I think that this class was a testament to the failure of the chemistry department at UCLA rather than Fulton’s personal faults. Dr. Fulton was a first time, brand new, just-got-his-PhD professor and there should absolutely be leniency for him for that; imagine teaching 500+ students after having your PhD for like four months. He also is not an inorganic chemist and had a multitude of things happening personally in this life. I feel for the man and have nothing but love and admiration for him as a person, especially a POC in STEM where I know sometimes there’s the added pressure of feeling like you represent everyone in your demographic. I also think while a good amount of these reviews make some valid points, they are written by the same vindictive people that decided to constantly berate him in a chat, vilifying his personal life (he’s a human he can make ig posts and have a goddman life y’all) culminating in a very miscalculated letter detailing just how privileged they were. Fulton was not perfect, not by a long shot. He showed up to class late and if he showed up on time, then he started late. He did not come super well prepared with examples and used slides from another professor that he was not familiar with that led to pretty par lecturing, riddled with mistakes. His tests constantly required corrections and grading was a crapshoot. However, it was not ungodly unbearable. He never sat there and said what can I do to make these kids cry or be unhappy. He genuinely cared and tried to actively help. What was awful was that the students in the lecture would yell at him in class or verbally attack him continually throughout lectures like uncivilized monkeys. Also the 3 p.m. lecture never. shut. up. and. talked. the. entire. class. long. That being said this class was a failure because the chemistry department let it be. They somehow lost Tobo who was an experienced o-chem teacher and then decided to put Fulton, wholly unsupported, into this spot. And they knew what was going on the entire quarter. And they let it happen. They knowingly ignored the situation and hoped it would resolve itself. The TA’s were phenomenal (we love u alpha <3 n jessica too) and also apparently there was a lot of drama on the inside of the course. The ultimate grading was incredibly lenient, but I, like a large portion of the people in this course, am infinitely disappointed that I learned very little and am going into 14D entirely unprepared. There was little work that in hindsight made it easy, but it was incredibly stressful during the course. That all being said, give Fulton some time to find his groove and I do not doubt that one day he will be a fantastic professor. And please everyone, be kind.

I originally thought this professor was going to be really great because on the first day of lecture he said he wanted us to prioritize our mental health. However, the way he runs the class has strained my mental health as I feel as though I'm spending all my time teaching myself the material. Lecture itself is definitely not sufficient enough to do well in this class and we never know what is expected from us. Fulton is constantly giving us the wrong information, that when applied on tests, causes us to get some points marked off. It's unfair that he tried to make the second midterm harder because the first midterm's average was high. If he isn't going to teach us at all, he shouldn't give us random and difficult questions on material he's never mentioned during lecture. Even a TA said she got the midterm 2 multiple choice problems wrong when she attemped the test herself. How is it fair to determine our aptitude based on problems he never taught us and is at the difficulty level that a graduate student would get confused by? He isn't receptive to student feedback, especially when it comes to the timing of the tests.

I don't believe the deflation of our grade is representative of our abilities in o chem. I worked hard to teach myself, went to every office hour, did every problem set, searched for online problems, and yet I feel as though it doesn't matter if they're intentionally lowering our average. I just wish he cared about us by listening to what we say or AT LEAST did one type of problem in class that is representative of our tests.

Also, the disorganization is insane. At this point, I never believe anything Fulton says/promises anymore. Lying to us a few times because he has other commitments seem understandable, but he's literally lied to us every time he gives us any date deadline. At this point, it's not even reflective of circumstance, it's just reflective of his character. The TAs seemed to not be on the same page when it comes to the test material. I went to one TA office hour and he said we would be tested on amino acids for midterm 2 which is the most random thing ever and shows how unfunctional this class is. This class has given me a 10-week headache and I want the pain to stop.

He had a bad rep and had a lot going against him with the department but he tried.

Fulton appears to be far more concerned with "winning" than actually teaching the class. He does not release anything in any semblance of a timely manner and is extremely disorganized when it comes to this class. Lectures seem half ad-libbed and he constantly makes promises that are never kept. Exams cover material found on Khan Academy but not in lecture, and practice problems, readings, and reference materials are released at 3am the day of the exam. He can't even book additional rooms for a midterm properly... the 11am lecture showed up to the indicated room only to find another class already there! Furthermore, he never responds to emails from students. When asked, he even admits to reading the email but never bothering to respond.

Tl;dr: Take this class if you like stressing over unpredictable exams and enjoy teaching yourself organic chemistry. Why I pay tuition for some guy to teach organic chemistry only to have to teach it to myself is honestly beyond me.

Organic chemistry is inherently a difficult subject.
Tests will, therefore, be difficult.
The average test scores will be LOW.

But when you put all the blame on the professor and not on yourself, something is seriously wrong. Some of my peers would spend copious amounts of time dissing him in group chats, threatening to report him to the chemistry department, or complaining about the class daily, instead of putting the time in to actually LEARN the material.

