Professor Gelbart made this class so much more enjoyable. Naturally, thermodynamics and upper-div physics tend to scare many people with its derivations and fast-paced nature. However, I did not feel this way at all! He does derivations, which I really enjoyed; regardless, follow his words verbatim: "Please, don't memorize or take notes in this class". You'll have access to all the formulas needed on the lecture notes alone, so practice basic derivations and you'll be fine. The class's pace was slower which allowed us more time to learn the material well, had many office hours, spoke interesting stories, and was very accommodating. I straight up missed my final but he let me retake the final, which is unheard of.
Some details in this class:
- 5 quizzes; 1 will be dropped. Focused all on conceptual parts being similar to the hw. You can ask for any formula you like; ~25 mins.
- Final Exam has a cheat sheet with the formulas needed.
- You'll have to google a lot to do the hw and it takes an extensive amount of time.
- Lecture notes are clear and he usually posts them before starting each lecture
- The "tutorial" portion is another discussion section. He focuses more on solving problems.
- Very open to feedback.
Overall: Highly recommend if he teaches this class again (I think in a year and half? not sure). You don't have to be good at physics to do well on this class. Ask as many questions as you can, and don't worry about taking notes or forgetting a pencil half the time as I did. Lectures are also bruincasted.

The person who got a C+ and posted on April 2023 is either trolling or is actually dumb. The quizzes were easy and the lowest you could get is like 8/10. On quiz 2 I literally got everything wrong besides number 1 and still received 8/10. You could score 10/10 with a couple of mistakes too. The exams were straightforward and were not meant to trick you AT ALL. If you know the characteristics of a particular system and write out the BIG EQUATION that he GIVES YOU ON THE BOARD (he gives you all the equations that are needed for the exam and will give you more if you ask. He even helps you by telling you that some equations are not needed so you don't get confused and use the wrong ones). Take him if you could!!

I love every part of Chem 110A! Dr. Gelbart focused on diving into the fundamental concepts and helping us understand the meaning/logic behind each system. He never simply threw equations at us without explaining them in great details, and it was particularly satisfying to understand a system rather than only knowing how to solve for specific numbers. In addition, his biweekly quizzes greatly reduced the stress of midterms, helping us focus on learning rather than grades. These quizzes were very similar to HW problems (and we could drop one). Furthermore, Dr. Gelbart took all the discussion and tutorial sections, held numerous office hours for us to ask questions, stayed after lecture for additional discussions, and responded to emails usually within hours!
I highly highly highly recommend any class with Dr. Gelbart!

This class was a clownfest. Hated every minute of it. Professor Gelbart doesn't know how to teach. He had these lecture notes that he would give out and expect you to know them. He has no slides or anything, he will just go over the derivations in the lecture notes and mostly just waste class time by talking about a useless detail about the lecture. He tells you not to take notes while in lecture and don't study for tests and quizzes. I'm serious. As far as formatting, there are weekly homeoworks which are so hard and basically nothing he taught in lecture but something for us to strugle with and learn to solve the problems ourselves (his words). Then there are weekly quizzes based off those homeworks and then a final. All of them are worth 30% of your grade each. This quarter he curved 10% cause everyone was failing and straight A students like me still ended up with a C. Please don't take him unless you are a physics genius or have no other option.

Gelbart is a good professor who is very accommodating and wants as many questions asked to him. He does a lot of derivations in class, but you'll never really need to know how to do them or get tested on them. He posts notes but doesn't really follow them. There's a TA but he never really teaches the discussion portion (discussion and tutorials are basically just lectures).
There's no midterm for this class, just quizzes every other week which reflect on the problem sets. He will give you the equations on the board if you ask for them. The problem sets can be tricky and the grading can be kinda hard. What is taught in class doesn't exactly prepare you for the HW. So definitely ask in class how to set up a problem or give examples similar to the HW because he'll just go off to do his own thing. The final was weirdly hard; questions we were never asked before showed up on there and most people couldn't solve half of the exam.
However, Gelbart always reminded everyone that if you did the bare minimum work, you would get at least a B. On one hand, I think Gelbart is a great professor who is very helpful for student's questions without asking for too much on the HW & quizzes. But I never fully was able to follow his lectures, I found easier ways to solve problems online nor was I the best at math or physics, but I still managed to pass. This class may sound scary, but I think it wasn't that bad having it with Gelbart.

