This was Rubin's first time teaching in a while so at the start of the quarter his lecturing abilities were extremely poor and all over the place. By the end, Rubin was doing a decent job lecturing, akin to maybe Lavelle level. Rubin is a very funny guy who seems to care about his students. He does at times seem to have a big ego, however. For example, when asked a question that he doesn't know the answer too, he often responds passive-aggressively. The tests in this class were extremely fair and easy, often taking questions directly from the problem sets, and always using the easiest concepts from the section. Overall, Rubin is a decent professor, although I worry that I wasn't adequately prepared for 14d.

Rubin was the sweetest professor I've ever had! This quarter seemed to be his first quarter teaching in a while; I remember checking his last Bruinwalk reviews and seeing they were from 2003. He was not good at explaining lectures in the beginning but he seemed to make more sense as the quarter went on. If you take him going to TA office hours and discussions will help you so much on his problem sets (the TAs give you the answers and teaches it to you, which is how I learned most of the material). His lectures were boring sometimes but you can tell that he truly cares about his students.

Midterms and final was fair, and the final was pretty similar to the rubric. His grading scheme is also very, very fair and probably the best I'll ever get from a class here. I remember he brought his dog in a backpack into our midterm and final and it was the absolute cutest thing I've ever seen.

Overall, I had a rocky beginning since I wasn't used to anything ochem at all before taking the class and I had my doubts about Rubin's lectures, but putting in the effort to learn paid off in the end.

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.

Made me realize that ochem isn't as hard (at least 14c compared to 14d) as people say it is. Exams are open note and therefore there isn't as much pressure going into the exam. The grades are curved on the syllabus so it's pretty hard to do poorly assuming you keep up with everything.

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.