Favorite professor at UCLA ! He made organic chemistry understandable and fun. And I love his shirts.

I liked this class a lot. Just make sure that you put in the enough work for the class and attend the lectures as much as you can. Even though it will be recorded, attending the lectures keep you focused.
The material is super clear and Pham will exactly tell you what he needs you to know for the class, but as I mentioned, you have to put in a lot of studying hours for this class or nay ochem class in general.

The content was difficult, but the professor made it much easier to understand. The lecture slides and recordings were very helpful to go back and review. Highly recommend the suggested book problems if the problem sets seem too daunting at first. All the materials are there, it's just up to you to manage your time well and know how much practice you need for each concept.

Honestly an amazing professor and an amazing class. Went to most if not all office hours and was able to gain a much better understanding of the material. Don't get me wrong, the content for this class is pretty hard, but only if you fall behind. If you stay on pace with the lectures and work on the problem sets when the material is fresh and in increments, the class becomes much more manageable. Dr. Pham's exams are extremely fair, and directly based off of the problem sets and lectures/slides. I would definitely recommend taking the class with Dr. Pham as not only will you gain a great understanding of organic chemistry, but you will also become immersed and interested in organic chemistry as well. Overall, a great teacher.

I want to start off by saying I really do not enjoy chemistry and I was really dreading taking ochem. I (like many others) have not necessarily had the best experiences in the chem department so that really made it worse. In fact, I actually liked chem before I came to UCLA...But anyways, as much as I was afraid of ochem, I was pleasantly surprised by Dr. Pham. I really enjoyed his teaching style, he made everything very clear and relatable to us as students. I really appreciated his funny analogies that actually helped me understand the topics well. He actually made me kinda like chem again. And I actually got a better grade in his class than my other chem classes, which I honestly didn't think was possible considering the stereotype surrounding the difficulty of ochem and how much I sucked at chem in general lol

The breakdown of this class is midterm and final heavy (2 midterms = 33%, the final = 33%), so 66% for 3 tests. This is pretty standard for a chem class. His exams are doable. Maybe it's because I've learned to study better this year but I really found his exams quite a bit easier that the chem exams I have taken in the past. If you redid the problem sets you could have a good idea of the test layout and types of questions. However, to really prepare for the exams and to get down a concept really well, I highly suggest doing as many of the practice questions from the TA worksheets as you can!!! This is what I think made me the most successful in the course. I was really able to get an ample amount of practice problems from these worksheets that help me understand how to apply what we were taught in lecture, as well as be prepared for the questions on the exams. Just watch your time on the exams! This class is where I took my first in person exam in college (bc of COVID) and I was nervous, but it was not bad as long as you watched the time and tried to ignore everyone dropping their calculators lol. He even projects the time on the screen so that was super helpful!

Though I really liked this course, I definitely would have liked it more if Dr. Pham were more approachable. In lecture, anytime someone asked a question, he seemed to answer it a little condescendingly. Maybe I am overthinking it, but I talked to a few people and they seemed to agree. Something about his tone made it seem like we should have already known the answer. If you like asking questions in class, hopefully this does not discourage you. I am not sure what he is like in office hours, so I can't speak for that.

Overall, I am glad to have had a chem class where I feel like I learned, but I wish Dr. Pham would be kinder to our questions :)

Dr. Pham was not a good professor whatsoever. He talked down to his students during lectures, frequently made passive aggressive comments about the mistakes we would make on exams, and made us feel dumb instead of trying to encourage our learning. He does not provide curves, even though organic chemistry is known to be one of the most difficult lower division courses. I would never take a course with him again. His previous exams, which we had to scavenge for on our own, do not remotely reflect the difficulty of his exams provided this quarter. He also mades snide comments like, "if you ask for a curve, I will make the exams more difficult." I do not understand why he thinks it's okay or funny to inflict more stress on his students that are already struggling. Dr. Pham further invalidated our feelings by posting on his instagram about "how difficult teaching has been since covid." I found it so disrespectful for him to be complaining about a class that he is fully in control of, when his students have been feeling pressured to do anything possible to somehow make it out of his class without destroying our GPA.

