Note: This review is based on Remote Instruction given in Spring 2020 due to COVID-19. Results may vary when in person.

The class was structured as the following for the quarter:
Discussion Worksheets (Turning in 5/10 gives you full credit): 20% [Free points]
Quiz Average (5 total, lowest dropped, extra credit sometimes): 30% [Somewhat easy if you watch lectures and do the given practice worksheets]
Midterm: 20% [Challenging, but not ridiculously hard]
Optional Final: 30% [Will be factored in only if it improved your grade, otherwise the score is omitted and your grade is calculated by only the other 3 categories above]

Professor Castillo was very tolerable and lenient this quarter, an A- was scaled to 85%. Additionally, our final exam was made optional due to the protests occurring nationwide. My main issue with the class is that the Midterm was very poorly graded, over 2/3rds of the class submitted regrade requests because many questions were not graded correctly, and the answer key is was not correct, to begin with.

This was only the second quarter Professor Castillo taught this class. I found the live lectures very difficult to follow through since she goes through slides way to fast compared to Scerri or Lavelle. In the end, it wasn't a huge deal this quarter because watching and rewinding the lecture was very helpful.

Did not really regret taking this class with Professor Castillo but personally would not take her again unless her lecture style improves.

Prof Castillo is the best. She is super nice and tries her best to lecture, although sometimes she is unclear, however, she will always clarify as long as you ask. There are weekly quizzes that are sometimes tricky but are overall fair and can boost your grade. The midterm and final make the majority of the grade so make sure to prepare in advance, they are hard but many students do very well. Make sure to take advantage of the extra credit because it adds up. Good luck!

Castillo is a really sweet person but personally I found her lecture style a bit confusing, this was a pretty easy class though so if you understand what is on her slides you should be fine. The exams match the difficulty of practice problems pretty well, so there are no surprises. Honestly, having taken Lavelle for genchem I felt that this was the easiest of the 14 series.

This professor is kind of all over the place. She does not know how to teach very well so I learned a lot from Khan Academy (she even linked those videos on CCLE). The midterm was a trainwreck because she messed up gradescope and there were loads of mistakes on everyone's test leading to about 400 regrade requests, so she decided it was our fault and she stopped handling regrades. She also believes that no one should be able to score over 100%, so her "extra credit" is just giving you a built in free point on quizzes. For example, she gives you 1/10 and you have 9 more possible points. If you put in the work, it's possible to do well in this class, but there's a lot of bs you have to wade through beforehand.

I personally have mixed feelings about her. I felt that her exams were fair and her lectures were average. I did not like how there wasn't a lot of practice problems in the class.

Dr. Castillo is an extremely sweet woman and will do whatever she can to help you succeed in the course. She sometimes is a little bit too vague for my liking, but the content isn't too difficult. Also, her lecture pace is quite variable in the sense that she sometimes goes over concepts very slow but goes over other ideas way too quickly. However, she is definitely trying her best to offer students any support that she can provide, and it's obvious that she cares about each and every student that attempts to put in effort.

Prof. Castillo was super helpful and really really engaging with her lecture style, and I've heard she's even better online than she was in-person, which works out great if you're going to take it while classes are still online. She made Chemistry seem like a really fun puzzle you're putting together :) It was honestly pretty fun to work on the hw and discussion worksheets, which I know doesn't happen with organic chem so often. Do all of them and you're pretty much set for her exam papers and quizzes. The quizzes were a really easy way to keep up with the class and gain some extra boost for your grade. I genuinely enjoyed this class and would definitely take it again :)

I was very nervous about organic chemistry in general so I didn't have high expectations for this class. Luckily, Professor Castillo did a decent job at thoroughly explaining the numerous concepts in this class. She offered ample extra credit so that everyone could focus on learning the material rather than their grade. Overall, I thought her teaching was good. On the other hand, her tests and grading was a bit annoying. At times there were issues with the grading of the quizzes and miscalculated grades that she kinda just brushed over. The midterm was hard to finish in the time allotted and there were numerous mistakes within it. The final was made optional and she allowed students to know their grades before going into the final which I found very helpful. The final was also a bit difficult but with more time. I wish she paid a bit more attention to the clarity of her exams but overall the class wasn't too bad. She understood that everyone was under a lot of stress and made the necessary accommodations in response. I would recommend Professor Castillo to everyone, even those that struggled in 14A and 14B. Personally, I struggled in 14A with Professor Lavelle and found this class way easier.