Many reviews here from previous years describe this class as not too bad once you mastered the material and that's not wrong. But regardless of those reviews, remember that this class is THE ChemE weeder class and you'll be surprised at how bad of an end grade you can get.

Monbouquette has complete control over how he wants to distribute the grades - for our year the percentage of actual A's given was somewhere around 10% of the class which is significantly lower than other years because it was probably judged based on the fact that the final exam was ridiculously hard and had an average of near 50%, which he was probably disappointed by.

Beyond that expect a not-so-engaging lecture with endless examples of how to do endless balances in time-consuming problems that take endless time to complete, especially the MATLAB assignment which he gives you despite most ChemE's having zero MATLAB experience - this assignment will take a very long time, and you'll have only a week to do it if it was like our year.

TL; DR: Weeder class, not that easy, grading depends on Monbouquette's opinion of class, material isn't terrible but super time consuming.

It will take you a LOT of time to learn the material, but ChemE 100 is a course where once it clicks, the rest of the quarter is smooth sailing. I struggled very hard through the first few homeworks, but that's only because it's like learning a new language. By the end of the quarter, you'll become very fluent in the material.

Here is what you'll learn in ChemE 100, along with my advice:

1. You'll start off doing material balances. This part was the hardest for me, but the good news is that every problem you'll encounter will just be variations of what you learn in the first couple weeks, so if you learn these right the first time, you'll struggle a lot less later on. At this stage, I recommend learning how to solve simultaneous equations on your calculator, as that can save you a lot of time on homework and exams.

2. Next you'll learn about how to handle gases, liquids, and solids. I initally had trouble with the gas stuff because I didn't have the intuition for it, but I literally watched this one example video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs2T5oCfRak) and it clicked for me. At this stage, I recommend learning how to use the solver function on your calculator. Monbouquette will teach you how to find the roots of equations by hand, but you really shouldn't waste time doing it manually when your calculator can do it automatically.

3. Finally, you'll learn to do energy balances. I liked the solution manual's method rather than Monbouquette's, so for this section I actually recommend studying the solution manual very thoroughly. Understand the solution manual's choice of reference conditions VERY WELL, as this will mean the difference between doing three integrals and doing 13 integrals. I recommend learning how to solve integrals on your calculator to save time.

Along the way, you'll learn about ChemE in the real world, including historical events and modern advancements, which is really cool. You'll see that the material you learn in ChemE 100 is the same material that chemical engineers use in the real world.

Overall, ChemE 100 is an excellent introduction to ChemE. If you're interested in doing ChemE tech breadth, I highly recommend this course.

Hal is a solid lecturer and helpful at office hours.

You are likely a ChemE major, and must take this course. If you do all the homework, read the text, review the slides, and extra problems from the text (or prior midterms), then this course is quite manageable and you will develop many skills. Warrant 10 hours per week for the homework, and study an extra 5 hours per week for each half grade above B.

My only objection is that Hal only went over the definitions for each symbol once: ex. what signifies partial pressure?

Also, you don't need to worry about real gas laws and transient processes.

If you’re a chemE major, then you’re stuck with Monbouquette as the only choice for this class, but I would definitely recommend this class to anyone looking to satisfy a tech breadth. Monbouquette is a clear lecturer, and his lecture slides are always well-prepared. He says at the very beginning of the course that this is a skills based course, and if you don’t do a lot of practice problems and just copy the homeworks, then you’ll be screwed for the exams. And he was right! I was so scared going into the first exam. Process flow diagrams are pretty easy now, but it took me a long time to get accustomed to decoding the really long problem statements and labeling my picture. The homeworks are pretty brutal too. This is a very heavy workload class with maybe like 6 or 7 problems a week, but each problem takes a long time to work through. I actually really hated this course for a couple weeks due to the second unit about pressure and gases. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it for some reason. As I was studying for the final, I looked at all the class material again and saw that it was actually relatively straightforward and kind of cool. And the last section is pretty fun, energy balances! This class was pretty tough for me during the quarter, as I was kinda of all over the place during the quarter, but everything clicked in the end when I actually put some time into the course. Obviously I wished it clicked earlier, but that was my own fault for not really doing the homework mindfully. Listen to Monbouquette and do lots of practice problems and don’t just mindlessly copy the homework answers – actually do them to learn the material. Sure, you don't want to get points marked off so you just look at the solutions and tell yourself that you can do it, but you might as well just actually do it for yourself. That way you won't freak out before exams. Overall, the course is a nice introductory course. The material grows on you, and Monbouquette is very clear, funny, and fair. To do well on the exams, you have to do lots of practice problems, but he also goes over a lot of helpful problems in the lecture slides. For example, on the final there was a psychometric chart problem that was very similar to a problem that he went over in notes. If you went over the notes before the exam, then the problem was a piece of cake, but if you didn't go over it, well the problem still wasn't hard but it was harder than it could have been. The exam questions are very fair and much easier than some of the old Tang exams. Our class had an 88 average on MT 1, 82 average on MT 2, and 77 average on the final. Also, if you get an A on the final you get an A in the class. I would definitely take this course with him again or take other upper division courses with him. Sure the workload is pretty large and the material is hard to get your head around in the beginning (at least for me it was), but the end of the course is easy, and if everything clicks then the exams are pretty straight forward. Of course, having everything click is a big if, but that's why you do lots of practice problems! Listen to Hal, he's a good professor. Would take again.