Professor Pham is THE ABSOLUTE BEST! The concepts in this course are naturally very challenging, and over 10 weeks, you go through a TON of material. My biggest advice is to NOT fall behind and to complete each problem set yourself. I found those to be super helpful and challenging. If you can do those, you'll be able to tackle the problems on the exam, as those tend to be a little bit easier.

I think my biggest regret in this class is not going to Pham's office hours and getting to know him better. He does come across a bit condescending at times, but he's genuinely amazing at explaining concepts and wants you to do well. As long as you strive to learn, he'll appreciate you and reciprocate the energy. I personally think I found a huge passion for organic chemistry through this course. He tied a lot of the concepts to real-world applications, making it all worth learning. He's also a super funny guy and really chill. Highly recommend taking this course with him and taking advantage of all he has to offer!

not to be a #hater, but I personally thought he was a tad overrated. and this is coming from someone who scored well on the exams.

Pros
- he gives quite a bit of extra credit to buffer your grade. there's extra credit through surveys, on exams (~2 questions), and the CRYOFF project.
- he's very knowledgeable about the content and answers questions concisely
- he draws mechanisms on the whiteboard using markers to go in more depth (so you should actually come to lecture and not rewatch on Bruincast because they would never zoom on where he was writing)
- I like how he hands back the actual paper exams (what I did was after, I would use a different colored pen to annotate what I got wrong for future mistake-avoiding).
- BACON and Problem Sets provide buffer points to your grade. He also drops 2 of the lowest BACON assignments (just take pictures of each slide on your phone so you can go back) and 1 lowest Problem Set
- Although he doesn't give practice exams, the problem sets are similar to exams (but exams sometimes feel harder since you're in a time crunch).
- Exams were fair in retrospect. Although every time I walked in the lecture hall for each exam, it felt like it was me against the world. As long as you do a lot of practice problems and study days before, you should be fine. For midterm 1, I studied 3-4 days before, and for midterm 2, I studied a week before. I got a 49/50 on midterm 1 and midterm I got a 48.5/50.
- The LAs also hold review sessions and have their own set of practice problems. There's also volunteer tutoring with more practice problems, so yes, he doesn't give past exams, but there's many other resources.
- I also had to rely on Leah4Sci and Chad's Prep just for extra content review because sometimes I feel like Pham went quickly (he's more fast-paced I would say) during lecture
- We finished Week 10 material on Monday (the final was on Saturday), so there wasn't any last minute new content.
- He has a funny, prickly personality ; sometimes he comes off as arrogant, but he does make funny jokes sometimes

Cons
- sometimes he'd be very hung up about class participation. he relies on the energy of the class to keep going, but if the lecture is more quiet, he kinda has a more snarky attitude.
- he doesn't provide practice exams. you either have to find them online or through a friend or just be on your own with the TA/LA worksheets. it's hard to get your hands on an old exam, but I thought it was helpful in terms of understanding how the format of the exams were and to get more practice problems (because sometimes the TA worksheets weren't helpful enough)
- not a con on his part, but definitely the pace really does pick up after midterm 1. weeks 1-3 are just focusing on 4 reactions (sn1, sn2, e1, e2), but afterward until the end of class, it's just reaction after reaction after reaction with different reagents. he says to try not to memorize, but the only reason why I did well on exams was because I learned to do pattern recognition whenever I saw a product, reagent, or reactant.

