Overall, I thought this class was fine. Professor Pham is clear during lecture, but I wish that he had more time to spend going through examples or solving problems. A lot of material builds on information from 30A, so if you didn't do well in that class (like me), you need to really look at what went wrong and try to improve, or else it's likely you'll also do poorly in this class (like me). The class is broken up into two sections of reactions/mechanisms with a spectroscopy section in the middle, which is totally new and a nice break. The latter half of the class moves very quickly, so you need to make sure you are keeping up with content. Practice is the key to doing well.

TL;DR: Organic chemistry is hard. This will not change no matter your professor. Dr. Pham is amazing in spite of this, and gives fair exams, engaging lectures, substantial extra credit, and excellent help.

After taking this class, there seems to be two types of people: those who hate Dr. Pham, and those who think he is the best professor at UCLA. I really do think Dr. Pham is one of the best at UCLA, and that he does a lot to help students succeed in this class. The main complaint people have is that Dr. Pham seems condescending and unhelpful at times, but honestly, he is just being realistic.

Organic chemistry is not easy, and you shouldn't expect a professor to make it easy. Dr. Pham's exams and problem sets are nowhere near easy—but they are fair and based on exactly what he lectures on in class. He provides slides and lectures are BruinCasted for students' benefits and there's not much mandatory work. This might be a benefit, or a detriment for those who would rather have work outlined. You'll need to do a lot of studying since this class heavily relies on memory of reactions and reagents as well as some intuition in terms of the spectroscopy unit. Discussions are also optional.

In terms of grading, things aren't weighted (but tests are worth substantially more than problem sets). There are a total of 300 points you can achieve, but there are lots of extra credit opportunities (this quarter there were 2 points on each test, plus 6 points for various surveys, 5 points for an extra assignment, and 6 points from inherent curves on tests for a total of 23 points, so nearly an entire letter grade.) Problem sets are graded on both completion and correctness, but just check with some friends or in office hours for guaranteed points. BACON is an online program that is also just free points. Again, tests aren't easy, but they are fair.

A lot of people say to not listen to the really long BruinWalk reviews from people who got an A in the class because their review isn't reflective of what the average student thinks. If you'd like to disregard this review, feel free to. I will say that I thought the workload for this class was much higher than any of my other classes due to self studying, and that anyone can get an A if they truly put themselves to understanding the concepts behind the reactions and spectroscopy instead of pure memory. Dr. Pham makes a very difficult subject much more digestible, and he's extremely approachable and fun as a bonus. I would highly recommend taking this class with Dr. Pham if possible.

Dr. Pham is good because he is straightforward. He gives problem sets for homework, which have clear instructions and straightforward questions. His exams are very similar to his problem sets. His grading scheme is clear. His slides are clear. His difficulty is moderate. The class is hard because there are a lot of reactions to cover, and it’s very easy to fall behind. It’s not always obvious that you’re behind until you’re studying for the test and realize you have so much to learn.

Dr. Pham is a good professor. He’s not easier than other professors, but he gives you the tools to succeed, just don’t expect it to come easily. Tests are 2/3 of your grade, and your workload on weeks where there is no test is basically up to you.

Challenging class. Was not ready for the amount of memorization needed for the exams and paid. It is super important to make sure that all reactions are memorized before one starts to understand the mechanism if it is required. There weren’t really any tricky reaction questions on exams, just a lot of them. The tricky questions came with the comprehensive spectroscopy questions as even if one had a good understanding of the individual parts, it could be hard to piece everything together and get the correct molecule. Overall, this class has a lot more memorization than 30A (more reactions) and knowing this will probably help prepare one for at least 60% of the material on exams.

30A is hard AF. He focuses on making the class less scary and more interesting. There are a lot of fun stuff in lecture and OH too. However, tests are really hard, so does the homework. There are lots of resources (OH, LA Lounge, etc) to help, and you really should be finding others to study with or you will crash. Great guy. He did design the class in a way that it's easy to get into the C range but failing is not as easy.

the class was BRUTAL. I'm sure Pham is a great professor and is excellent at explaining things, but ochem just did not stick in my brain. And I *was* a chem major. It was easy to fall behind in the beginning and I just couldn't pick myself up and ended up not understanding anything in the second half of the quarter. I don't really have much advice but Pham is good!

Also, my TA/LA forced us to participate in the discussion by putting us on the spot, so if you get a TA/LA that does that, I'm so so so sorry. It was the worst being called on and not being able to say anything.

Seems like I'm stuck in the 30 series so wish me luck in 30B even though I learned nothing in this class lol.

