CH ENGR 104A
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Laboratory I
Description: Lecture, two hours; laboratory, six hours; outside study, four hours. Enforced requisite: course 100. Enforced corequisite: course 101B. Recommended: course 102B. Investigation of basic transport phenomena in 10 predetermined experiments, collection of data for statistical analysis and individually written technical reports and group presentations. Design and performance of one original experimental study involving transport, separation, or another aspect of chemical and biomolecular engineering. Basic statistics: mean, standard deviation, confidence limits, comparison of two means and of multiple means, single and multiple variable linear regression, and brief introduction to factorial design of experiments. Oral and poster presentations. Technical writing of sections of technical reports and their contents; writing clearly, concisely, and consistently; importance of word choices and punctuation in multicultural engineering environment and of following required formatting. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - (Co-taught with Hal Monbouquette) This class definitely took a lot of time, which put me behind in my other classes throughout the quarter. For the minimal engineering content and lessons I will be taking away from this class, the time investment was very frustrating. I don’t know if it is a funding issue, but having faulty lab equipment for all of the experiments, some more than others, did not allow for accurate data collection and thus many errors in our reports. I feel that we would be unfairly deducted points for errors and mistakes in the lab that were not our fault. Overall, the grading of assignments was ridiculously picky, especially in the beginning. More example reports should be provided, and the expectations of the rubric should be made crystal clear (before we get our 50-70% grades back). On top of the lab memos, presentations, and reports, adding the homework assignments and quizzes was also unnecessary in my opinion. The extra hours that went into completing these extra assignments for a very small portion of our overall grade was dreadful. I understand that statistics and error analysis is an important concept, and the lectures were set up to enforce that. After week 2, I found that I could be well off enough to just glance over the slides on my own in 10 minutes rather than sit through another hour of lecture for this class. The lab groups happened to work out well for me, and I am so fortunate that the random pairing did not make this class experience worse. I found new friends in the major that I could work with and ask help for in my other chemical engineering classes. They sometimes served as my only motivation to put in my full effort in assignments– as it would affect their grades as well. This class single handedly made my winter quarter the worst one thus far during my time at UCLA in terms of workload and what I deem “empty” hours spent towards classes. I am honestly so fortunate that this class will be over after our last report submission, and this is definitely one ChemE class that I would warn younger ChemE students about.
Winter 2024 - (Co-taught with Hal Monbouquette) This class definitely took a lot of time, which put me behind in my other classes throughout the quarter. For the minimal engineering content and lessons I will be taking away from this class, the time investment was very frustrating. I don’t know if it is a funding issue, but having faulty lab equipment for all of the experiments, some more than others, did not allow for accurate data collection and thus many errors in our reports. I feel that we would be unfairly deducted points for errors and mistakes in the lab that were not our fault. Overall, the grading of assignments was ridiculously picky, especially in the beginning. More example reports should be provided, and the expectations of the rubric should be made crystal clear (before we get our 50-70% grades back). On top of the lab memos, presentations, and reports, adding the homework assignments and quizzes was also unnecessary in my opinion. The extra hours that went into completing these extra assignments for a very small portion of our overall grade was dreadful. I understand that statistics and error analysis is an important concept, and the lectures were set up to enforce that. After week 2, I found that I could be well off enough to just glance over the slides on my own in 10 minutes rather than sit through another hour of lecture for this class. The lab groups happened to work out well for me, and I am so fortunate that the random pairing did not make this class experience worse. I found new friends in the major that I could work with and ask help for in my other chemical engineering classes. They sometimes served as my only motivation to put in my full effort in assignments– as it would affect their grades as well. This class single handedly made my winter quarter the worst one thus far during my time at UCLA in terms of workload and what I deem “empty” hours spent towards classes. I am honestly so fortunate that this class will be over after our last report submission, and this is definitely one ChemE class that I would warn younger ChemE students about.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Dr. Li himself was good. His lectures were engaging and on-point. I definitely learned a lot about statistics and experimental designs from him. Li also cared about the class, and student learning. He was also considerate about logistics. Slides were released early and all lectures were recorded. Student groups with international students were allowed to pre-record presentations, too. Quizzes were open-note and 24 hours, with collaboration allowed. Unfortunately, lectures were only a small portion of the class. Non-lecture logistics were very haphazard (although this was Li’s 1st time teaching this class and 2nd time teaching ever). 90% of the class was labs, and labs depended a lot on the TA. A couple TAs were decent, but some stunk at teaching. Furthermore, most of the class was data analysis and report writing. Reports and data analysis were long and very time consuming. Just 1 or 2 bad groupmates can ruin your experience. Next, grading was very inconsistent between TAs. I did not know why I was graded in a certain manner for lab reports. Quizzes too were graded inconsistently. Some TAs gave differing amounts of partial credit for the same answer. Sometimes 2 students graded by the same TA got different grades for the same answers. Tl;dr: Professor was good but class logistics sucked. Grading was frequently unclear and arbitrary, due to difference between TA's (and even amongst the same TAs).
