I don't know if it is just how my brain works or something but this was the worst grade and most struggle I've ever had in any class. I got an A+ in 14A and an A in 14bl so I don't think that it is the chemistry that I am not understanding but for some reason, I can not wrap my head around the tests. He says that they will be just like the textbook but I spent hours in the library doing every single suggested problem in the textbook and went into the exams confident that I could do all of the calculations in the textbook but the midterms had 15 questions total with like 12 being conceptual and 3 being similar format to the textbook, and none of the 12 conceptual questions were really covered anywhere ( I read the textbook in detail too). Other people didn't seem to struggle too hard with this class but for some reason, no matter how much studying I did, I got two C's and an F on the final. He did scale cause I ended up with a B- which everyone says I should be grateful for but I've never struggled so hard just to get a 54 on the final. He does not give you any practice tests or indication of how he will test, and he will not show you what you got wrong. What's the point of a midterm if you can't even study the concepts you didn't understand and improve on them for the later exams? Isn't that the whole point of teaching something? To allow students to learn?? I am so salty.

Professor Lavelle has been one of the most engaging professors I've had here at UCLA so far. His passion for the subject is infectious, making me sometimes think if I should've majored in chemistry instead. Although I love him as a person, I do feel some things could have been done better.

1. Organization
His slides are all on a powerpoint that feels like it was made 30 years ago. It's all walls of text with a few pictures every now and then that you need to quickly grasp since Lavelle moves at a rapid pace. This course is taught under the quarter system, so I'll give Lavelle some slack, but it was sometimes an uphill battle trying to simultaneously write down notes from the powerpoint while he lectures about key concepts not found on those same powerpoints.

2. Use of Lecture Time
He would sometimes spend half the class deriving an equation we'd then use on the homework when I feel it would have been better to spend that time understanding its application and meaning. He often times lost and confused me when deriving chemistry equations.

3. Exam Contents
A lot of the midterm & final questions were conceptual based that required practically no math. It made the hours I poured into doing and studying the assigned homework problems feel a little fruitless. I say "a little fruitless" because I acknowledge that his homework problems helped reinforce the concepts in my head and let me understand it better than someone who skipped the homework, but it's a bit frustrating because his syllabus explicitly states the homework mimics what will be on the exam. That was hardly the case.

All things considered, I would still say Chem14B with Lavelle was one of the best classes I've taken so far at UCLA. I truly felt like I was learning and understanding the concepts taught in class because he gives his students so many resources to become chemistry masters. There was never a doubt in my mind that he truly cares for the well-being of his students.

It truly makes me sad I'll probably never get to take another class with him again, but I'll treasure my experience in Chem14B.

Good chemistry.

He is my favorite professor ive had so far because he is an excellent teacher with decades of experience, which many many other professors here cannot claim. He is very intelligent and there is not a single chemistry question he would be unable to answer.

However, the lectures and homework and exams did not relate. I feel like I learned more in this class than any other class I've ever taken, but the exams did not allow me to demonstrate my learning because they were based on tiny little things he said in lecture, instead of difficult chemistry/math questions that required a whole page of solving (like the homework).

This is also the hardest class I've ever taken but it is not too bad since I feel like for this class (unlike many other classes with different professors) the more you study, the better you will do.

Lavelle is funny and enjoys teaching and TAs had excellent communication with the professor which made the whole class experience ideal.

Nice guy, but exams sucked. First and second midterm was like 14 questions (All multiple choice, mostly conceptual), final was 20 or so questions (also all multiple choice). He expects 16 hours of independent study per week, which is a lot when managing other classes. Don't take this class unless you're willing to sacrifice most of your time studying for it.
Lavelle also never answers emails, and did not give clear answers to TAs about exams or otherwise. I think the average for the midterms and final were all around a C. However, the final grade was curved up and above a 50% in the class is considered a pass, which is nice.

Overall I feel like my experience in this class would have been way better if not for Lavelle's tests. When I first started in the class, I enjoyed Lavelle's teaching style, thought the homework was manageable, and enjoyed the content. However, my biggest issues began with the midterms. Lavelle recently switched so that all his exams were multiple choice. Now, I already am not a fan of multiple choice exams when it comes to chemistry. I personally prefer free response so that it allows for the opportunity for partial credit. What made Lavelle's multiple choice the worst was that they were not only largely conceptual and worded very confusingly, there were also very few questions. Midterm 1 and 2 both only had 15 questions but were each worth 60 points, while the final had 25 questions and was worth 100 points. This means each question was worth 4 points and missing even a few could add a detrimental hit to your grade. To succeed in this class takes a combination of a lot of hard work and luck. Lavelle will test on material he does not cover in lecture, so, to be honest, it is extremely helpful to read the textbook and do all the optional textbook questions he assigns. Also, Lavelle does not have office hours so I found the most helpful resource to be the UA hours. While the UAs did have sessions throughout the week to also review content, I would say only spend your time going to sessions when they are midterm or final prep based. In general I did not think all the UAs were the best at explaining the material, however since they all had Lavelle in the past they did provide good practice for the exams. The one saving grace for my grade was that Lavelle did provide an extra credit opportunity at the end of the quarter, which I am super grateful for. However keep in mind, that without the extra credit opportunity accounted for, I believe you can only miss 4 multiple choice questions across the board in order to get an A in this class. Also, when Lavelle lectured I often found he went on side tangents and discussed derivations that to me seemed useless, but he did sometimes test on these so make sure you pay attention.

