Here’s a genuine review of this class in my opinion: the class itself is pretty difficult, especially at first. The percentage distribution of test and the final seem nice at first, but the tests are EXTREMELY difficult. IF YOU DECIDE TO TAKE THIS CLASS DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH TA JAY HE IS AN INCREDIBLY TOUGH GRADER AND MARKS OFF ON EVERYTHING (he’s the TA everyone hates). I definitely could have done better in this course, but I ended up being scored super unfairly on one of the major assessments by JAY. I also wish the final was replaced with a cumulative discussion worksheet like it was last quarter, and I think we should have been able to opt out of it. To survive in this class, you have to attend LA workshops and ask for help otherwise you won’t do good. Dr. Casey is a super great professor, but the lecture content and exam content had a big gap in my opinion.

From lectures alone, sometimes concepts get pretty vague and hard to get, but her extra stuff like PDQ and LBL and Discussion reallyyy help. Also Office hours are amazing.

Dr. Casey is literally the best professor you could ever ask for. She is one of the most understanding and caring professors--especially for a STEM professor! She always prioritizes her students' interests and kept reassuring us throughout the quarter. Her class was extremely fair, and after gaining a low-class average for our first midterm/AA, she gave us two extra credit points to make up for it and ease our anxiety. Although the midterms were somewhat tricky, we had so many opportunities to make up for the points we lost. I must admit, though, that you have to turn in at least 4 assignments each week, so be sure to stay on top of the work and not get behind. I found that the best way to study was to read the book, takes notes, and take notes during lecture,s and actually stay attentive. The weekly discussion worksheets with your group are also super helpful and are great review of the material. MAKE SURE TO GO TO LA WORKSHOPS BECAUSE THEY ARE SO AMAZING, and you get to complete a worksheet that's more challenging and has questions from past tests, so it is definitely great practice. Taking Chem14AE was honestly the best decision as it is a great place to start your chemistry journey as an undergrad.

tldr: if you're not the best at chem, take this class with Casey! Stay on top of your work + ask for help and you should be good

I took this class during my first quarter at Ucla and I am so thankful I took it with Professor Casey. She really cares about her students and is more than willing to help you as long as you show that you are genuinely trying and participating. I was struggling in the class and asked if I could talk to her about it. At our meeting, she actually took the time to talk me through a weekly study schedule for her class. I was blown away by her kindness.

Casey gives a lot of extra optional worksheets and problem sets, and if you do them and ask for help on them if you need it during office hours, you'll most likely get an A in this class. Tests take a little bit of critical thinking but never really seemed unfair or undoable.

Professor Casey is really sweet and understanding. Her weekly assignments were not that time consuming, however there is one writing assignment that she gives around the end of the quarter that takes up a lot of time. The grading system is okay at first, but towards the end you realize how quickly you can lose points. The midterms or “application assessments” are challenging and are graded toughly. In order to do good in them, it is important that you fully understand the concepts conceptually and that you can apply them. I did not do good on my first one at all and I believe that is what caused me to get a B+ instead of a higher grade. She hosts a lot of office hours and LA workshops and those are very helpful. Discussions are important for understanding the concepts and I had a group that was not very collaborative and I think that might have affected how much of the content I understood. Of your discussion group is not great, try to switch towards the start of the quarter. I tried switching but there was no other groups that had room so I was stuck with my group. Her final was okay, better than the application assessments, but it is worth a lot so be careful not to mess up on it (worth 100/350 total class points).

TLDR: She is a great professor, but you have to do attend a lot of office hours or the extra workshops she offers to make sure you fully understand the content. Try not to mess up on the first few assignments because that will affect your overall grade tremendously.

Having never taken an AP chemistry class before, I noticed I was definitely a little behind some of the other students but Dr. Casey teaches so well that it hardly matters, she made lecture and concepts very clear. I found that I could follow along well in class and pull my weight and more during discussion with those long worksheets. The AE versus A chem class is a lot more work but in my opinion worth it and helped me connect the dots in concepts I don’t think I’d be able to on my own. I highly recommend Casey if you can get her if she returns to UCLA, she really cares about her students whether that’s by emailing the textbook IT on your behalf or by connecting you with counseling help, she is 100% supportive and I don’t see that much care in most professors.

Would totally recommend over 14A. Professor Casey was extremely helpful and made sure that everyone understood the content to the fullest extent. The workload was very manageable as well as the exams.

Unfortunately, I believe Dr. Casey has moved and will no longer be a professor at UCLA. However, if she does ever come back to teach CHEM14AE again, PLEASE take it with her! She is a wonderful woman who genuinely cares about her students. She made it clear at the beginning of the class that she believes in everyone and thinks that everyone has the capability of getting an A in the class.
There are a few quizzes; your score on the quiz is the average of two attempts (you'll almost always get 100% on the last attempt because it's open note/open instructor so you can get help). They're timed and sometimes felt a bit too short, but you get used to it eventually. The lowest quiz grade is dropped.
There are weekly assignments that go through the content of the lecture before you attend. You get three attempts for these and the lowest score is dropped (they're really easy though, I didn't get below 100% on any of them).
Weekly homework is also easy and hardly counts for any of your grade, but doing the practice problems is important because you need the practice for exams.
There were two midterms and a final. All of the exams focused both on calculations as well as conceptual explanations. I feel that the exams were fair but challenging; I got 100% on the first exam and a 78% on the second. I got an 89% on the final exam. Dr. Casey said that if we got a good score on the final exam, she would replace our lowest midterm grade with our final exam grade (so my second midterm grade was replaced with an 89%, which brought up my grade). She offered about 9 extra credit points, which was really helpful.
Overall, the class is manageable as long as you're willing to put a significant amount of effort into studying for the exams. If she comes back to teach again, please take her class!

I absolutely loved Casey, but too bad she won't be teaching anymore.
The class itself, I wish I could say that studying the homework problems will give you a good grade, but that is not the case. While the teaching team is amazing and are always willing to help you (extra office hours during midterm or finals week), the tests often didn't match the homework. They required you to think beyond the problem and really apply chemistry concepts to new situations, so people were wrecked for the midterms (especially midterm 2). Thankfully, Casey was a god and replaced our lower midterm score with our final if it helped us. For reference, I got a B on midterm 1 and a D on midterm 2, but I got an A on the final and clutched an A in the class (my midterm scores were similar to the class average, but my final was 20% higher than average).
I definitely recommend this class if you like highly-structured learning and are willingly to put in the work. Also all of the TAs and LAs were amazing.

I really enjoyed taking Chem 14AE over Chem 14A, however the main reason I took this class was for Dr. Casey. Dr. Casey is now quitting and I don’t know who is gonna replace her so do with that what you will. The TAs for this class were amazing however (all women in stem!) as well as the LAs. Chem 14AE is definitely geared towards those who don’t have a strong chemistry background from high school, as midterms are worth a very small percentage of our grade and we have lots of other easy “filler grades”, but our final was worth 30% of our grade and was in person, no cheat sheet, so definitely don’t slack off for the final because you think you’re good with all your other grades. The midterms (called application assessments) are short answers or math questions and are more challenging, but as long as you pay thorough attention in class, do the assignments, and try your best, you’re good to go. You can also use your notes and the internet on these but the answers to these questions will definitely require more than a google search. I had taken AP Chem senior year so I definitely was way ahead of the class in the first few weeks but I still was learning new stuff we didn’t touch in AP Chem and relearning stuff in a way that made a lot more sense, so definitely don’t rule this class out because you think you’re more “advanced”.