I feel like Prof Castillo definitely has polarizing reviews, and people either hated her or loved her. She made a disclaimer at the beginning of the quarter saying that she hoped we would forgive her for anything that came off rude, as it was probably due to cultural differences. However, I didn't really think she was rude, and she adequately answered students' questions during class. The stuff she posts on CCLE is super helpful, especially the weekly practice problems and extra links for useful resources. She also structured the lectures in a way that was understandable and easy to digest. If you do enough practice problems, review old exams, and watch some Organic Chemistry Tutor on Youtube, everything will be fine.

Castillo is a very sweet person, and she always started her zoom lectures with a positive attitude and a book review(s) of the week. As a professor, though, she wasn't my favorite. The class itself was kind of disorganized (though I understand she's a relatively new professor so this will probably improve with time), and towards the end of the quarter it seemed like she had to rush through the rest of the material before our final. She wasn't great at explaining the more difficult material of the course (like H-NMR) and better at explaining the simpler concepts (like resonance or aromaticity). I'd recommend watching jOeCHEM, Khan Academy, or Professor Dave videos instead of her pre class videos (or her lectures, if I'm being honest) for those more difficult concepts.

We had 1 midterm during week 6, and we were given 4 hours to complete it and submit it on Gradescope. Although Dr. Castillo had told us repeatedly (and quite adamantly) that it would only take us 50 mins, a majority of the class had to use the entire 4 hours. The same thing happened with the final (basically, the tests were long and not easy).

There are extra credit opportunities but they were either for 0.5 or 1 point (I think we got 1.5 points of extra credit total for the quarter), so I wouldn't rely on the extra credit to affect your grade a whole lot.

I did like that she gave us a lot of practice problems to work through, and provided the answer keys to them so we could check our answers. She also provided answer keys to the discussion worksheets which I appreciated. There were a few mistakes on the answer keys, but that rarely happened.

The weekly pre and post class quizzes were relatively simple and straightforward so those should be pretty easy points.

Overall, if you have to take Chem14C with Castillo, it's definitely not the end of the world and you'll be fine.

I took this class during the COVID pandemic. Professor Castillo cared so much about our learning and wellbeing. She is very nice and wants students to succeed. However, she was often disorganized and a lot of her quizzes were much harder than expected. She gave so many extra credit opportunities but at the end of the quarter she said that it didn't make sense to give students higher than 100% on an assignment so I'm not sure if the extra credit was even counted. Overall probably the easiest organic chem class you could possibly take.

I really enjoyed Prof. Castillo's class. Although I took this class online, I actually made an effort to attend live lectures rather than watching the recordings because she was such a joy. She's definitely a professor I see myself emailing just for fun to see how she is. She is an absolute sweetheart and her tests are far easier than some of the tests that other professors gave for 14C. As long as you do not get behind and watch her recommended khan academy videos, articles, practice problems, and do independent studying every week you should not have a problem being successful in her class :)

AW SHE IS SO SWEET and an amazing role model to all Latinas, I love you professor!! As for academic wise, she does a good job at explaining and really cares about how the students feel. The only thing is we have a quiz pretty much every week and not gonna lie, they are tough. They count for a large chunk of your grade and I feel that they are mostly made to trick you rather than "challenge" you. The exams are lengthy but not crazy hard. That is all, I do recommend this professor and am glad I had her for 14C!!! (:

*TOOK CLASS ONLINE CUZ OF COVID*
If you are scared of taking Chem 14C, please relax. Chem 14C is wayyy easier than Chem 14A and Chem 14B because you don't have to use formulas! Professor Castillo was a very organized professor. I enjoyed her way of teaching because she had the right amount of slides, not to much or to little, and I liked how she had examples in her slides so we can annotate and work together on them. She does have an accent which made things just a tiny bit hard to understand but it wasn't that strong. We had 6 quizzes in total and let me just say, if you understand the examples she does in class and understand her lectures, you shouldn't have any trouble with her quizzes which are about 3 questions each. The quizzes are timed so make sure to know the material well. She gives you 15 mins to complete it but what I loved is that she is willing to accommodate to the students needs so I went right ahead an emailed her if we could have 20 mins instead in the quiz and she granted my wish and it benefitted the whole class. Discussion worksheets were also fairly easy because the LA's are on top of it! The midterm shouldn't be a problem if you attend her lectures, know how to do the practice problems, and are getting good grades on the quizzes. I got a 74.4/80 by doing all of that. She doesn't surprise you with anything you don't know so don't worry. The material is fairly easy till you start learning about stereochem, NMR, IR, etc so make sure you are paying close attention.
After saying all the good things Professor Carrillo does, her weaknesses are that her communication truly sucks. You send her an email, and she won't answer till like a week later when it's to late. Overall though she is a great professor, but just be careful with how her and her TA's check the midterms, quizzes, and finals. If you need recommendations of who is a chill TA, I'd say pick Zeeshan Parvez!! He is so laid back, knows his stuff, and he is soooo fine! GOOD LUCK!!!

First off, it's organic chemistry so it's going to be challenging no matter who you take it with. That being said, I really feel like I learned a lot by taking this class with Dr. Castillo. Her lectures are very thorough and clear, so you should ABSOLUTELY rewatch the lectures if you find yourself confused on any of the concepts - it's likely that you'll understand it once you watch it again. I failed the first quiz in this class and was thinking I would drop it, but I reached out to Dr. Castillo and she sent me a very thoughtful email filled with words of encouragement. This gave me the strength to give it my all in this class to try to get the best grades I could on the next quizzes and I ended up doing much better after spending more time reviewing! The midterm and final were challenging, but I was grateful that she gave us weekly quizzes because they really helped to prepare me. I have nothing but great things to say about Dr. Castillo, so please take organic chemistry with her if you can!

Dr. Castillo is one of the kindest and most understanding professors that I have ever had. She gave out extra credit for discussions, and other ways in the class. While this is true, I do feel that she did not go in depth enough on the material to quite get the understanding right for myself. I often felt that she would give us nemonics or other devices to memorize the material instead of the real reasoning. Her tests were fair, and considering I took this course during COVID, she gave 4 hours for a 2 hour exam which was fair. The tests were not easy, but if you studied for them, you did fine. Overall, I think she will help you get the grade that you want, but I feel that she could improve on how she teaches the topics.

This was the first time I ever truly enjoying chemistry. I was very nervous about entering the world of organic chemistry, but Professor Castillo made me fall in love with the world of OChem. She was very engaging in her lectures and provided a lot of extra studying material. She did sometimes mess up the test bank for exams but I personally did not have any problem with her grading rubric so it really depends on the situation for each student. There was a lot of extra credit offered. Exams weren't too hard nor too easy, very fair. Her office hours were very helpful for those who needed more help. The TAs were very nice and well knowledged. The discussion weren't mandatory but helpful. The exams were 2-4 hours during lecture times. Highly recommend this class for those who are seeing organic chemistry for the first time, she was incredibly helpful!

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