Honestly, I really really struggled with this class. Which is surprising, because I did really well in later upper divs such as 101A.

Professor Monboquette is a very very good lecturer. He has a bit of a monotone voice, and he seems slow, but somehow is able to adequately cover all material for each lecture. He does example problems for each topic, and occasionally goes over past exam problems.

Homework:
The homework is BRUTALLY long and time consuming. I would say I spent the most time on this class out of any other upper divs I was taking. The material at first made my head spin. It is very detail oriented, and requires a certain way of thinking. As he will stress again and again, do all of the problems out of each chapter after you finish the homework. Each assignment took about 12 hours, one each week.

Exams:
His exams are really not that difficult (compared to someone like Tang). It was great to have a professor who didn't try and trick you. The reason I didn't ace the class was due to me not grasping the material on the two midterms, not due to his exams being difficult. Each midterm had 3 problems. No tricks. 5 people got 100% on the first exam, and the averages were very high on each exam, not sure about the final.
I feel I finally grasped the material walking into the final exam and that's why I didn't end up with a C.

Overall an extremely clear professor who doesn't want you to fail. I didn't do too hot on the midterms, so I went and talked to him before the final. When I told him how I was doing, he seemed legitimately concerned, and helped me really understand the material before the final. I don't think there's a better instructor for 100.

Haven't even finished the quarter but can tell you that Hal is 10/10. Love the guy <3

I'm not a ChemE, but I really enjoyed the concepts of this class. His lecturing is slow and thorough which is so much better than other classes where the professor will whiz through the material before you even get a chance to write down the example they are already on a different topic. The two hours is usually devoted to one topic per lecture, with the first half being lecture and the second half covering 1 or 2 examples. The pacing was really good, he really drills into your head the methodology and how to approach these problems, which is useful on the hw and exams. Hw does take forever, but that has been my experience in most of my engineering classes. If you can do the hw you will do well on the exams since the questions are similar. He's a really good professor, he takes his time to make sure you understand every little thing he does when solving examples. Good guy, he cares if you learn the material.

I'm in my junior year, and Monbouquette has been one of the only good professors I've had at UCLA. Despite being a somewhat slow and monotonous lecturer, he knows his material well and his class is very straightforward. His lectures follow the textbook pretty closely, so if you miss lecture it isn't too hard to figure out what you need to catch up on. Homework assignments take FOREVER but if you put in the time and do them, it pays off as the exam problems are almost exactly like those in the homeworks. Speaking of which, the exams are very doable. He usually includes one or two easy problems, one or two mid-level problems, and a very challenging problem. I thought I aced all the exams but wound up with a B in the class, I get the impression he doesn't give out a lot of A's since I've heard a few people say they expected an A but wound up with a B instead. I'm sure the A's go to the over-studiers (chem E is full of them...) who got perfect scores on everything in the class, an achievement which is certainly doable with this level of material. This class isn't really that hard at all, as long as you put a little bit of time and effort into it. If you think this class is difficult, you should seriously consider a move to another major. What you do in this class is an introduction to what chemical engineers do on a daily basis (unlike 101A, for example), so use this class as a gauge of whether or not you actually want to be a chemical engineer.