Talk about an absolute disaster. In previous quarters, it seems as though his lecturing style may have largely been the same, but the tests/quizzes, as previously mentioned, were written by generous TA's with material pulled directly from the homework. Therefore, any student willing to put in a basic level of effort into the class would, without a doubt, get an A.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

Baugh, based on students' previous end-of-term comments, has decided that he would start writing the tests and quizzes himself. One would think that this would be a good thing, but this judgement could not be further from the truth. Before I even talk about the material covered by the questions, I must address how they were written. Every single form of assessment has had some form of crippling error/lack of clarity (ESPECIALLY the 1st midterm, which would have been strictly impossible had the TA's not rushed in to clarify basic grammatical or numerical errors in the writing of the questions). In discussion sessions, even the TA's are not sure what could have possibly been on Baugh's mind when writing them.

On either of the midterms, the questions themselves were, in fairness, a mixed bag. While about 1/3 of the questions had clear influences from the homework, allow me to be clear: there was no case, either on a quiz or a midterm, where a question asked on the midterm was of comparable difficulty to a question asked on the homework. The 1st quiz had one question based on the homework that was far harder than any homework question. The 1st midterm, same deal but with two questions. The 2nd midterm had a question on molecular geometry that was legitimately impossible to complete based on knowledge that one would have gotten from completing the homework - it would have required prior knowledge of geometry not covered in the class.

On a 6 question midterm, one could expect two problems with faint roots from the homework, two problems based on the reading, one question based on some topic that was particularly stressed in lecture, and a final question on a topic with origin unbeknownst to anybody, including the TA's. This would be alright, if there was some form of overlap between these materials. Unfortunately, all of the material covered by each of these ideas is completely mutually exclusive - the textbook is weak in that the problems rarely have anything to do with the reading, and Baugh is on a whole other tangent altogether.

In short, do not be deceived by previous grading curves in this class. I have yet to see the final or my final grade in the class, and, despite my scoring significantly above the average on every single assessment thus far, I could hardly have less confidence in what my final grade will be based on the grading system in the class (midterms don't even matter). Beren may appear to have a harder grading curve, but I assure you, it is a strictly easier and less stressful environment than you will ever be in while in Baugh's class.

Before the quarter started, I read the reviews and thought it would be an easy A, probably pretty rough, but I also wondered how bad it could really be. Well it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought; it was a thousand times worse.
Apparently in past years TAs made the tests so they were super easy as long as you did the homework, but this year for some reason Baugh started to write them himself. So not only are you not learning the material, but the tests aren't even similar to assigned homework problems. One time someone asked my TA what topics might be on a quiz and she said she had no idea, Baugh didn't even tell them. It was like lecture and section were for two completely different classes. Granted, I only went to lecture a total of maybe 10 times, and that's a generous estimate; he was such a confusing lecturer I swear not one person in that 300 person class could comprehend what he was trying to teach us. The only reason I learned anything was because of the textbook and from Derek the TA (I wasn't enrolled in his section but he was extremely helpful!). Midterm averages were 78 and then 70, with highs on both being 100 and low scores 16 and 5--yes, percent. And he does not curve anything because of his stupid grading scale!! It's a 1000-point system so any points you lose on the 400-point midterm get added to the final. Normally this makes the class average an A, but since the tests were so hard I think he said this year would be a B average, which is actually quite impressive, considering I don't feel like I actually came close to learning all of the course material. Also, he was so unorganized that he ended up having to take out 2 chapters from the final that were originally listed in the syllabus, and tried to teach an entire chapter at the review session 2 days before the final exam.
I have no idea what my final grade will be, but I wanted to write this review ASAP after having finished the course. Final verdict: avoid Baugh at all costs.
Also, this man cancelled office hours the day before the final. That's all.

Are you religious? If you aren't, it's best to start praying now.

If you love off-topic lectures, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you love not understanding anything in class, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you love being entirely dependent on your TA to learn any of the material, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you like not knowing whether you will have an A or an F at the end of the quarter, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you like suspiciously seeing "grade changed" on your transcript, even when it didn't, then Baugh is the professor for you.
If you like not attending pointless lectures, then Baugh is the professor for you.
Baugh was not the professor for me.

Google photos of train wrecks and pictures of this class might just come up. Baugh is just the worst, and his lectures are like watching paint dry if except instead of drying the paint is trying to explain chemistry in what sounds to be English but is, in fact, some remix on the English language where individual words make sense but the sentence they form might as well be some undiscovered form of Hebrew that linguists can only one day dream of being able deciphering. Imagine the verbal clarity of an alcoholic bum on a week-long bender combined with the knowledge of Erwin Schrödinger himself and you will have Delroy Baugh. I do not doubt that Baugh is one of the smartest people to grace the presence of UCLA however he is just an awful professor. His lectures and his homework may be entirely redundant, but I would be lying if his discussions weren't the most valuable 50 minutes you'll ever spend in a classroom on this fine campus. If you get a good TA, they will explain the major concepts of this class with such clarity that you'll be shocked that it took Baugh an hour to explain what atoms look like and how little you understood of whatever the hell he just said. GO to the discussions. The tests are hard, or easy, or sort of OK, who knows? I don't... sometimes I'd get full points on five part questions I wrote down two words for and other times my work would be spotless and get no credit. I got an A- so I guess that's worth something. The most reassuring thing about this class, however, is that no one else knows what's going on and you can all take comfort in the fact that you're going through this crap-chute together, even TAs who will at time give you the most emotionally crushing looks and admit right to your face that they too have no idea what is going on.

