WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT MY MAN, ALBERT COUREY. ANYONE WHO IS ANYONE NEEDS TO EXPERIENCE THERMODYNAMICS WITH THE LEGEND THAT IS ALBERT COUREY.
I had started with 14A with Lavelle and I remember wondering whether I should switch to Courey or stay with Lavelle for 14B. I strongly encourage taking 14B with Courey. He genuinely cares about teaching us everything from Thermodynamics to Chemical Equilibria. So the course is comprised of:
Midterm I 16%:
So Midterm 1 based on the scheduling will be the midterm that has the least amount of material being tested on so it will be the easiest of the Midterms and the Final.
Midterm II 16%:
Midterm II is covers more material, but for some reason I think this test was easier and everyone did better on than Midterm 1.
Final 32%: Because of the COVID19 crisis, we could opt-in/opt-out of the test and I opted out because I already had the grade I wanted but my friends also said this was a very fair test.
Worksheets 5%: Graded in completion, but I highly recommend studying the format of these as they are just like his tests. Usually, you will get your worksheet and be like "WTF I cannot do this" but that is the point so you work in your discussion section with your LAs and TA. After a while, you'll get the hang of the worksheets and be like "wait WTF am I like lowkey smart??"
Pre-class quizzes 16% : These quizzes had unlimited tries and were online but Courey encouraged us to not use so many tries and actually work on them by offering some extra credit if we completed the quiz in 1-2 tries. The quizzes are also very similar to the tests especially his "Challenge Quizzes" 10/10 recommend finding friends to work on them with because these definitely require group effort for like the Challenge Quizzes.
Participation 5%: Participation was the hardest thing in the class. We had these minute papers due after Fridays lectures and they would open at 2pm and close at 8pm. A lot of people would forget about them and lose these participation points. Then the next way to get participation points was the Cold Call Discussions. Basically you sign up and as long as you sign up you get participation points. The bad part is that signing up makes you available to be called on in class so if Courey has a question he can call your name from a list to answer. You do not have to be right or anything he just wants to have the lecture attentive. But it easily is the most stressful 50 minutes of your life but it will make you attentive in class I must admit.
i>clicker 10%: these iclickers are based on just doing them in class there really is not much about them.

**WARNING: Courey is different than Lavelle in the sense that Courey mainly tests on conceptual rather than calculations. His tests sometimes only used variables instead of chemical compounds so we would be forced to critically analyze the problems in front of us. But lowkey I never thought I was a conceptual person but Courey is such an amazing professor that I understood the concepts. But of course there are people who are better at calculations than conceptual so keep that in mind.

Just wanted to shout out Jason, my LA. Literally a god but i think he is graduating this year. And Jessica Soule, my TA was also pretty good.

IN SUMMARY: COUREY IS THE BEST PROFESSOR EVER

Dr. Courey is a great prof who genuinely cares for his students and wants to see them succeed. I definitely learned a lot in this class and although the material was tough, especially since I hadn't taken AP chem, Dr. Courey provided plenty of resources (extra OHs, CLC worksheets, extra videos) for us to learn. I think Dr. Courey did a great job given this was his first time teaching 14BE and I think he deserves more credit for how much time and effort he put into the class and into teaching us. When reading the rest of the reviews it's important to keep in mind that most people commenting are frustrated with their final exam grade.

Do not take this class <3

Some reviews are fresh out of the extremely difficult final (of which you have probably read about so far) so I am going to try be as objective as possible. This class is doable, IF you dedicate a good amount of time toward it. The lectures were very clear, the work assigned reflected the course content and strengthened our proficiency in these concepts, and the class was extremely organized. However, you have to know what you're getting yourself into; I took the class just to fulfill the gen chem requirement for a major I'm not even pursuing anymore with no intent on taking any more chemistry after this class, and it became a source for an unnecessary amount of stress for me. If you want to rigorously prepare yourself (perhaps for the MCAT or for biochemistry) with loads of group work, essays (in a chem class?!), and pre-lecture/during-lecture assignments on top of weekly homework and exams, this class may be for you.

The weekly two-hour discussions really drained me since it was two full hours of working on a chemistry worksheet designed to enforce concepts you learned every week in a group of 4 - if you haven't been keeping up with lecture and homework, you will not be able to contribute much to the worksheet. The three peer-reviewed essays were a bit annoying, since they combined a little bit of biology (I had taken none) with chemistry and were occasionally harshly graded by my classmates. The last of the stuff that might make this different from 14B is the pre-lecture quizlets, which were short, multi-attempt quizzes to make sure you read the powerpoints and textbook before lecture.