I have a lot of sympathy for Dr. Fulton. It is his first time teaching a college course and he has been faced with many entitled students (many of whom I am ashamed to be associated with--it's highkey embarrassing). They attack his character more than his teaching, when in reality Dr. Fulton is a funny, empathetic, and very smart guy. He listened to students' requests and gave us one take-home quiz, many extra credit points, dropped an unfair question, and is allowing for the final to replace one of the midterms if that leads to a better grade for the individual. In addition to that, the first midterm and both quizzes were very fair and not too hard in my opinion.

That being said, I do believe Dr. Fulton can improve his teaching style. His lectures could be more structured (i.e. using clickers) and organized. He also needs to get on a better schedule of providing test materials earlier than the morning of the exam (at 4am). He also needs to recognize that coming into lecture late gives his students a bad impression from the start.
However, I believe these are easy fixes to make.

For me personally, I thought the class was very manageable as long as you put some amount of work in outside of class.

ALSO, the TA's for the class were AMAZING and I am so thankful for them. Their review sessions provided a lot of clarity.

Professor Fulton was a fair professor and did his best to address the grievances of the students. My biggest complaint about him is that he was very unorganized, and barely assigned readings and practice problems. His tests were pretty fair, with the exception of one question on midterm 2 (he gave everyone points for it), and grading was extremely, extremely lenient. He gave everyone ten extra credit points on the final because he failed to do clicker questions like promised. He also offered to drop the lowest midterm score if you did better on the final.

Dr. Fulton was definitely not the best, but the students were far worse. They constantly talked over him in every single lecture, criticized him for everything he did, even when it wasn't really his fault or that big of a deal. They picked him apart for any little thing, jumping at everything they could to prove his incompetence. The students in this class were incredibly rude, and never respected Dr. Fulton from day one, perhaps due to reasons besides his teaching. Thus, I would take some of these reviews and the unfairly low reviews with a grain of salt. He really wasn't that bad, basically everyone in the class got As. This class was a bit of a mess but given that he was thrown into this class days before school began, I think he has a lot of potential to be a great professor in the future (hopefully, with more supportive, respectful students).

I’m actually disgusted by the behavior of my fellow classmates. Yes, this was not the best quarter, and he was not the best teacher. However, he was a last minute addition to the course, had just gotten his PhD, and was teaching a room of hundreds of students based on someone else’s slides.

Fulton does need to work on his organization and time management. There were multiple occasions in which materials were sent out late, and exams scores were posted long after he said they would be. We spent more time than we needed to on material in the beginning of the quarter, leaving less time for the more difficult material near the end.

I do feel as if the people in my lecture would have been able to learn more if they spent more time listening to Fulton and less time complaining about him. Quite a few people I sat near spent a good chunk of lecture time either not paying attention or making fun of him, then would later act surprised when material he’d explained appeared on an exam. Also, some of the interjections made during lecture were rude and uncalled for. We are adults. We should not be behaving like entitled children.

Many of these reviews were made in wake of the release of the scores of the second midterm, which was unusually difficult in comparison to other exams in the course and had a much lower average. This, in part, was due to Fulton including material we had not covered in lecture and using charts we were unfamiliar with. Having realized this, the second midterm grade was dropped. This is already on top of the grading curve in the course that almost ensures a student will pass if they were paying attention in the course.

While I am not confident that I am as prepared as I should be for 14D, and I do agree that Fulton has faults that need to be addressed, many of my classmates have engaged in entitled, inappropriate behavior that affected their own ability to learn, and that shows in some of the reviews here. I have faith that Fulton is able to learn from this quarter and improve his teaching for the future.

Fulton was a first year professor at UCLA and he honestly did a not bad job. He was very knowledgeable about each topic but his lectures just needed to be more in depth and clear. Some topics he didnt have a lot of tine to speak about so he assigned readings that somewhat helped. He didn't assign a lot of homework problems with answers so it was hard to find a lot of practice. He also took a long time to upload quizzes and exams (two midterms, two quizzes). Overall, the major problem was that we felt there wasn't a lot of guidance but that comes with more experience as this was his first teaching experience! There is a lot of room to improve but he honestly didn't do terrible. The part that I liked about his way of teaching was that he included many examples and showed the process of many problems and always answered questions. I'd say not to be too stressed or scared to have him as a professor.

I probably wouldn’t take this class with Fulton again, but also I’m guessing most students will feel inclined to give him a terrible review solely based off this one quarter. That’s pretty fair, but considering he was hired as a last minute replacement and has never taught here before (or at all?) I would give him a chance to get better at lecturing. Dude is also pretty funny and a chill guy, just hoping he gets better at his job lol

This man showed up half an hour late to his own review session, and then proceeded to sit down and watch while the LA taught the review session better than he ever could. I was constantly frustrated as I had to rely on Khan Academy and organic chemistry tutor videos to teach myself the material. He told us not to worry about certain concepts for the midterm, and then proceeded to put them on the test anyway-but maybe that's because he can't even write his own tests. This class put such a strain on my mental health. I cannot stress enough, if you can take it with LITERALLY anyone else, do it.