The textbook is the key to success in this class. I made a genuine effort to pay attention in this class during lecture at first, but Lavelle is possibly the least engaging lecturer I have ever had, and by the end, I just went to find out what I needed to learn on my own. He also has an ego the size of the moon, which is mostly ignorable, except when he types out his bragging and puts it between questions on the midterm. That being said, if you make sure to read and take notes on the textbook, and do all of the assigned homework problems, you can easily get an A.

Well, he is not bad. But as far as I'm concerned, whenever a professor teaches something for a long time, he is not so good as the new professors. His resources are helpful, especially chemistry community. He doesn't give out assignments that required to be hand in, but you do need to do them for the tests (he's using some of the problems on textbook for midterms and finals. I only bought electronic textbook and that's enough cuz you don't really need to read the readings since his course readers have all of his slides that provide enough information to understand the course. You only need the textbook for practice problems that do not need to be handed in. I am selling my electronic textbook (Chemical Principles, Peter Atkins) for $10 ($169 for paperback on UCLA Store), you will use the same textbook for 14B, text me at: **********. I also have a used course reader (which is really really helpful), which I can sell at $20 with my used quiz (new course readers are over $60).

Professor Lavelle goes over all the basic concepts in lecture but does not always develop them. However he does provides many resources for students to develop those basic concepts on their own (such as the course reader which has all the slides he goes over in lecture, all the past papers since 2006, textbook questions he assigns as optional HW, his online website where you can ask questions any time, and many office hours). To ace this class going to lecture and reviewing the slides is not enough. It is crucial to practice lots of questions on your own time, and luckily Lavelle gives you access to a lot of resources and makes it easier for you to do so.

I took Lavelle for Chem 14A but switched to Li week 2. Lavelle was ok but his lectures are kind of boring. You'll be fine in his class if you're willing to put a lot of work in, but you can't coast by and expect an A.

Selling my Fall 2016 course reader and workbook. Both have barely been used, workbook has a few of the first practice problems done in pencil (not the graded homework/quizzes) but everything else is in new condition. **********

There is no homework, so the amount of work is completely up to you. His tests sometimes have conceptual questions that dont come from his lectures, and you definitely need to read thebook in addition to his lectures. I personally did not do any of the textbook problems, but his tests and quizzes are mostly problem solving so they may be useful.

Dr. Scerri will teach Chemistry 14A next quarter. I heard he is much better than Dr. Lavelle? Ouch, I should have waited until the winter quarter to take 14A.

Professor Lavelle is an excellent educator. I had not taken AP Chemistry in high school and managed to do very well thanks to the diverse array of resources he provides in the form of textbook problems, review sessions, and past tests in the coursereader. The resources are there to succeed in this class, it's simply a matter of putting the work in.

Although I got an "A", I would advise avoid Lavelle. His lecture is boring and dry. In fact, I rarely went to his lecture after the midterm. You just need to practice his past exams and you will be fine. His exam questions are all very similar. My TA does not think of Lavelle highly either. Among the 4 professors this quarter, I rank Lavelle the worst.

If you end up with Lavelle, don't freak out too bad. This is a challenging class, and you might get a B even if you want an A, but that's okay. My older sister (forth year biology major) told me that the upper division classes (at least for biology major) are a lot easier to get an A in than the requirements for the major. So basically, you might get worse grades your freshman year than later years. Hope this will calm you down if you are worried.

I was a little worried because I heard a lot of bad things about Lavelle, but I ended up with a B, which I am fine with. The only experience I had with chemistry was honors chemistry sophomore year of high school, which was pretty basic.

Definitely get the course reader. I studied by reviewing the course reader over and over, writing outlines on it. Also do the practice problems in the course reader without looking at the answer, as well as all of the practice quizzes. I had an outdated copy of the textbook, so the problem numbers did not line up with the homework he posted. So I didn't do any of the homework he posted. That being said, a lot of people insist it helps, so I would recommend getting the textbook and doing the practice problems.

Your grade is based on 3 quizzes (one of these can be replaced by the average of the practice quizzes grades in the workbook.) Definitely do really good on the practice quizzes in the workbook, try to find someone to go over them with. It will save you if you do bad on a quiz.

Also grade is based on posting on his chemistry website every week. If you don't feel like answering actual questions just post a joke on the jokes thread weekly.

Grades also based on midterm and final obviously. No real advice for this except study and do practice problems.

My complaints... Well, on the midterm/final, he might ask you to recall one tiny piece of information that was just one bullet point in the course reader that may not have been emphasized. And there's a million of these in the course reader. I didn't like that... would have liked him to stick to more general ideas or math. He is kind of boring, it was hard for me to focus at times, so it helped me a lot more to go over the course reader on my own. This is the first chemistry class I've ever taken and while I ended up doing fine, I've heard from everyone that he's way harder than he needs to be, so that's unfortunate. Try to get someone else for chemistry, but if you end up with him, don't panic.

Hope this helps... good luck!

I studied pretty hard for this class , but having read the comments from people who also took his class this quarter, I obviously did not study hard enough.
Anyways, despite what people may say, I think his tests and quizzes are quite fair. In fact, they are usually very similar to the problems in the textbook. Furthermore, Lavelle offers plenty of resources to his students. There is usually at least 4 hours of office hours(from TAs, UAs, or himself) per day. Both the TAs and UAs are extremely helpful.
All in all, I think this was a tough but reasonable class.