Final Thoughts
I would say for this class, you really need to put in the time and effort. They don't lie when they say 14D is the hardest course in the series; it's earned that title because it requires memorization and application. You kind of have to be creative when it comes to retrosyntheses (working your way backwards) and to be detailed when it comes to drawing mechanisms/predicting the product. Pham is a good professor, but I honestly think people glazed him too much. Exam averages were in the 70s, but don't worry about your performance compared to other people. It's strictly points, and if the class doesn't do well, then he will scale (do not ask him to curve). I highly recommend just going through as many problems as you can and to familiarize yourself with what he calls the trifecta: 1) reactions 2) mechanisms 3) synthesis

Dr. Pham is a godsend for the organic chemistry department, and he was one of my favorite professors that I have taken at UCLA so far. He is incredibly clear, methodical, engaging, and knowledgable about the material. I learned so much in this class and am thankful to him for his help making the material understandable for students and providing supplemental help during office hours and via email. With that being said, Chem 14D is definitely a very difficult class, and there is a TON of material covered within the 10 week time span; for me, it was certainly the hardest class in the chemistry series, but Dr. Pham alleviates the difficulty with his incredible teaching and quite generous grading scheme.
In terms of grading scheme, there were two midterm exams and one final. The midterms were 50 points each, and the final exam was 100 points. There was 100 other points in the class for submission of biweekly practice problem sets and weekly "BACON" online chemistry quizzes, which were both mainly an easy 100 points to earn. Therefore, the class was out of a total of 300 points, with 200 of those points coming from the 3 exams; Dr. Pham offered around 13 points of extra credit in the form of surveys/forms and an optional extra credit group project at the end of the quarter. Moreover, there was also extra credit on the exams, around 3-4 points on each exam, so in total there was likely around 25-30 points of EC in a 300 point class (almost a 10% grade bump!).
For this reason, I would say that Dr. Pham's grading policy is extremely generous and made it easier to achieve a high grade in this difficult class. As for the material, the first few weeks and corresponding Midterm 1 were quite slow-paced and relatively easier, in order to introduce us to the fundamentals of organic reactivity and how to draw complete mechanisms. After the fundamentals were taught and Midterm 1 was taken, Weeks 4-10 seemed like an absolute sprint to the finish line, as we cover multiple new reactions in lecture every day. For me, Midterm 2 and the final exam were significantly more difficult than MT1, and the pace of the class picks up tremendously fast after the first few weeks. Chem 14D requires a lot of practice and hard work outside of class time in order to keep up with the sheer breadth of the material covered. While there is definitely a lot of memorization in this class, it is also important to understand the reactions and mechanisms because many of them follow the same overall theme; therefore, practice is essential, and it would not be wise to cram/memorize all the reactions a few nights before the exam.
Overall, Chem 14D is definitely a really difficult class because you learn a LOT in a short 10 week span. However, Dr. Pham makes it extremely understandable and manageable by clearly explaining everything in lecture and keeping the class engaged; moreover, his generous grading policy helps students achieve a high grade in what is supposed to be a difficult lower division organic chemistry class. I highly recommend Dr. Pham for Chem 14D; he was the best!

Highly recommend Pham for 14D! Chem 14D is hard but if you practice and strategize, you can succeed. This is not a class you can just read the lectures/take notes and succeed in; be prepared to do a ton of practice problems if you want to do well. He gave a TON of extra credit this quarter as well (like 10+ points, opportunities spread throughout the quarter).

Coming from someone who got a literal F on the first midterm and ended with an A- in the class, I can't stress enough how critical it is to do practice problems. For the first midterm I didn't do a single practice problem. After that, I went to lecture and took notes like normal; I would then rewrite the reactions, mechanisms, key reagants, etc again (active recall) and do practice problems (discussion worksheets, old exams, homework problems). I made my own "cheat sheets" and organized all the information in a way that made sense to me. The biggest thing about this class was honestly getting familiar with what was going on when looking at a reaction; I went to OH for the first time in my life for this class. My biggest tip to prepare for exams is to take old ones.

Grading
Problem Sets (top 4) 60
Midterm Exams (x 2) 100 ~33%
Final Exam 100 ~33%
BACON Tutorials (top 8) 40 ~13%
Total 300

I really liked the format of the class and after I got adjusted, I couldn't have imagined taking this class with anyone else. Pham is an excellent lecturer and explains things very well but you have to practice on your own. Tests and homework assignments are fair.