Lavelle is a fine lecturer, and I partially enjoyed watching his presentations. He explained the concepts well and gave a good amount of in-class examples. I think one thing I disliked about the class is the fact that because the tests are multiple choice, your grade can be swayed massively by a single question, and a good portion of the material on the tests were not covered in class or were fringe edge-cases of topics not relevant to overall material. However, the tests overall were not challenging, but missing a few questions on each test will bring you down a full letter grade. He also never released his grading distributions, all he said was that a 50% and above would be a passing grade (C-).

The lectures were pretty hard for me to understand and a lot of the material covered in lecture was not reflected in the exams. The exams (midterms, final) were very conceptual and not like the practice textbook problems. The tests also had 15 questions for the midterm and 25 for the final, so just a few questions wrong puts you at a C.

TL;DR: Lavelle is a gem of a professor. The class is difficult though because there is no partial credit offered on the tests and not much margin for error given the extremely high weightage of the midterms/final on the overall class grade.

Dr. Lavelle is a funny, thoughtful, and caring professor. He is extremely knowledgable and teaches extremely well in lecture; he is clear and conducts class at the perfect pace.

With that being said, the majority of the difficulty of this class comes from the midterms and final. There is not much required work associated with this class, but a lot of self-study in order to succeed. The midterms and final were all multiple choice, meaning there was no partial credit offered. Therefore, missing just a few questions per exam could immediately hurt your grade. About half of the questions on the exams were conceptual, mainly coming from ideas discussed in the lecture. The other half were calculation-based problems, for which the textbook problems are somewhat helpful. For each week, there are a whole lot of assigned (but optional) textbook problems. Most of these are calculation-based problems, and Lavelle includes one or two problems verbatim from the assigned textbook list in each exam to incentivize students to do them.

There were A LOT of resources offered by Lavelle for all students to succeed in this class: weekly TA/UA office hours/sessions and Chemistry Community, an online Reddit-like forum for chemistry-related questions.

The grading scale was as follows:
Midterm 1: 60 points (15 MCQ, 4 pts each)
Midterm 2: 60 points (15 MCQ, 4 pts each)
Final: 100 points (25 MCQ, 4 pts each)
Chemistry Community: 30 points (Free completion points)
Achieve Homework: 50 points (Free completion points)

To get an A in this class, you can only miss 5 questions (20 points) the whole quarter across the two midterms and final, since the multiple choice questions are all or nothing (no partial credit offered). This makes the exams difficult just because there is not much margin for error in order to get an excellent grade. However, Lavelle did offer 4 points of extra credit this quarter, so technically you could miss 6 and still get an A.
Midterm 1 was very easy - covered just 2 weeks of content. Midterm 2 was WAY more difficult, covering all of thermochemistry and thermodynamics. The final was roughly the same difficulty as the second midterm (and covered the whole course), so the class definitely gets harder as you go.

Overall, my only issue with this class was the exam structure being not so forgiving. There were WAY too many textbook problems (50+ each midterm) that were assigned to us, with only 1 or 2 of them being of value for each exam. It is extremely important to pay attention in lecture as half the exam questions are entirely conceptual, stemming from the concepts discussed in class.
Lavelle is a great professor and offers all the resources necessary to succeed in what is supposed to be a challenging chemistry class. He is a wonderful guy, but be ready to work hard to succeed in this class.

I really did not enjoy my experience in this class. I did get an A but was only able to because I attended hours and hours of sessions outside of class in addition to a stupid amount of time practicing on my own. He does provide a lot of review sessions outside of class but I actually don’t think it’s possible to do well in the class without going to like two a week. I’m not one who’s ever needed to attend a session before and at first I didn’t believe these reviews that you really need to go, but the first test was a bit of a wake up call. This pretty much demonstrates how useless lecture is, all he does is derive stuff that will never be tested and isn’t important to your understanding of the material. However you still need to go because every now and then he’ll say one obscure conceptual thing and it’ll be on the test, and since the tests are so few questions (15) it takes away a big chunk of the grade to miss even one. The professor is not a bad guy, I would say I do agree with the other reviews on here that he’s a bit stuck up, loves to call himself generous, but he isn’t a mean person. But the tests are stressful and ridiculous, and the class requires way more time and energy than is really reasonable. I honestly ignored my other classes so bad I’m really lucky they weren’t that hard and I was able to squeak by. If you have to take it with him yeah you can do it. It’ll be a lot of work and make sure your other classes are easy.

This class is a flipped classroom even though it's not marketed as one. No matter how many lectures you attend, the textbook problems that are assigned not for a grade are the most useful thing that will prepare you for the exams which are hit or miss (more often miss). If you have a light quarter load, this class may be fine, but if you are balancing other harder stem courses or have more extra curriculars to manage, this is not the easiest class to maintain your work ethic in since there are many problems to complete and not enough time to fully learn everything. His lectures are not engaging and often do not explain enough or they over explain topics that are barely tested on.