i usually don't leave reviews because organic chemistry as a topic itself is hard. but it's because she was the one teaching it, that it was so bad. she made everything unclear. she gave keys out wrong and way too late. don't go to bed before 11pm before a test day because you'll probably miss 10 of her emails. don't recommend

Gotta help Amber out here cause everyone's dunking on her. The class is hard af and to be fair she is kinda scatterbrained and writes insane exams. That being said, she let us drop our lowest midterm, set insanely low grade cutoffs (I'm pretty sure you need to get like a 34% to actually fail the class), and in addition to the cutoffs is curving us up at the end of the quarter if the average is below a 75 or so. In other words, although this class stressed me out like crazy, I don't think my ability to pass the class was ever at a real risk and tbh I enjoyed the content. Reilly is super duper sweet as a person and is honestly not a bad lecturer, it's just that there's sooo much content to cover in 14D so she has to go pretty fast. Anyway, hope this brings her average up a bit lol, I didn't think this class was nearly as bad as most of these reviews.

Amber Reilly is kind of underrated. Would I say she's the greatest professor I've ever had? No, not really. And, she definitely could improve by posting material (like problem sets, discussion worksheet, and their keys) on time. But, I think the class itself has difficult material, so it should be no surprise when the tests are difficult. I felt that she made a good effort to make the material accessible (providing summary reaction sheets and additional practice problems), even if the tests had low averages.

This is my second time taking her class since I dropped her class winter quarter 2022 during week 9. Let's just say she massively improved since winter. Spring quarter (my second time taking chem14d) she was much more organized and focused. The tests were so much easier than winter quarter, still hard/tricky but nowhere near the level of difficulty of her online exams. Most helpful tip I have is pretty much common sense, but if you fall behind in one lecture NO MATTER WHAT, STILL GO TO LECTURE. You do not want to fall behind in this class. You might think "oh I shouldn't go to lecture because I didn't go to the last one and I'll be lost." Trust me when I say that you will be more lost if you don't go to lecture and fall behind. Just stay on top of going to lecture.

I feel like spring quarter she had a better grasp of timing and didn't rush through lecture content as much as winter quarter. But at times she did spend way too much time in depth going over mechanisms. Also she still intersperses her lectures with dog photos and memes (it's nice to have a brain break, but sometimes there really isn't any time for that when she speeds through other legitimate chem content).

TLDR: Amber improved drastically since winter quarter. Ochem will always be hard but Amber makes it doable.

Since day 1, Dr. Reilly has been a very friendly professor who clearly enjoys organic chemistry and wants to share that enjoyment with her students. That being said, this quarter Dr. Reilly has seemed very overwhelmed by the transition from remote to in-person instruction among other things, and the effects of her frazzled state have been felt by her students around exam time. Many practice materials were posted within only a couple of days of each midterm exam, making it difficult for students to gauge the potential difficulty of exams far enough in advance. As a result, many students have not been doing well on exams in this class, which are also arguably excessively difficult. Dr. Reilly has sped through the content for the second midterm and final exam so quickly that class morale is low and most students are concerned for their grades. I do not blame Reilly for the pace at which she teaches the material--in fact, I think she does a good job at lecturing--but I do think that the structure of CHEM 14D yields itself to be this fast and that this aim is very ambitious and perhaps detrimental, especially in the quarter system. All in all, Reilly is a fairly good professor who may have just been having a rough quarter in regards to stress and organization. The course CHEM 14D itself, needs to be re-evaluated to make its goals more reasonable and its students more likely to succeed.

Amber is the funniest professor I've ever had. She doesn't even know that she is funny, which makes it even funnier.

Might get a lot of hate here but I thought Reilly was a great professor. Not perfect because no one truly is but her lectures were engaging even though she talks in 2x speed and she's super funny. People crapped on her because her exams were hard which, to be fair, they were. I did not do so well on them but I've never seen people more quick to blame the professor it's kind of sad. People complained that the tests didn't reflect the difficulty of the practice problems which is a fair point to make but let's be real... professors rarely do that. I swear almost every class I've had the exams are always harder than what they give you for HW and stuff and a lot of these entitled people in the GroupMe complained about *literally* anything that she would do. Like some people complained that about her midterm dropping policy (which helps you *surprise*) because it made the grading scheme "complicated" and then people even complained about her giving extra credit opportunities in lecture because it wasn't fair to people on zoom... like what do you want fr... I get that people are free to express their emotions and a lot of things were posted last minute and there were some errors on answer keys on worksheets and all that but it's hard to make everyone happy and be perfect I honestly just felt bad for her that's why I'm writing this. Reilly I hope you see this because not everyone hates you!! People tend to complain more than praise so I hope this helps her image a bit. While I think there were a number of things she could have improved on (as other reviewers said) I think it's more of the nature of the class because who in the chem department decided to put all the reactions into a single quarter?? It's so much content it's actually unethical. Plus she was nice enough to keep exams online this quarter so its open note so you don't have to memorize as much like you would normally do for in person tests. She even provided summary sheets for every chapter which had every single reaction which actually saved my ass. Also because the second midterm average was absurdly low she made the final so much easier like it was almost too generous. It was the same length as a midterm and we were given 3 hours (instead of 1.5 for midterms) and the questions were just straight up easier. Ochem isn't easy so no matter who you take, it will be difficult so don't go into this class thinking you should be given an A just because you want to "go to med school" in the future. Overall difficult class but I liked her lectures and personality a lot!