Winter 2021 - Dr. Li himself was good. His lectures were engaging and on-point. I definitely learned a lot about statistics and experimental designs from him. Li also cared about the class, and student learning. He was also considerate about logistics. Slides were released early and all lectures were recorded. Student groups with international students were allowed to pre-record presentations, too. Quizzes were open-note and 24 hours, with collaboration allowed. Unfortunately, lectures were only a small portion of the class. Non-lecture logistics were very haphazard (although this was Li’s 1st time teaching this class and 2nd time teaching ever). 90% of the class was labs, and labs depended a lot on the TA. A couple TAs were decent, but some stunk at teaching. Furthermore, most of the class was data analysis and report writing. Reports and data analysis were long and very time consuming. Just 1 or 2 bad groupmates can ruin your experience. Next, grading was very inconsistent between TAs. I did not know why I was graded in a certain manner for lab reports. Quizzes too were graded inconsistently. Some TAs gave differing amounts of partial credit for the same answer. Sometimes 2 students graded by the same TA got different grades for the same answers. Tl;dr: Professor was good but class logistics sucked. Grading was frequently unclear and arbitrary, due to difference between TA's (and even amongst the same TAs).
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - This is a time-consuming class. It was taught by Simonetti and Sam (Srivastava), but is clearly led by Simonetti. He's a tough grader! Very detail-oriented and will literally "grill" students on past material they should know. But in all honesty, you can tell he's a practiced, experienced engineer who is pushing you to really try. --- Organization-wise, for COVID, there are 4 labs where you will be provided with data excel sheets from the TA. You will also be provided with a word-document having you roleplay some scenario that involves the data ("you are an engineer hired to perform an analysis of a distillation column..."). I believe the difficulty of the course stems from its open-endedness. You have the lab manual from previous years, the word doc, and an excel sheet. With those three files, you are to generate a very professional, specific, focused, high-quality report to the best of your ability. Overall, it's a lot like the last ChemE lab, but with more focus on report quality. I honestly felt like the workload is way more, however, since we have way more time to work (there's rarely lectures and lab is not really mandatory...) but I still felt MORE stressed for this class--this might likely be due to the material, which is very 101C and 103 oriented, both of which I'm fairly shaky in. --- I ultimately have little complaints with the class. Our group absolutely could have done better with report-writing and time management, and I did feel heavily stressed as the report deadline approached (nothing beats a cold beer after 5pm on those Friday deadlines). Still, we did well enough each time! The class is stress-heavy and workload-heavy, but if you stick it through, you'll find your grade is just fine. This is coming from what I believe was an average group. My biggest piece of advice is to have your graded reports open as you construct your later reports--make sure you don't make any mistake you've made before.
Fall 2020 - This is a time-consuming class. It was taught by Simonetti and Sam (Srivastava), but is clearly led by Simonetti. He's a tough grader! Very detail-oriented and will literally "grill" students on past material they should know. But in all honesty, you can tell he's a practiced, experienced engineer who is pushing you to really try. --- Organization-wise, for COVID, there are 4 labs where you will be provided with data excel sheets from the TA. You will also be provided with a word-document having you roleplay some scenario that involves the data ("you are an engineer hired to perform an analysis of a distillation column..."). I believe the difficulty of the course stems from its open-endedness. You have the lab manual from previous years, the word doc, and an excel sheet. With those three files, you are to generate a very professional, specific, focused, high-quality report to the best of your ability. Overall, it's a lot like the last ChemE lab, but with more focus on report quality. I honestly felt like the workload is way more, however, since we have way more time to work (there's rarely lectures and lab is not really mandatory...) but I still felt MORE stressed for this class--this might likely be due to the material, which is very 101C and 103 oriented, both of which I'm fairly shaky in. --- I ultimately have little complaints with the class. Our group absolutely could have done better with report-writing and time management, and I did feel heavily stressed as the report deadline approached (nothing beats a cold beer after 5pm on those Friday deadlines). Still, we did well enough each time! The class is stress-heavy and workload-heavy, but if you stick it through, you'll find your grade is just fine. This is coming from what I believe was an average group. My biggest piece of advice is to have your graded reports open as you construct your later reports--make sure you don't make any mistake you've made before.
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