I understand that organic chemistry is a challenging class, but professor reilly is nearly unreachable via email, office hours are always packed, and it really felt like she did not care about me as a student. A combination of these things made it difficult to succeed in her class, and for these reasons, I would say DO NOT TAKE HER. Professor Reilly also spent about 3 lectures (one weeks worth) teaching us information we DID NOT NEED for this class (prelude to 14D stuff)! I think spending that time teaching us things we would have been tested on or using those lectures as extra review sessions would have been a better use of student time. She made the class more difficult than it needed to be. The LA's told me that Castillo was much easier, so I would take her instead.

Professor Reilly is a really good professor. I think the way that she taught 14C was very clear and I genuinely feel I learned a lot from her class. She lectures a bit fast but you get used to it after the first few lectures. I also LOVED the Kacey (her dog) pics she would include in her lectures. Professor Reilly is also very helpful she was very active on campus wire and provided many office hours throughout the week. Although professor Reilly is amazing her exams were pretty difficult. Going into the exams I would feel as if I understood the material but would come out feeling like I didn't study hard enough even though I would start studying at least a week in advance :( , luckily she did provide some extra credit here and there. Don't let her exams scare you from taking 14 C with professor Reilly though because she is genuinely a really helpful and understanding professor you will definitely enjoy your time in her class :D

Everyone is out here hating on Amber, and I’m not 100% sure why. Like she is by no means a perfect professor but she is pretty reasonable. First of all she kept exams remote for all of winter quarter. Second while the class was hard, as ochem is, she’s curing the class average up to a B- which is not bad at all. Plus there was plenty of extra credit and she dropped a midterm. Like it’s a hard class, and I spent way to much time on it but Reilly is always happy to take questions after class or in office hours. She’s pretty accommodating but can be hard to contact besides class/office hours since she doesn’t respond to emails. There disorganization in terms of posting problem sets, practice questions etc. But her lecturing kinda worked for me. Like I had to some out side self studying with Kahn academy and other YouTube videos, but overall her lectures were clear. It just took me a while to get used to her notes. Anyways she isn’t a bad as everyone is saying and if you work hard an do ok on exams you’ll be more than fine in this class.

Don’t believe what you read in her Bruin walk reviews. I recently had Reilly for chem 30b and it was probably the worst class I ever took at UCLA. Her lectures are messing and she talks so fast that standing up for a sec will miss a whole chapter. Surprisingly, she is also a very difficult grader and will nick pick on every little mistake. Her test are amazingly hard and she doesn’t prepare you are her test. (Not to mention we had 24 hours and it was still that hard.) Final is also out of this world. Still waiting for final grade but will end up with a A- or B+ depending on how I did on the final. To be honest, I felt like she didn’t care about her students especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, she tries her best to make the classes more difficult than normally. I would recommend taking Professor Hung V Pham for chem. He is awesome and straightforward!

I took Professor Reilly for granted in the Spring 2020 quarter. Ok so I basically stopped showing up to lecture and started watching her lectures on my own time. She was always helpful and held workshops for her problem sets that are due a week after it was assigned (but most of the time she would extend the due date.) Her midterm and final were fair. She always has practice problems for her students to master the material. If you get the chance to take 30A with Professor Reilly, please take her! She is very understanding and accommodating to her students. She cares a lot for her students, wants them to do well, and is very engaging during her lectures. Plus, she shows pictures of her dog during lecture.

She is the only person I trust in the Chem/Biochem Department.

Dr. Reilly is truly a great professor. Though her lectures are on the quicker pace, she has the notes pre-uploaded with blank spots that you can fill in during lecture. She also supplies a lot of great resources including chapter summaries, practice problems, optional homework assignments from the textbook, and step-by-step solution videos to the discussion worksheets.
Discussion section is not mandatory but it is extremely helpful! It gave me a chance to practice the material we learned since I'm personally not motivated enough to do the optional hw problems.
The only things that were mandatory were problem sets which she usually had an office hour dedicated to going through it with students before it was due (given about a week to complete, but only take a few hours at most) and BACON assignments which are pretty much free points.
Ngl I failed the midterm even though it was 24 hours and open note, but it was bc of my lack of preparation and practice. The final ended up being no-harm due to the circumstances regarding covid and the BLM movement, and is why I managed to still get a B+.
Overall, Dr. Reilly is extremely accommodating and focuses on student's learning and understanding the material. She knows how stressful grades can be for us and does her best to help. I really enjoyed her class and hope I can take 30B with her as well.

For the spring 2020 online quarter our grade was made up of lecture quizzes (on CCLE), pre-labs and post-labs worksheets, lab participation (had to watch a video on CCLE of the lab and it would show who watched it), final presentation, and final. The final presentation was very easy. We were paired up in groups of 2 and just had to present on one of the labs we did in class (basically just a summary recap, groups and experiment were assigned by TA's). The final ended up being optional, no-harm. The only real complaint I had were the lecture quizzes which were oddly difficult. I would assume that these quizzes are implemented to ensure you watched the lectures, but they were imo way too complex. Overall, Reilly is not my favorite professor. She's not a terrible person and really does car for her students (she would stay for OH's way past the designated time just to answer every students' questions and would not hesitate to add more OH's if needed). However, I just never really clicked with her teaching style. Of course, that might just be a preference issue.

Took class during the summer of 2020 and was my only class which was a plus. The key to success in doing well in chem30B is to study and be prepared. I enjoyed Reilly's class. And would retake her.

Based on past reviews I was worried to take this class with Reilly but she ended up being one of the better professors that have taught Organic chemistry. She uses her own notes instead of slides like other professors, but honestly her notes were so concise that it helped me more than regular lecture slides. She curves pretty well and it's mainly memorization and understanding different mechanisms. The only important thing is try not to cram right before her tests or you won't do well.

This class can be super overwhelming and is definitely a lot of work. I've never had to study for a class this hard before because you basically have to commit a ton of reactions to memory and have a really strong understanding of everything. Reilly gives tons of practice problems and posts these really great reaction summary sheets, but she can be disorganized and a lot of the time her answer keys are wrong. A lot of older reviews complain about her timing/pacing but this quarter, she was pretty good about staying on track. The midterms were very difficult (averages of 60% for both) but the final was a lot easier in my opinion (in person, closed note, 1 hr for all exams, even the final). Reilly is a clear and engaging professor and her explanations/lectures are good, and she does try to take feedback and definitely addresses student concerns. She gave us opportunities for extra credit, and for our midterms, she even gave us the 3-4 mechanisms that she would pick from to put on the exam so it was basically a free 20% to your score. Do all your practice problems, go to lecture, and memorize those reactions!!