TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR QUINLAN! She is so sweet and very understanding of students' needs. Personally, I took Chem 14A with Scerri, and he scarred me for life lol. Taking this class with Quinlan was really refreshing and nice because she actually cares about teaching, and about her students. There are so many opportunities for points, so getting an A shouldn't be too difficult. And she emphasizes that EVERYONE can get an A because there is no curving relative to other students' performance, which I was so happy with. The exams weren't very difficult as long as you study the problem sets and lecture slides. Overall, really good lecturer and professor overall! We love you, Margot <3

WE LOVE MARGO

Take this class if you want a good grade but aren't willing to learn that much about chem 14B. The tests and assignments are very easy, but we didn't get through like half of the material in the class. Whatever, I'm not complaining I guess

The class was really easy if you put in the time. You really have to carve out time to go through the information from the textbooks, run through practice problems, and study the material conceptually. With this professor, in particular, it was very important to review the information prior to class because she would spend most of the time reviewing the slides rather than actually teaching it. She encourages posting on the discussion forums and likes when students speak up in class but usually shoots students down when they ask questions that may be valid but seem dumb to her. She also gives participation points to those who speak up in class but I don't know how she expected people to get all the participation points when there were like 300 people in the class. The structure of participation points could have been done better. She also went really slow, which was nice because it allowed students to understand the information better but for anyone who was taking 14B and 14BL concurrently it really messed them up. We did not finish all of the information that was given to us on the syllabus so it was a little hard to know what readings to do and which to not do. Overall, I feel like I learned a lot and I would definitely take it again with Professor Quinlan.

Quinlan was a good professor to have for 14B this quarter! During lecture, Professor Quinlan was always engaging and helpful with the material. You could tell she has a passion for teaching and sometimes she added in extra biographies about chemists from marginalized populations. Our discussion sections were solely used for working on the problem sets with a small group. We had one midterm with an individual and group part and a final. Neither test was extremely challenging and was similar to the questions from the quizzes/problem sets. We were also allowed to have a cheat sheet for each test that was turned in for credit.

This was her first quarter teaching 14B online, and as a result, there were some flaws with the class and the learning environment. My main issue with the class was that there were a lot of deadlines to keep track of. We had weekly problem sets, clicker questions for participation, semi-weekly sapling assignments, CPR writing assignments, an extra credit seminar, and 5 quizzes throughout the quarter in addition to an individual midterm, group midterm, and a final. This was a very big difference from having Scerri for 14A who had a more… minimalistic approach to assignments. In addition, our third quiz was poorly written and ended up being dropped and regraded. These problems should hopefully be worked out by the next quarter she teaches this class. Overall, I would recommend taking 14B with Quinlan.

The grading for this class is as follows:
Problem Sets 16%
CPR Homework 10%
Midterm 20% (16% for individual, 4% for group)
Quizzes 20%
Final 25%
In-class quizzes 0.5% (these were dropped)
Clicker Questions 4% (75% participation)
Surveys 0.5%

This class material is pretty easy and the TA's are good. Lecture does help but Quinlan doesn't really elaborate or specify certain things about content or the class in general. She also confuses herself during lecture. She says she is open to questions but sometimes makes you feel bad for asking something you were genuinely confused about. That, or she'll just tell you to check the syllabus which really does not have everything like she says so. I wouldn't mind taking her again, I just think her inability to expand on concepts or class rules can be unfair to students. Also the fact that she seems less and less approachable throughout the quarter!

I really liked Professor Quinlan! She is very concerned about student learning and she is very straightforward. She is also super approachable and takes steps to make sure students are given what they need to succeed. For example, she asks you to put your questions on CCLE forums for the other students to see. But she also allows you to email her your questions and she will post them anonymously if you are self-conscious about your question.
She gives you a template for her lectures before lecture. She writes on them during lecture and then uploads those notes after class. I personally prefer this to podcasting, because she writes down all the important things in the notes. She also pauses to write things down so you aren't scribbling your notes during lecture.
The tests are extremely fair; our class averages were pretty high for the midterms. You also get a cheat sheet.
My only complaint about this class is that the tablet she uses doesn't work too well for handwriting notes. They can get illegible at times, but you can just ask her for clarification,
Quinlan is a great professor and I wish she taught more courses because I would definitely take them with her.

Professor Quinlan is a very good lecturer and specifies a lot of “muddiest” and unclear points and tends to review them every lecture. Her tests were relatively fair if you reviewed the lecture slides. Also, considering that this is her first time teaching chem 14B, she was learning as she went and lectured the material well, but the only problem was the fact that people talked a lot during lecture, which isn’t really her fault. ALSO, she gave out extra credit as well hehe which can help if you end up borderline. Other than that, you should take a class with her :) WE LOVE MARGOT!

let me preface this review by saying that i had scerri for 14a the spring quarter before this one in the same exact classroom...i was conditioned to not pay attention in class. i hardly took any notes, and i never looked back at them while i was studying. during discussions, we got a new problem set where we apply the topics we learned that week. i had zili fan, and she made us worksheets that were condensed versions of notes with all the necessary equations. she would also go through how to do every problem. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THESE!! margots exams are basically straight from the problem sets! i kinda put zero effort into this class except the couple of days leading up to the midterm and final but got away with it by studying the problem sets. oh and the ccle quizzes helped too! in retrospect, i probably should have tried more in this class because margot wasnt a bad professor at all, and getting an A is definitely feasible.

however, margot looooves participation points which is kinda annoying because I would forget to do them most of the time. she has us post what we thought was the "muddiest" point in lecture. but most people just wrote random stuff in order to get points, and then in lecture, margot would review the unnecessary material which slowed us down...which i guess isnt the worst if you dont really care about learning chemistry.

theres also extra credit opportunities which i think really helped my grade (:

OH also, dont get the textbook, waste of time...just study the problem sets/quizzes!

Let me start off with saying that Quinlan did a awesome job her first quarter teaching 14B. It's unfair to compare her to professors like Lavelle who have been teaching forever.

The good- She gives you so many practice worksheets and she bruincasts her lectures. I find that re listening to the lectures really helps. She tries to have everyone understand the material and her reviews and "muddiest point" reviews in the beginning of class are really helpful.

The bad- She is too lenient. I feel like many questions asked in class could've been asked in private and her clarifications really take up too much class time. This is why we didn't get through a lot of material. Lavelle literally says "This is a question that could be asked privately" and moves on, which is what she should do. I feel like this problem is also due to her participation point system where part of your grade is how much you talk in class, causing some people to ask questions just for the grade.

Overall- I like her. This class is definitely easier than Lavelles classes, and if you put in the necessary work you definitely can get an A. This is coming from someone who got a B- in 14A too.