I liked was that he is very clear about what is going to be on the test and what is not. The midterms are very doable if you use the materials that he gives you. Final was a bit more challenging, but regardless it was not bad at all. I would honestly take a class again with Dr Ow, and shoutout to him for making ochem not so intimidating and more enjoyable than 14A and 14B.

Seeing all the bad bruinwalk reviews made me scared for this class; however Ow turned out to be a great lecturer in my opinion and his tests were fair. There were two midterms, I got a 77 on the first one(the concepts on that midterm were hard for me for some reason) but on the second one I got 100. And then there's the final which I got a 90 on, so I was able to end with an A. He is an engaging lecturer and my one big tip is to make sure you do his practice exams and review your exams once they're graded because he will put questions from those onto the next test or final so those should be easy points. Homework is easy you get unlimited tries but make sure to try your best on the weekly quizzes because those are easy ways to lose points. Overall, thought his class was very fair and although the textbook was literally so bad his study guides were very helpful.