I love you yves

easiest class i've ever taken in my life. if you just do your work well, you'll be in good hands. some TA's even give you the problem set answers during discussion so i recommend taking a section at the start of the week than the end.
rubin is just a little clumsy and disorganized sometimes. he doesnt include participation points but his lectures couldve been done by literally anyone who can read/speak in english (everything needed to be said was already on his slides that he would post at the start of the week)
nonetheless, highly recommend rubin's lecture.

I honestly loved Professor Rubin. I know it was his first time teaching in a long time, and so it started out somewhat rough, but overall I couldn't recommend him enough. What sets him apart is the fact that he cares about his students. He did give us hard exams but he fairly adjusted the grading scheme to account for this. I thought it was very fair class overall and if you wanted to spend hours getting A, you could. His tests were open note open book and his grading distribution was:

≥ 97% A+
90–97% A
80–90% A–
70–80% B+
60–70% B
50–60% B–
40–50% C+

Overall great professor.

This class is EASYY but overall just alright. The professor is kinda dry but overall still kind and willing to help. You can honestly just read the textbook alone and be more than fine in the class. HW was not too bad but is graded so make sure to double check especially with the ones that have provided answers from the end of the TB. The exams, however, can be tricky. You’ll be given just an IR, for example, but not the molecular formula. BUT!, best thing about the exams are that they’re completely open note as in, I had my iPad notes and laptop for the exam.
As for the lab, it’s fine but disorganized at times. The TAs are a great help and getting good results isn’t expected. If anything, sample data is given if your experiment doesn’t work (and a lot of them don’t). The lab reports are really straightforward and doesn’t require a lot of explaining. Literally just analyzing your NMR in bullet points; they’re not graded that harshly + a lot of time is given to complete them especially since we would finish some of our labs in less than the given lab sessions.
The grading scale is also crazy; 75% for an A-, 50% is a B- so you’ll literally be fine.

The class is fine; rather, the overall experience has been very positive, if a bit disorganized. Some of my peers took his 30B and 30BL class and he's really kind and knowledgeable in NMR spectroscopy. He's also very flexible and open with any suggestions and scheduling so be aware of that. He moved lab report due dates and allowed a take-home final exam for convenience. His teaching is decent and also funny too.

Personally, I don't attend the lecture section often since I have research at that time but my friends and peers say that the lecture didn't help out as much as they wished. I hear office hours is much better though, so take advantage of that and the really good textbook. Since the lectures can be a bit dry and slightly disorganized, you'll be lost in some portions of the HW so I highly recommend starting it early. The midterm is tough but nowhere near as horrible as other chem classes tbh, the average was 87% and the lowest score is 70%. The final exam is extremely difficult but it is take home (by request). The grading scale is very generous, with 85% being an A and 70% being a B.

For the labs, many of us haven't done organic chemistry lab or research in a while so expect to be slow and rusty. You got a lot more time than you think and it'll be way better in Winter as rn there's 15 people per section so you have to fight for space/wait a lot more lol. Lab 1 is super easy, Lab 2 is really challenging, Lab 3 is fairly straightforward (as long as you pick black pepper or unknown 2), Lab 4 is quite straightforward, and Lab 5 is moderately challenging. The four TAs this quarter at fantastic and very understanding, so make sure you ask lots of questions and get to know them personally. Emma and Lily are sweet people and encouraging so I highly recommend those two if you can get them. If you work with Jacob and Aris, you will be very proficient and well-rounded in your techniques so you can't go wrong with either TA. My tip is be prepared ahead of time, be familiar with the expected techniques, ask lots of questions, and work well with others in hw/lab so you can make your experience much better.