DO NOT TAKE BAUGH. Also, skip 20A if you can, it's quantum chem and I've heard from people who took 20B and above that you don't need it for the other classes. Everyone signed up for this class because of the very generous grading of the two previous years. However, it seems the department got mad at him for giving too many As (more than 90%), so he changed it so that the average of the class was a B. At least that's what he said. I got an A and I really don't know how if he grades how he says he grades because I would've needed an A on the final and I definitely didn't get one. So in retrospect, I would guess most people got pretty good grades and I don't know if I believe that the average was only a B. However, the only good thing I can say is that I got a good grade. I was stressed, annoyed, and learned absolutely nothing and would've failed if it weren't for the cheat sheets.
The way his grading works: 2 quizzes, each worth 10%, 2 midterms, each worth 20%, and a final, worth 40%. However, any points you miss on the midterms you can get back on the final (does not apply to the quizzes). For example, if you only get 100/200 on the first midterm, it will go into the gradebook as 100/100 and your final will now be out of 500 points (50% of your grade). This makes the midterms practically meaningless and thus stress-free (although you should still study for your peace of mind and to avoid a mental breakdown before the final) and the quizzes REALLY IMPORTANT. If you do well on the quizzes and badly on the midterms you are much better off than someone who does the opposite. Also, he reuses some of the questions from previous quizzes/midterms and he will tell you that he's going to do that. Each midterm had 6 questions and 1 of the questions had been on the previous quizzes/midterms. The final had 8 questions and 3 of those were repeats. He also allowed you to make very large cheat sheets (1 page front and back for each midterm and 2 pages front and back for the final). Those were the only nice things about his tests. The first midterm and quiz were easy, but every other exam was very unpredictable and relatively difficult. Some questions were unclear, confusing, and poorly written. On the final, I asked one of the TAs to clarify a question and he said he didn't know what Baugh meant and had no idea why he put that on the final. The TAs also graded the tests differently.
As to his lectures, as all the other reviews say, don't bother going. I went to most of the lectures, but honestly even when I tried to listen I could not understand a single thing the man was trying to say. Extremely unorganized and confusing. Additionally, later in the quarter there is a lot of math, equations... and the way he shows that in his slides will make you much more confused than if you just read the textbook.

In conclusion:
-Don't take Baugh
If the universe chooses to punish you with a bad enrollment time because you were a bad person and have bad karma and you are forced into this class:
-STUDY FOR QUIZZES
-Write super small on the cheat sheets and fit all of the material on there
-Go to discussion with the good TA, even if he/she is not your TA (shoutout to Derek)
-Go to the good TA's office hours
-Don't go to lecture, and if you go, bring homework from another class
-Read the textbook instead and do all of the example problems and the problems at the end of each chapter (very important)
-Good luck sucker

If you can skip this class and take 20B just skip it its not worth wasting your time and dealing with this class

Oh boy. Where do I even begin with this man. First of all, nothing that he writes on his slides or his emails ever makes complete sense, because he doesn't bother to correct typos or layout the slides in a comprehensible way. To illustrate why this class is so frustrating, allow me to talk about an example of something we learned: Zeff (effective charge). Baugh actually taught Zeff multiple times, and each time he taught DIFFERENT RULES. How was anyone supposed to know how to calculate it when it came time for us to write a 50 point problem on the midterm. The only reason I knew how to do that question was because I went to office hours (which he frequently cancels and moves) and asked him about it relentlessly for like 5 minutes. I feel like I can't even explain just how incomprehensible the lectures were, the material is already tricky enough and he just made it more confusing by putting up variables and equations in a seemingly random arrangement on a powerpoint slide. On top of this, he was extremely flaky and would cancel and move things around at the drop of a hat, which wasted my time on more than one occasion. That being said, I like the guy as a person, he actually is pretty sweet and really REALLY smart, like a genius, he just does not have his sh*t together and that made this class so stressful for no reason. do not take.

Do not take. Baugh changed the class again. In the old days he was notoriously difficult and many people complained about his grading. Then for 2017-2018 he changed and let TAs write the exams. Everyone was getting raw score As. So like everyone else, I took this class because of the grade distribution fully knowing he is such a bad lecturer and I wouldn’t gain anything from it. Well turns out this was a big mistake. Not only were the lecturers absolutely useless (no examples, just rambling) but the exams were now written by Baugh. He wrote stuff completely different from the homework and made no sense with tons of ambiguity. He also would change what topics were on the exam literally the day before or day of for the midterms and final. For the final he said only some sections of ch 6 would be there. But because he broke it up so one of the last sections of ch6 was included, to understand that section you needed all of ch6. So that meant in reality the whole chapter was needed. But here’s the kicker, no section of ch6 was included in lecture. So we had to self teach ourselves. That would be “ok” except the textbook is awful. And that section had Multivariable calculus but this is a freshman class that has Calc 1 as a coreq so you would only get to U substation for integration. Overall this class is awful and no one should take him. Ever. Glad it’s over.

Derek is the best TA ever, and honestly I already accepted that I was going to fail the class early on so I stopped trying but this class definitely is no longer an easy A and despite Baugh not teaching much, look at what sections he’s covering and make sure you know those topics like the back of your hand. Also he’ll include random questions that are on his lectures so those are important too. Also if he says something won’t be on the test/ will don’t trust him, he does whatever he wants. Definitely will never take him again, this taught me the importance of having a decent professor