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.

Although Dr. Castillo was very accommodating during Spring 2020 since everything was online, she is NOT a good lecturer. She doesn't go into depth about details and her quiz and test questions are often not a good way to measure our knowledge. Although she was very nice spring quarter, and she was lenient with her grading scale, she is not a good teacher and I don't think she should be teaching such a critical class like 14C.

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.

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!!! (:

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.

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.

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.