I've definitely learned and remembered a lot more from this class than the entire year of AP Chem in high school, and I'm really thankful to Professor Lavelle for facilitating this in the way he structures his course.

Granted, this was not a super easy course for me even though I was in the top 5 of my high school class. I needed to put in a lot of personal effort to do well. I spent many hours reading the textbook and doing every textbook problem I could, often spending a week per problem set; clarified concepts using outside sources (MIT open courseware and Bozeman Science); asked many questions on Chemistry Community and during chem discussion and office hours; did practice quizzes and exams; and set up study groups to review with other people.

I realized that I wasn't studying ahead enough 3 weeks into the quarter, so my advice is to take this course running; as soon as resources are available, take advantage of them and learn what study habits work best for you. Use the course reader as a guide to where you should be in concepts. Try to keep up in the textbook problems with Professor Lavelle's pace of topics and clarify what you don't understand early so you don't stare at a problem for an hour not knowing what to do.

Best of luck and study hard! :)

Tough class. I did pretty poorly, but I also didn't put in nearly as much work as I should have. Grade is almost entirely based on tests and quizzes. I would definitely recommend doing the homework, even though it is all optional. All lectures are filmed and put on to Bruincast. Go to office hours and review sessions.

Lavelle's class grade consists of 3 quizzes, one midterm, and a final. Although he does assign a ton of homework problems to do, he never checks them, so it's up to you to do as much as you feel like you need to. That makes it really easy for students to slack off, so make sure you're doing at least half the homework problems (at the bare minimum) in order to have the concepts down and the practice necessary in order to succeed. His lecture slides are basically verbatim of his course reader. You can take notes separately in a notebook, but most students just prefer annotating the course reader itself.

Lavelle has very many office hours, not only for himself and his TAs, but also held by his UAs. He make it really accessible to get the help that you need, so take advantage of those resources, especially before midterms and finals, when there are multiple review sessions every day for an entire week.

I also highly recommend buying the decades' worth of midterms & finals, because a lot of the questions on the midterm and final were very similar to his previous exams. The course reader does come with some old midterms and finals, but not nearly as many as the separate "decades' worth" supplement comes with.

Overall, Lavelle is an excited and helpful guy, and if you put in enough time and effort into this class, you can succeed.

Taking AP Chem definitely made this class significantly easier. Lavelle goes over concepts and basic calculations, but most of what I needed to know I learned either from AP Chem, or from going over the problems in the textbook. He provides you with a LOT of office hours and review sessions, so definitely utilize those. Above all else though, you really have to put in the effort to do all the problems in the book. His quizzes are pretty straightforward and easy, but his midterm and final can be a bit tricky. It is definitely possible to get an A, though it's really just a matter of how much time you can dedicate to the class.

Overall, Lavelle is certainly not the worst professor at UCLA, and while his class is a struggle at times, he will prepare you well overall. Kids in the class will laugh at anything he says though, which was probably the most annoying thing about the class.

If you took AP Chemistry in high school and did well on the exam, you can easily get an A in this class. If not, you can still probably get an A if you put in the needed work. For me, this meant doing or at least making sure I knew how to do all the HW problems he assigned and working through multiple practice midterms/finals in his course reader. His lectures are very straightforward and it's probably a good idea to attend them, but I think you can get away with just learning from the textbook and practicing the types of problems on tests. Just be real with yourself: do you know the material well enough?

He has a lot of resources for students to use like TA office hours, personal office hours, course reader, practice exams, review sessions, his chemistry community. Honestly I didn't use all of these, but it's helpful to have those there if you need them.

Grading is almost entirely quizzes and exams. (110pt midterm, 170pt final, and 3 40pt quizzes along with 10pts for posting on his forum every week). This class is not as bad as people say it is as long as you put in the needed work!

I've never seen any professor as organized as Dr. Lavelle. Lectures are awesome. Only bad thing was seeing everything written in capital letters.

If you buy the book from the course reader store that has a DECADE worth of midterms and finals with detailed solutions, there is no reason to not get an A in this class. Midterm and final were just a mixture of problems from the review book with some numbers changed. After you do a few practice exams you can practically guess what's on the actual exam.

Last time I took chemistry was in Sophomore year and I didn't take AP Chemistry. Enjoy good chemistry, a man who wears the same shirt everyday and watching students flip out over nothing.

Chem 14A is the first part of the chem series. While this class is a general chem class, and many topics are most likely already known prior to this class such as balancing chemical equations and stoichiometry, new topics are taught including molecular orbital theory and acid/base reactions.

Chem 14A is very structured because Dr. Lavelle has every lecture planned out. He also has an array of TA's (teaching assistants) and UA's (undergraduate assistants). Literally every hour is either an office hour or discussion, so make sure to go to the TA's and UA's to get your questions answered (don't wait until exam time!) There is also an online discussion board, so there are a ton of resources in this class! What this means is that no matter what background knowledge of chemistry you had coming into this class or what high school you came from, you can definitely do well in this class!

Overall this class is tough, but fair. I remember spending hours doing all the textbook problems and attending review sessions and TA office hours in addition to discussion.

My main advice is to do ALL the assigned textbook problems. Although homework is not factored in the grade, this is the best way to know if you are truly prepared for the exams. He may even include a textbook problem in the exam!

Good luck and remember that the work you put into Chem 14A corresponds to what grade you get in this class.

Does anyone know around what range an A and A- would be out of 400?

Professor Lavelle is pretty good. He teaches well in a systematic manner. He approaches each topic as if no one has ever heard of it before. He cares about his students a lot and has so many resources to help anyone. His homeworks do not need to be turned in. If you do the homework problems, you will realise that the questions on the quizzes and exams are easier or of the same difficulty. I had a great time in 14A and I am excited to take 14B with prof Lavelle.

Professor Lavelle is outstanding, one of the best professors I have ever had. He is always well prepared, his lectures are clear and very informative. If you need quality it doesn't get any better.He truly cares about his students, the quality of his lectures and the course. He wants his students to do well, is always positive and helpful in office hours. His course also has lots of resources to help students do well, Chemistry Community is one of the best resources I have ever used in a class. I got an A :)