I think that the assignments are her downfall. Why am I spending 3 hours creating a flow chart that is in a book that I spent a fortune on? I don't understand why anyone would make us write a flowchart that is literally in the book that we were FORCED to buy. The professor is fine, but the overall structure of the assignments make zero sense and impose quite a few problematic economic hardships..

This was probably the most annoying class I have ever taken just in terms of how unfair the final exam was. The midterm was fine, it was open note and online and the questions were very fair. Before the midterm, she gave us a practice exam and the questions on the practice problems she gave us were very similar to the midterm. We did not get a practice exam for the final and I reviewed all of the practice problems for the final and the final was NOTHING like the practice questions. People in my lecture hall were quite literally laughing when they opened the final exam because the questions were so ridiculous. Not to mention, the labs for this class are incredibly tedious. If you can take this class with another professor, I would recommend doing that.

This class's workload is not that bad. Pre-labs and post-labs take a couple of hours and are tedious, but the work itself is not too hard if you did well in Chem 14B. The labs can be long, but most of the time they were short enough that we were able to leave early, and we had a couple of weeks without lab which was nice. The midterm was fair but unforgiving because it was multiple choice/short answer on Bruinlearn, and there were no partial credit for a lot of the questions. Now the final -- a lot of people were worried about that coming into this class because of the Bruinwalk reviews. Here are my 2 cents: the final questions are a level harder than the practice problems she gives, but they are doable if you are comfortable with all of the practice problems. You should be comfortable doing hardest practice problem for each topic (ex: calculating relative error using volumetric devices, calculating equivalence pt, etc.)!! You should know EVERY example that is on her slides!!! EVERY EXAMPLE! If you took LS30A/B, the questions on the final relative to Chem 14BL are as hard or slightly easier than LS30A/B exams. For our class, she curved the final exam. She also gave a few bonus points at the final and for completing the feedback forms. The threshold for an A was also lower (90%). This class is definitely NOT an easy A. I believe that I barely scraped by with an A. But it is doable. And Professor Ngo is good at teaching. She is very clear with her slides.

Professor doesn't record lectures but will show up five minutes late to her 8am and expect you to stay after. It's ridiculous and the lectures are no help whatsoever. Sig figs will make or break your grade, alongside what TA you have so generally a biased and unfair class not to mention the final was terrible. I don't think it's completely unmanagable to get an A if you have a good TA and clutch up for the final.

The final was ridiculous. The prelabs and postlabs are just tedious busy work that take hours. Crazy that this class is only 3 units when you have an hour lecture, 3-hour lab, and hours worth of prelabs/postlabs every week. And the cherry on top is the final exam (which literally everyone I talked to said they basically dropped an entire letter grade after).

Even the smallest mistakes on lab reports are not tolerated. On the final I thought I had done well, but checked my grade and turned out to be a C. TA are very harsh graders, and I have heard this from other students with multiple TA's. As someone who had done all experiments perfectly and 90% of the problems after correct, I was thoroughly disappointed in my grade and it was not a reflection of the effort or mastery I had put into this course. Some speculated grade deflation in the Group ME chat.

I thought this class was super manageable. Yes, it is a lot of work but thats expected in a lab class bc you have pre/post labs each week. I think Ngo does a great job teaching and the labs were a super awesome learning opportunity. However, the final was obnoxiously hard and had me doing math that I had never once done for the class. I took this class a full year after 14B so that may just be a me problem, but her questions were so out of left field that people were crying and laughing during the final. With that being said, I think that if you find a previous final of hers as others have mentioned on this page you should be fine.

I enjoyed doing hands-on lab work, so this class was definitely fun for me. My TA was also very chill, and our labs never took the whole time. Having a competent lab partner is important because there are some group post-labs. If you have any questions working on the pre-lab, go to a TA's office hours and they'll probably pull up the key, tell you whether your answer is right or wrong, and guide you in the correct direction.

As for the exams, the midterm was okay (required understanding of everything on her slides), but the final definitely seemed a bit striking in terms of question format to some. I was able to obtain one of her past finals so I was mentally prepared for the type of questions she has. She loves putting lots of scenarios and test your analysis of the data (so essentially post-labs but without the step-by-step guide). Lots of calculations, and requires actual understanding of the material. Again, I think it's because people are not used to the question type and were just thrown off. Just content-wise, it's less content than 14B, so it's not too tedious to study for. The one key to acing exams is just practice practice practice (with her problem sets, with post-labs, with previous exams, with outside problems). No shortcut to take.

Chau is a really sweet professor, and she's decent at teaching. Overall definitely would recommend.

The final was absolutely insane. Everyone I talked to said their grade dropped at least a whole letter after it. Plus, the materials for this class are so expensive, and the assignments are so long and tedious and just feel like busy work. No 3 unit class should have me stressing this hard.

The entire was quarter was chill, and I never lost more than one point on my labs because I was so on top of it and had a generally strong idea of the material. However, her final was genuinely the most foul switch up ever— I literally had an A+ until the final which dropped my grade MORE than a letter. I had Scerri 14B and I would argue this final was WAYYY harder than that. I’m so sad because I have never gotten anything lower than an A- in my three years here and I’m genuinely in shock that a LAB CLASS tanked my gpa 🥲 just pissed overall (and salty)