I took this class when it was online because of COVID. Prof Gelbart was one of the most accommodating and genuine professors I've ever had. He really took into account student feedback and although his lectures were not always the most cohesive because of technological issues, he did his best and prioritized our understanding of the material. He was awesome and a super sweet guy

If you can take Chem 110A with Dr. Gelbart, you should definitely go for it! His lectures seem dry and confusing at first because he goes over a lot of derivations. However, his tests are more application based and test more if you understand the ideas rather than can memorize them. If you pay attention in class and really make sure you understand the concepts, I would say you don't really have to study as much for the exams. Overall, I really enjoyed this class because it doesn't require brute memorization (all equations and info are given). Dr. Gelbart & our TAs (Cheylene and Zach) were also super helpful and provided ample amount of office hours to teach us.

If you don’t like physics and calculus, you will not like this class. But do not fret, all hope is not lost. You will pass, but it’ll take a lot of effort to get an A. I didn’t care enough to try for the A lol. This review is to reassure folks like me who don’t really want to do physics but must take this class to graduate. I’m here to tell you that you will survive. I never fully understood a single derivation and I survived! It was really hard for me to understand Gelbart during lecture, and I thought his lecture notes were also too complicated. After the second midterm, I pretty much stopped going to class because I was just always confused during lecture (and also I wanted to sleep in lol this class was a 9am) basically if you’re good at physics you’ll be cruising through this class. If you don’t like physics, just know that pain is temporary haha

Cannot say enough good things about Dr. Gelbart. He's such a knowledgeable and caring professor who is super helpful during lecture and office hours. I loved the 110A material, but it can be a drag at times with all the derivations. He thankfully made it as painless as possible.

Problem sets can be difficult at times but are doable. His exams are actually quite straightforward, especially if you're familiar with physics. We didn't get to some of the solution stuff at the end of the quarter (we stopped at real gases and osmotic pressure) and spent the last week doing practice problems with the class.

If you get the chance to take Gelbart for 110A, make sure you do so.

Between the two professors that I know teach this class (Gelbart and Felker), Gelbart is the way to go.I've heard horror stories from what Felker teaches in comparison to Gelbart. Plus, you aren't getting any derivations with Gelbart, but you will with Felker on the exams. I personally had a hard time with Thermo, and wrapping my head around concepts that were taught in this course. Gelbart himself is an incredibly nice professor that does care about student learning. It seems that a lot of people in the class were able to follow what he was saying; I couldn't really.

In order to succeed in this class, Gelbart will tell you that you need to understand derivations. This is complete BS. If you want to do well in this class, go to office hours. Likewise, for the final, go over the first and second midterm and see if you can understand how to do those problems. Can't do it? Then go to office hours and figure out how to do them. The textbook can be useful for actually learning the material if you don't understand what Gelbart is saying. However, the problems in the textbook aren't of any use.

Idk who the TA's will be for future quarters, but Cheylene and Zach are excellent TA's who can dumb down this course for you. Good news is that this class is curved. The first midterm average was a 79/100, and the second midterm average was a 59/100. 10% of the grade went to the HW problems (if you can do the hw problems and understand them, ur pretty much golden) 25% for Midterm 1, and 25% for midterm II, and 50% for the final. Gelbart rewards you for improvement from exam to exam. Make sure to really understand the challenge problems he provides for you for the final, they are stellar. I personally found this course to be the most challenging in the biochemistry major, but the class is doable.