This class is very organized and the test content is relatively straightforward. I personally found it an easier class than my high school STEM classes because of how many resources Dr.Lavelle provided and because the content he discusses in lecture is succinct and not too overwhelming.

The only chemistry experience I had prior to taking this class was 4 years ago when I took Honors Chemistry my sophomore year of high school. I was extremely nervous going into chem this quarter since it's not like I had as strong a background in comparison to some of my other peers, but Dr. Lavelle offers so many resources that the learning curve was nowhere near as steep as I feared it was going to be. Surprisingly, I liked that the exams were multiple choice as opposed to free response. Although we didn't have partial credit on our second midterm or final, Dr. Lavelle's online exams were significantly easier than the ones he's given in previous quarters. For reference, our class averages on the midterms for Fall 2020 were around 86-87%, which is significantly higher than Lavelle's normal averages of ~70s. Homework is credit/no-credit and you get unlimited attempts on problems so as long as you finish your homework by midnight on Sunday every week, you'll get 100%. To be honest, I didn't actually find lectures to be all that helpful for my personal style of learning so I ended up learning a lot of the material from watching youtube videos from the Organic Chemistry Tutor. I just followed along with Lavelle's outlines every week so I knew that I was keeping up with all the material. While I don't necessarily think Lavelle is the best lecturer, he's a very genuine professor who cares a lot about his students' wellbeing. He went out of his way to organize countless hours of review and step-up sessions/UA workshops to ensure that if anyone was struggling with the material, they'd have external, free resources that would help them keep up. Honestly, the UA sessions saved my life this quarter, and made learning much easier and far more engaging. There's typically multiple sessions per day, all at different hours to accommodate everyones' schedules, regardless of what time zone you're in. If there's one piece of advice I can give, it would be to do the textbook problems listed on Lavelle's outlines and always attend UA sessions whenever you're lost on something. They're super useful and the UAs are always really sweet too! Overall, despite my lack of a chemistry background, I still managed an A in this class and I'm excited to have Dr. Lavelle as my professor again for Chem 14B next quarter. I would definitely recommend taking this class with Lavelle if you have the chance :)

Chem 14A is a great class learning-wise, but is structured horribly for grading. I spent countless hours overpreparing for midterms because essentially, if you got 100% on both midterm 1 and midterm 2, you could only get 6 wrong on the final for a 93%.

Regardless, Lavelle is a good lecturer imo. It was exactly interesting but I felt like he really condensed information in a great way. He has so many resources available to you in forms of office hours, step up sessions, and an online forum. As much as the online forum was stupid in the sense that we had to post a lot every week, it was pretty useful for getting help with.

Overall, if you prefer a class which is more "plug and chug" rather than conceptual, I highly recommend Lavelle. If I could give you one piece of advice, his final is much harder than the midterm so be prepared and try to save as many points you can lose for the final.

Professor Lavelle has definitely adapted to online learning in a successful way. For my quarter, his lectures were asynchronous, which allowed me to watch his lectures whenever I wanted. The only thing I would be worried about would be the midterms/final. These were short multiple choice tests that did not leave much room for error. Also, there would always be 1 or 2 questions on the final that would kind of be tricky because he did not explicitly go over them. Other than that, I think this class served as a great introduction to general chemistry and has prepared me well for the future. Professor Lavelle provides UA and TA sessions, and I found the UA sessions to be extremely helpful in preparing for tests. I would recommend Michael Nguyen and Matthew Tran as exceptional UAs, but the other UAs are just as helpful. As long as you study hard and do all the assigned homework problems, you should be fine. Practice good chemistry!

Lavelle provides tons of resources to help students who need extra help, such as office hours, UA sessions, step-up sessions, and a lot more. You can tell he really wants his students to succeed and is always willing to help. The midterms and final weren't too difficult, but the exams do require a lot of studying at times. If you utilize the aforementioned resources and the textbook problems, then you should do perfectly fine.