Overall, I really enjoy this class. Despite the class and experiments overall being a bit disorganized and occasionally being frustrated, this class does not take a significant amount of time and you have a lot of room for error. Thanks to the TAs and the grading scale, I did not stress much in this class and I really learned a lot of useful organic techniques and solving skills that I will apply to my organic research.

very mid class, mostly review from 30 series + few other things (literally missed last 4 weeks of lecture and still did fine in the class). The labs are a bit disorganized and not updated and some straight up didn't work. Dr. Rubin himself is incredibly nice and understands this however so the class itself never feels stressful, mostly just annoying at times.

exams are a very small part of your grade with mostly lab reports (which are just kind of worksheets which saved a huge amount of time). don't let the 2.6 rating or whatever be a turnoff it's just that there's nothing special about this class

The old reviews are not accurate to his current teaching style. This class is extremely easy with an extremely easy grade distribution. His exams are all online so they are open book and his current exams are much easier than his older exams. He's super nice but his lectures are very dry. The spectroscopy portion is WAY more in depth than most 30B professors but that's probably because that's his research focus. However, the exam questions on spectroscopy were super easy. If you want an easy A, take this guy.

-Grading-wise, Rubin was super lenient. Problem Sets, Midterms (2), and the Final Exam were each 1/3 of your grade. An 85% was a straight A, 75% A-, 65% B+, etc. This took the pressure of grading and just let you focus on learning the material. He may change his grading scheme to be a lil less lenient as he mentioned the department was surprised by his distribution. His exams were still very fair, and were open note open book and online.
-Teaching-wise, Rubin definitely got better over the course of the quarter. He hadn't taught the class in many years, so the first couple weeks were a little rough. After class though, I spoke to him and asked him to do more examples and less theory; he listened and started to do more problems and his lectures became way more clear, so I really appreciate that he was willing to listen to our feedback and improve from it. Also, he always threw jokes and some funny examples in his slides, so it was always pretty engaging. Expect some laughs along the way. Finally, he was very clear with his expectations, so before exams he would post in his slack channel exactly what chapters/topics would be covered so you could always guess what would be on the exams.
-His Office Hours were super helpful and informative, I feel that this is where his teaching was the best. He would walk through problems on the PS so you could easily get your questions answered. He was also available 24/7 through slack so you could always get your questions answered there. I also had a conflict with the original OH, so he moved them to accommodate me so he's def a very understanding and caring person.
-One complaint is that he would post his slides in parts, so he'd post like Ch17 Pt1 and then a week later post Ch17 Pt2 and I thought it was kind of annoying that I had to combine them all afterwards. But I think he did this because he was creating new slides each week, so I'm guessing if he teaches the class again they won't be chopped up. As a professor though, he was pretty organized and had a really organized slack channel, even having tabs where he would post old exams/solutions and summary sheets/slides.
-Overall, ignore the old reviews from way back when as I highly recommend Prof Rubin. I'm not even a Chem/Bio major but I still found the class to be very painless with him. I remember him saying that when he was taking College Classes, his professors made OChem very hard and stressful so he said he wanted to make his classes as manageable as possible. What a guy!

I really liked Prof Rubin's course. His course structure allowed him to make organic chemistry interesting without it being stressful, and I really appreciated this. Grading consisted of problem sets (graded for correctness) and exams, which were online and open note. While his exams were not easy, I found that they tended to be very fair! The fact that they were open note I feel made the course more about understanding and applying reactions, spectroscopy knowledge, and key concepts, rather than memorizing material. In addition, the class is not curved, however the grading structure was much more lenient than typical courses (85-95% = A; 75-85% = A-, etc.). I also loved that he consistently showed examples of what we were learning in lecture. Personally, prior to this course, I already (mostly) liked learning organic chemistry, and I appreciated that I was able to continue learning it and see how it is applied without being so stressed out.

I really liked Prof Rubin's course. His course structure allowed him to make organic chemistry interesting without it being stressful, and I really appreciated this. Grading consisted of problem sets (graded for correctness) and exams, which were online and open note. While his exams were not easy, I found that they tended to be very fair! The fact that they were open note I feel made the course more about understanding and applying reactions, spectroscopy knowledge, and key concepts, rather than memorizing material. In addition, the class is not curved, however the grading structure was much more lenient than typical courses (85-95% = A; 75-85% = A-, etc.). I also loved that he consistently showed examples of what we were learning in lecture. Personally, prior to this course, I already (mostly) liked learning organic chemistry, and I appreciated that I was able to continue learning it and see how it is applied without being so stressed out.