to be honest, when i took 30a with pham, i didn't particularly like him. i was very intimidated by him in office hours, and i found it very difficult to get a straight/clear answer out of him. however, i actually really enjoyed 30b in person with him. i appreciated the fact that he's very transparent about his thoughts and opinions, and he has a very dry/sarcastic sense of humour. with the class being in person, his personality was a lot more evident, and it made learning from him very fun.
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the class was out of 300 points. we had two midterms worth 50 points each, one final worth 100 points, five problem sets worth 15 points each, and BACON worth 25 points. The midterms had lowish averages (mt1 - 65% and mt2 - 67%), but i think that this is normal for an ochem class. he also give a lot of extra credit (it was something like 10 points not counting the 2 buffer points he has on tests). if you can do well on the problem sets, you'll do well on exams because he likes to put similar questions on his midterms. in addition to the extra credit, he scaled our class up so that a B was an 80%, which he said was right below the average.
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overall, i think that pham is a great professor. to echo the other reviews, ochem will be hard no matter who is teaching it because of the sheer volume of material (30b had something like 100 reactions plus spec). pham doesn't try to make the class harder that it already is, and he's a fun person to be around. i enjoyed 30b with him, and i would take him again if i had the chance!

You dumb fucks managing bruinwalk got the WRONG Hung Pham. Hung Ding Pham is a completely AND utterly useless. He teaches LS4, and his accent it terrible.

If you're looking for a review of Dr. Hung V. Pham, here it is. Dr. Pham is definitely a character. He always tells us that he isn't that smart himself, and that the only reason why he is better at ochem than we are is that he had 5+ more years to learn it than we did. This professor is a very humble and super approachable. I got destroyed in 30A, and I thought that I was just not good at ochem. I took 30B and 30C with Pham and got A's in both classes. [I worked pretty damn hard though] Dr. Pham intertwines methods of learning and life lessons into his ochem lectures, and it's pretty engaging. He won't give you any practice tests or anything, so if you want to get ahead of the curve, go print out his old exams. If everyone has his old exams though, it'll raise the average to a 70ish, I think. [Happened in his 30A class].

I don't really feel like saying much more, but I hope the stupid fuckers at bruinwalk fixes this professor.

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.

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.

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").

I took Chem 30B with prof Hung V Pham for csesh. I am so glad that I took this class with prof Pham. Because our class was online, the exams were all open book, but prof Pham didn't make them insanely difficult. I actually thought his exams were quite fair. He is a very clear professor and doesn't overcomplicate things that don't need to be complicated, which is something a lot of professors unfortunately do. Even though I have 1.5x extra time, I found myself finishing his exams only about 15-30 min after the designated finish time for regular students.

The homework problem sets were a little long, but given that it was a condensed summer class, this was to be expected. During a regular quarter, the HWs would probably be shorter.

Overall, I really liked prof Pham and would definitely take a class with him again!

(I put "2" for "workload rating" because that's what I felt I had to do in order to get what I got. I actually put in a "3" or a "4" despite having taken him last quarter for 30A.)

Dr. (Hung V.) Pham is quite reactive to student questions; he welcomes student questions and usually answers them clearly and thoroughly*. Dr. Pham knows his material and makes each reaction he teaches very clear, making jokes/analogies along the way. I was not able to attend his office hours, but I trust that his office hours are as productive and useful as in 30A. If nothing else, OChem has shown me my deficiency in predicting what might happen.

I understand in the light of the trials of COVID-19, everyone suffers, and that somehow led to Dr. Pham becoming infamous for his letter calling students who cheat "scum." No comment.

He does make the exams quite difficult, but as the other reviewer said, I would just focus on learning the material. The charge of Dr. Pham not making the discussion worksheets himself is true; you will never be prepared for the format of his exams (despite their relative clarity). The final was open book/notes, and since OChem has lots of memorization, the average on the final was 178.8/200 (89.4%), not 95%. I am confident that people cheated, but of course I have no evidence.

In response to the scaling, he actually did scale the class in the end; my average was 85.3%. I would consider that generous, although to be fair to Dr. Pham, none of his announcements contained the word "generous." I agree that he can be a bit disrespectful of students, sometimes expecting implicit knowledge from students.

Take him and leave a review for yourself. Proverbs 11:14 NKJV

I already left my review for 30A and boy did it only get worse in 30 B. Organic chemistry overall is already a pretty tough subject and Pham does not make it any easier. I do not understand why everyone is going around saying he's their favorite professor. He is not that great!
The averages tanked even more in this class and yet again he blames it on the students rather than his own teaching (reading off slides and writing a few mechanisms off the board). 57% for the first midterm and 70% for the second. He threw the grade scaling out of the window with this class. I was worried that I wouldn't even pass.
We were behind again this quarter and 2-3 classes before midterms, there would always be a rush to finish as much information as possible to cram into the test.
In the scheme of the pandemic this quarter, he handled it so terribly (I'm not sure if it was closely affecting him, however, he was very unprofessional) he was extremely rude and angry in his email regarding the situation and called his students scum. This honestly did not shock me as he constantly treats us like we're dumb anyway and doesn't try to explain things when people clearly state that they are confused or don't understand something. He does not take into account that previous professors might not have explained what he expects everyone to know and he will not help you understand. (As I said in my previous review, he will just tell you "you should already know that" and move on).
The whole class is out of 440 points.
100pts for each midterm (there's 2)
200pts for the final
40pts for online BACON (online quizzes, super easy to get 100%)
He gives out 6pts total of extra credit in the form of post-midterm surveys and the professor review. There are also some extra credit points on the exams but not that many (probably 4pts on each).
He did make the final optional when we moved online but with the averages that we had if you didn't take the final you were likely to barely get a C so nearly everyone had to take the final (other than the 2 people who get As on every exam). I'm happy to have improved to a B- this quarter but it was hard work, and I'm sure next quarter in 30C it will suck all over again (especially since he's so angry about us going online) Good luck to all who attempt to take the "best professor ever" and keep your expectations realistic.

Pham is honestly my favorite professor. I used to hate ochem but he made my confidence in the subject grow astronomically. His tests are fair and do not test you on any information he did not cover in class. Also, he explains concepts clearly and concisely. He is really humble and funny in lectures and has a good outlook on life. He would often send us encouraging emails before tests and give us lessons about metacognition and confidence on exams that changed my outlook on exams a lot. Also, because we had to take finals at home this quarter, he made the (optional) final a lot easier which I appreciated. I really recommend him!

Professor Pham is debatable to be one of the best lecturers and professors at UCLA. He has teaching experience in SMCC after holding a degree at UCI for Mathematics and Chemistry BS. So its quite reasonable to state that the guy is pretty damn smart. But encourage a lot of his students to ease the anxiety of grades and focus on learning the material. I first thought he was joking but later took his advice and it was worth it. LEARN the MATERIAL. Have an interest in learning. It works. So here are the stats:
Midterms: 23% there is 2 midterms.
BACON Assignments: 9%
Final: 45%
Make sure to study well, go to his office hours. It's worth it. Make sure to do some of the hw assignments that were given. Its not mandatory but highly recommended. Have a study group as well. It helps. And dont be afraid about his grading methods. Just keep working hard.