On the online format, the class wasn't too bad. If you're willing to do the work and spend time to understand the material, a good grade should be obtainable. Especially if you took AP Chem, since the content is essentially the same. I failed the AP test, but I still found this class not too difficult content wise.
You unfortunately have to purchase the textbook in order to have access to homework problems, but the textbook is extremely helpful.
There's a bunch of office hours and "step up sessions" with people who previously took the class that go over problems that are very helpful it you're confused with the material.
I found Lavelle's lectures helpful, but he does talk pretty slowly. All the lectures are prerecorded, so this is a nonissue as you can just speed the video up.
Chemistry Community is a forum (that you need to post in 5 times a week) and is helpful if you're confused on a problem or content. There always seemed to be people on there answering questions.
If you're confused on the content, there's resources to help you. You just have to be willing to do the work.

If you have the option avoid this class at all costs. I want to say that I have never felt the need to write a bad review for a professor, not even during the abhorred 7 series, but this is by far the worst class I've ever taken at UCLA. Out of all the stem classes I've taken, the worst I've done is an A-. With Lavelle, I had to take this class P/NP because I was going to receive somewhere in the C range. Most professors have approached online learning with an open mind and understand that we are all adjusting to an educational environment that no one expected, professor Lavelle has approached this in the worst way possible. All of his lectures are recorded so you cant go to ask questions, yet every time his lectures are still well over the 50 minutes that all of us signed up for. You end up watching probably 7 extra lectures by the end of the quarter based on how much time he goes over every lecture. Instead of teaching you how to solve the problems on his tests, he rambles on about things he thinks are cool in his lectures. The only thing he seems to care about is his degrees and his chemistry community website. His tests online are all multiple choice, and the midterms were 12-16 questions. So if you get one question wrong, you're already looking at a serious drop in points. For those who are good at multiple-choice, maybe this works well for you. I personally think it's cruel and unusual to give a multiple-choice chemistry exam with almost no partial credit (even though he says there is). I have never done worse in a course at UCLA or in my life than I did in Lavelles 14a, and I blame this entirely on his grading and testing choices. If you have the option, do not take this class with him.

Go to UA sessions. My god, they saved my life. I was terrified of this class because I wasn’t great at chemistry in high school, but after attending about 3 sessions per week (and a lot more before exams) and doing every textbook problem, I felt very prepared. The midterms are not too hard, but honestly I was most frustrated with the fact that not everything we learned was on the exam, given how large of a percentage the exams are of your grade. It just didn’t feel representative, with some people getting lucky with easier topics and others left with hard ones. The final was especially hard but I enjoyed the difficulty as it felt like it was actually testing my knowledge and application. Lavelle was so nice and decided to give us 10 bonus points because it was so difficult. The workload really isn’t too bad, but his lectures aren’t the most engaging or helpful. Discussion was also kind of pointless. Overall, go to UA sessions!!!

Dr. Lavelle has the best resources for you to succeed and he will tell you often about them. If you utilize these resources ( I found the UA sessions most helpful ), you’ll get a decent grade. It’s difficult to get an A in this class as you need basically a raw score of 465/500 so every point counts.

HW was around 15-30 questions on a website Sapling that we paid for and it was due every 2 weeks. You have to get a cumulative 50 posts in the discussion before the quarter ends. Also, do the optional problems from the Outlines Lavelle gives out. He often puts a lot of the textbook problems in his exams.

Lavelle does bump grades up at the end of the quarter but it’s not really like a curve. If your close to the next grade, he’ll silently help you I think. And he’s more generous /forgiving in bumping your grade if you have a lower score.

[During Covid, so distance learning]

Great class. Superb teacher.
I took AP Chem and the AP Test. The course mostly felt like review with a few exceptions, but those few topics were very digestible and easy to understand with how Lavelle taught it. He likes to teach the necessary foundations for each new topic.

Comments on HW:
We had SAPLING HW online, and we got infinite attempts to get the correct answer. Very small amount assigned too. (this one is graded)
We had book "HW" (it wasn't checked or graded). Highly recommend doing these, understanding them, and how to arrive at the answers; it might come in handy :)

Comments on the Midterm and Final:
2 Midterms:
The format was multiple choice and proctored under Zoom by your TA and through a LockDown Browser (not sure about international students; I'm sure accommodations were made for them). Fair time limit.

Final:
Same format as previous midterms. I heard it was a time crunch for some, but I thought it was fair.