14D is a hard course. 14D is also an extremely easy course. What 14D is to you is how much work you put in. 14D is not a cram the night before an exam class. You will think you will be able to learn it all in a night. But trust this: you won't. If that is you, you will think 14D is a hard course. You will stress, you will cry, and you will fail.
14D is an extremely easy course. If you spend a couple hours the week before the exam, as I did, and review the material, you will go to the exam and finish the hour-long exam in 20 minutes. And you will think this class is a complete joke for being so easy.
All it takes is putting in the work.
I know it hurts to sit down and study, but trust me, it is the only way to pass this course (unless of course, you have a photographic memory).
The teacher for organic chemistry doesn't really matter. All teachers have the same topics and the same reactions to teach you, and they can do their best. But ultimately it is up to you to put in the work. Make it easier for your future self. Plus, it is kind of fun studying this material. For me, it is way more interesting to study this than studying straight facts from a textbook. And boy oh boy when you start getting your first synthesis questions you feel like a GOD. You can feel like this all the time if you put in the work.
As for the teacher of this course, Dr. Reilly is my favorite teacher at UCLA. She is nothing but nice the entire quarter. She is extremely knowledgeable about organic chemistry and teaches us in a way that works. She gives a great amount of practice, which is super good to use for studying. Discussion sections are super helpful and also a good source of practice material. Because class is now in-person, the exams are lightwork.....if you put in the work though. But no one seems to put in the work so the averages were 60 on both midterms and 69 on the final. I finished exams extremely early and thought they were almost "too easy", plus I had no organic chemistry prior knowledge besides 14C. I'm not trying to sound arrogant. I am just saying if you put in the work and start studying early, you will see that the material is super easy and very repetitive. Synthesis has patterns once you do enough practice and you can start seeing very useful reactions vs not useful reactions, and you will learn to use the useful ones very often in synthesis.
People hated on Reilly and her bruinwalk reviews tanked during online. WE'RE NOT ONLINE ANYMORE. DISREGARD the other statements. Reilly is a fantastic teacher and really cares about her students. Yes, she has her flaws, but no one is perfect. She may post something later than she says, but she always changes deadlines to give us ample time to finish assignments. Also, she doesn't really answer emails so I suggest just going up after class and she always stays until the next class starts to answer questions (or go to her office hours). She made exams much much easier than online so I say Reilly is wonderful to take for 14D. This class was so life-changing and so great.

Class Breakdown:
BACON - 28 points
Discussion worksheets (completion I think but your TA goes over answers) - 24
Problem Sets - 48
Midterm 1 -100
Midterm 2 - 100
Final - 100
===400 total points

There is nothing difficult about this class, or any 14D class. There is a ton of material to learn so just start studying early. Goodluck and I hope the dreadful reviews on here don't sway you away. Reilly is godlike.

Prof Reilly is the BEST professor I've had at UCLA! She so clearly knows what she is talking about and goes out of her way to clear up any questions we have. On Campuswire, she responds to our chem questions in mere minutes. I really enjoyed taking organic chem with her as she made the class very straightforward. I do think her tests are difficult and often test "exceptions" to rules we may have been taught, but I do think they are a good test of our knowledge. Overall, take prof REILLY she will set you up for success in CHEM14D.

I don't think all these negative reviews of Reilly as a person are fair lol. This quarter she offered a lot of extra credit, and she also seems to genuinely care about students' learning. She's super nice when you ask for clarification and go to her office hours.

The things I dislike about this class: it's just insanely tough and there's so many mechanisms to remember. There's also a lot of "tricks" and exceptions for many of the reactions, and you have to be good at remembering them and WHY they happen. People say this class is all memorization, which it is partially, but tbh if you don't understand the fundamental chemical basis of why things react the way they do, you are going to struggle when an unfamiliar problem is on the exam.

Exams were really tough, averages were around 60 for both midterms. It really helps to review the midterms thoroughly when you get them back and understand why you got things wrong.

Also, the prof is sometimes disorganized and makes mistakes on answer keys that are later corrected, and emails and Gradescope submissions are sometimes sent out pretty late. But overall, I feel like Dr. Reilly truly tries to help us succeed in this class.