Lastly, the quizzes and exams. The quizzes and exams did a pretty good job of testing your knowledge, and you will do well provided you studied a good amount outside of class. I changed my major around midterm 2 (due to physics, not this class) so I started to slack off and things became much more difficult. Now the final: this was already difficult since I completely put the class on the backburner, but on top of that it was LONG. My 24-hr math and physics exams were shorter than this three-hour exam, and I got around a 38% on it without studying. It was formatted exactly like the midterms, except we had only three hours to complete 12 multiple choice-esque questions and TWENTY-FIVE free response questions. A plurality of students, most of which actually studied, received less than 50% on the 12 multiple choice part, and a vast majority left 2/3 of the free response blank.

Professor Courey is super nice and formatted the class well for what it is (a rigorous gen chem course for those who need some more direction regarding learning and/or have little chemistry experience), but some things could be tweaked (the essays and final). The pandemic made focusing in this class 10x harder than it had to be, so maybe it would have been much better in person.

Here's the thing. Chem 14BE is supposed to be a class that is more heavily focused on participation and interaction with your classmates. I took 14AE the quarter prior and absolutely loved it. HOWEVER, this class is not that. Professor Courey, while a genuinely nice guy, failed the majority of students as a teacher.

His lectures are easy to understand, his examples are simple and that sets your expectations. You would think 2 hour-long Pearson homeworks and weekly online quizzes alongside 3-4 hours dedicated each week to solving lab worksheets would give you an idea of what to expect on the final. NO. Twenty-five free-response calculation questions and a set of 12 CCLE type questions over a 3 hour period. I have never been screwed by a professor this hard in my 4 years at UCLA.

This class was reasonable both in workload and difficulty throughout the quarter up until the absolutely brutal final that was borderline cruel. It was not only incredibly difficult but much too long compared to any of his exams he gave all quarter (apparently this version had been shorted per the advise of out TA's !!). Probably about half the class didn't finish it and if anyone did, they felt really rushed. I had an A the entire quarter and after the final exam results came out I fell nearly 10%. The curve that he offered only really benefited those who did very well on the exam already, not helping anyone really impacted by the sheer length of the test and lost around 20+ points for questions answered. He also really did not care that the CCLE portion of the exam had technical issues for a few students, offering no answers on piazza to their concerns. For a pilot class that was supposed to be ENHANCED for students who needed a more thorough approach to learning general chemistry, he is unforgiving.

Compared to what I've heard about 14B, this class seems to dish out some hard tests and some assignments which I personally found very time-consuming and unnecessary. Such assignments were the PRWAs which are basically three essays that you have to write based off chemistry topics where your grade depends on whether or not your peers liked the essay (which some people are really harsh about). The final was a complete disaster as you may have read in the other reviews. Supposedly, this class was "enhanced", as another review said, so it's supposed to help people with weak chemistry backgrounds right? Wrong. You're better off taking 14B in short.

I am currently taking him right now. He is yet another fantastic professor. He knows his shit WELL. He has a great sense of humor and the midterms are fair. There are no trick questions or anything. His office hours are VERY helpful too.

3 midterms 1 final (3rd midterm is given at the same time as the final)

2 homework assignments
2 articles

I love professor Courey! He is just an amazing person and a caring person. He gives a lot of extra credit so do them all. His exams are all from the slides and his problem sets. He does not post the answers to the problem sets, so you have to ask him during office hours (which are extremely helpful for this class since some of the questions from the problem sets will be on the exam so make sure you have the right answers). Discussion sections are also important as the worksheets help prepare for the exam (answers for those are not also posted so go). There are journal paper discussions (2 of them) and attendance is mandatory (you get points for going). His exams also contain questions from the journal articles so make sure you understand them. He is just awesome and will make you love the class. If you ever get the chance, you should take him.

I LOVE YOU ALBERT COUREY!!!! After a rough experience in Chem 14A with the legendary but brain-splitting Lavelle, I made it a priority to snag one of the spots in Courey's single 14B lecture. This class is hard, full-stop (most of the gen-chem series is hard in its own way!). There's just generally a lot of information to absorb and this class in particular I felt like got really dense in the second half of the quarter. But Courey is super helpful and clearly wants his students to succeed.
The flipped classroom format was actually really helpful for me, and the more intimate group setting of discussion section with the LA's was super integral to my success in the course. DO NOT miss a single discussion. They are essential to understanding and completing the worksheets, which are formatted exactly like the tests (midterm and final) and are thus integral to doing well in the course. Participate as much as possible, but don't stress out about it. Courey offers plenty of opportunities for extra credit.
Overall, to do well in the course, I would say you need to fully understand the worksheets and powerpoints, do all your assignments on time, and take a little bit of time each week to review the previous week's topic and possible connect it to the current week's topic. Especially because the class is formatted in a weekly worksheet schedule (usually these worksheets are on new topics each week) it can be easy to compartmentalize and forget what you learned in favor of focusing on the new topic, which is bad once you get into the content-dense second half of the quarter. If you can just take 10-20 mins each week to review the previous week's topic and do a few practice problems you won't be thrown for a loop when you're studying for the final and don't remember what the frick statistical entropy is.
OVERALL, i highly recommend our good man Albert. live love Courey