This was easily my least favorite class I've taken at UCLA; this is not the fault of Dr. Ngo since I think she made the best out of a bad course structure. First off, requiring that students pay over $50 dollars for all of the lab materials and textbooks is utterly asinine. Why is a flame retardant lab coat required when we barely even work with flame to begin with? Can the university point to a single experiment that requires a flame retardant coat over a normal run of the mill lab coat? Why isn't the textbook available in a PDF format for students to view online? In fairness, Dr. Ngo did make the week 1 required reading available on BruinLearn, but only did this for the first week. The UCLA textbook cartel must've gotten to her. When did lab glasses/goggles become the responsibility of the student to purchase? Classes that require this form of investment are borderline predatory in my opinion, especially when half the materials we are forced to buy feel useless and completely arbitrary. This feels even worse once you realize that the TAs know the order of the experiments, and write the steps to the experiments on their slideshows. It's not like you're tested on what's in the textbook, so the whole thing just feels like one large scam. There is not a single element in this textbook that helps students engage in 14BLs content, since everything the textbook covers is also covered by the TAs, lecture slides, and pre lab/post lab instructions. It's really a shame.

Apart from the utter scam that is the textbook, the class is... ok? Labs make up a large portion of your grade, so pray to god that you have a TA that grades generously. If your TA is a stickler for the fine details, you will suffer immensely (since TAs can take off points for formatting, significant figures, chart titles, chart accuracy, etc). It is mildly annoying that significant figures matter so much, but you get used to this quirk over time. My TA (Jae) was awesome, she always told me where I made mistakes and seemed to grade easier as time went on. The labs (especially the pre labs) did feel like needless busy work. For example, every pre lab asked you to make a flowchart of the experiment. This felt useless, since you were allowed to bring the textbook with you (plus the instructions were written on the board most of the time). These labs are not hard to perform in any capacity, and any roadblocks you may run into can easily be solved by your TA.

The exams make up such a tiny portion of your grade (12% for the MT and 28% for the final). If you have a great lab score and good midterm score, you can basically score a high D on the final and still recieve an A in the class (I think I needed around a 77%). Keep in mind, the cutoff for an A is 90%, not a 93% like in most classes. The midterm felt very fair, just review the lecture slides and go over the practice problems. It was online, Dr. Ngo was very flexible regarding the time, so you could start the midterm sooner or later in the week depending on your midterm schedule. The same applies to the final (though it was in person). I did not attend a single lecture (since they were at 8AM and were not recorded for some strange reason), and I received an A on both exams, just by going over some of the concepts presented in the slides and the posted practice problems. Dr. Ngo actively wants you to succeed in the class!

Overall, this class feels like an utter scam, and I hope the feds shut down this money laundering scheme at some point, but Dr. Ngo is easily one of the best professors you can take this god forsaken class with.

The class was not podcasted, which was unfortunate since it was an 8 am lecture. Everything on your grade depends on your TA. My TA was a really harsh grader on pre and post labs, and that dragged my grade down. The lectures are easy to follow and the labs are interesting, and the professor is helpful if you go to her office hours or email her.

Ngo was cool and nice but the 8am lectures that were not recorded were horrendous I know that is not her fault but it would been really nice is she shared her screen on zoom and presented recording herself. I think using the practice marterials that she has posted will be helpful and and I hope her review tomorrow will be helpful as when we did practice questions in class they were helpful.

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..