Professor Pham is an absolute king. Especially since his class comes right after the 20 series, he is definitely a breath of fresh air. Organic chemistry itself is definitely tough, since it's not like any other subject. Still, Professor Pham was great at helping us understand the most complex topics, whether it be through his jokes or his clever analogies. I love the way that the class is structured. The only problem is that there's not that much room for error. The grading scheme is all 3 exams (50%), HW (25%), Discussion Participation (13%), and BACON (12%). The discussion participation and BACON are free points, but the homework problem sets were difficult. They were very indicative of the level of difficulty of his exams, which was nice because it helped to prepare you, but it also was bad at times because missing a single point on them could affect your grade a decent amount. The class weights all points equally, so it's out of 300 points total, and a point in HW would equal a point on the test.
In general, there was barely ever mandatory work to do in this class, so almost minimal workload. The only reason that there is a decent amount of work is because it takes a lot of practice to get the concepts mastered and to be prepared for exams. To prepare, do all of the LA and TA worksheets and watch the review sessions! Those are all I did and they're a life saver. Reading over the textbook and doing the practice problems there are helpful methods as well.
I would definitely take Pham again. He's an awesome guy and an even better professor.

Dr. Pham is the best professor I've had at UCLA so far. His lectures are clear and concise, which made the material easily digestible. He also posts his slides at day or two before lecture, so make sure to print/download/write them before class so you're not wasting your time writing down what's already on the slides. It's more important to listen to what he's saying and writing down info that's not explicitly written on the slides. Despite Chem 14D's reputation, the material wasn't actually that dense, and Dr. Pham definitely made it easy to understand. At the start of the course, he says to not focus on memorizing every single reaction/mechanism, but to strive to understand the transformations that occur and why they happen; he is 100% correct. Yes, there are a few things like reagents that have to be memorized, but seeing the bigger picture in terms of electrophiles/nucleophiles, acidity/basicity, solvents, carbocation stability, stereochemistry, sterics, and electronics will go a long way in this class.

The midterms are very fair as he only tests you on things talked about in lecture, and despite the averages for the two being 62 and 60 points (which is a C-) it isn't difficult to get a good grade as long as you are on top of your studying. Make sure to review the slides and do practice problems frequently (shoutout to my TA Sean's worksheets), and not just a few days before the exam. You have to be responsible about knowing your reactions and concepts/patterns to do well, especially on synthesis problems. Do not try to cram and memorize before the exams.

The final was optional due to COVID-19 but it seemed to be about the same difficulty as the midterms.

Grading breakdown:
40 pts BACON (easy points)
100 pts Midterm 1
100 pts Midterm 2
200 pts Final

Dr. Pham also offers an obscene amount of extra credit which is really nice: 10 pts for Tophat clicker Qs, up to 15 pts for CrYOFF (optional group project), 2 pts each for post-exam questionnaires, 2 pts for course evals, and 5+ points of potential extra credit on exams.

Pham is the greatest professor I've had. I had him both for 14C and 14D. His lectures are engaging and concise, though it was unfortunate to have his lecture at 8am, making it difficult to properly absorb all the information.

Discussion sections are helpful, but not mandatory and the LAs and TAs offer a lot of resources to prepare for the test. Youtube also offers a lot of information relating to his course (check out Organic Chemistry Tutor and Professor Dave Explains). Also gotta love his t-shirts. Definitely a classic.

Midterms are very fair. There is a time constraint, but it isn't a problem if you studied the mechanisms well. It is definitely not the play to study the night before because of all the memorization. This class is honestly what you make of it. Put in the work, and you will be rewarded.

I do not know why the fuck everyone is raving about Pham. After getting an A with Shuming in 30A I loved Organic Chemistry. Pham made me hate it. He uses slides and talks super fast so if you aren't a verbal learner you will struggle. He does not give any practice problems of any kind, I don't think he even writes the discussion worksheets, so you are at a loss for what his problems look like until you take the test.

During the coronavirus pandemic he made very little accommodations. He would not even give students the benefit of the doubt by giving them the better grade from opting out of the final or actually taking it. No grade scheme changes were made to accommodate cheating on the final (hello, the average was 95% do you think that just happened? what about students who didn't cheat?).

The average on the first midterm was a 57! And it wasn't even a curve it was a rectangular graph lol. He didn't even curve the final grade. Final class average was a 76 so he boosted us like 3% which he considers "generous". This leaves like 50% of the class with Cs or worse.

Overall, I did not like this professor at all. He was unaccommodating (even in a pandemic), consistently talked down to students in lecture ("if you don't know how to do this already I don't know what to tell you"), and was extremely rude and/or unprofessional in his emails (called students who would cheat "scum").