Okay so coming from a low education background, this was my first REAL chemistry class. And oh my goodness, this professor made me hate chemistry.

I honestly believe that this class is just dependent on how you learn... and I've met people who really like Scerri as a professor. But he just wasn't it for me. Hardly anything stuck and I found it hard to find the correlation between some concepts and what we were talking about last week. Again, might just be me, but I feel like I didn't learn much coming out of this class and was just scraping by.

All in all, easy workload (as long as you don't put it off) and an okay class. Not my vibe though.

I agree with what people said below. Just make sure to include EVERY detail on the test. That makes all the difference. You may know the problem like the back of your hand, but if you leave out some minor detail, they leave out some major points. Oh, and make sure you have a good TA.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR LIKE THE REVIEW BEFORE ME SAID HE IS QUITE LITERALLY A MENACE TO SOCIETY. First off, Scerri grades on a bell curve. If that did not scare you off then you should know for this quarter, he refused to make the final online, despite the fact that there were not enough TAs left to proctor the exam because of the strike, and he also did not allow us to ask any questions during the final exam. During the actual final he forgot to add multiple equations onto the equations sheet and literally had to add them onto the board mid-final, and also began throwing random questions out, making the final out of 41 questions instead of 45, thereby increasing our chances of receiving a worse score. When asked about final grades, Scerri left a very passive-aggressive email, literally stating that he "very much doubt[s] that there are errors since I have done this work myself rather than leaving it to TAs who don't have as much experience compiling grades" and then proceeded to blame the entire situation on the TA strike. He also managed to lose my friend's final and then proceeded to accuse her of not even taking the exam, despite the fact that there were multiple witnesses of people who saw her turn it in. Scerri is quite possibly the worst professor I have ever taken a class with at this school and is a disappointment to UCLA.

DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS! HE IS THE WORST! YOU WILL FAIL AND CRY AND SUFFER!

The Chem 14 series is just hard altogether, there is no "easy" professor, especially if you don't know how you learn. With that being said, GOODLUCK. Try new methods, and rely on yourself rather than the professor! I personally liked Scerri for 14A, but don't rely on my review

Oh where to start with Professor Scerri. As you can probably tell by the other reviews, Dr. Scerri is not a very good lecturer. His slides are extremely confusing and he often gets confused trying to explain them to us. More often than not, a TA or student has to correct him because he gets confused. Apart from the bad lectures, the tests are not only very difficult but are also a huge time crunch. The practice exams he gives out are so much easier and shorter than the actual tests (they also have incorrect answers on them). The midterm he gave us was 7 free response questions with like 4 or 5 parts each in 2.5 hours. I barely had time to finish despite going fast; I did not have time to check my answers, but Scerri obviously did not take any criticism the class had for him because he did the same thing for the final. He said he would try to make it better by adding multiple choice questions, but those MC questions each had 5 to 7 parts as well. So he ended up giving us 6 free response with parts a,b,c,d,e along with 12 extra questions for multiple choice. He said this was to deter cheating to make sure we couldn't consult anyone else in the class, but many people along with me could barely even finish on time.

In addition, he doesn't seem to actually have much regard for his students, unless you're one of his favorites. One time in lecture, someone asked why he used a certain amount of sig figs when dealing with pH which was a valid question because it was confusing and he answered with "have you been coming to lecture?". This was a completely inappropriate response. I had come to every lecture and he had barely gone over that concept and I found his entire demeanor to be very condescending and smug. On multiple occasions you can literally see him rolling his eyes at some questions also.

Personally, I did not enjoy 14B with Scerri, but it is possible to get a good grade if you commit yourself. Honestly, the best way to study for his tests are to do the exams he gives out as practice (and ignore the incorrect answers he gives), and watch a lot of the Organic Chemistry Tutor on YouTube. If you have to take 14B with Scerri, I wish you the best.

Scerri is the worst teacher I've ever had. He's a MESS and very unorganized. During lecture, the only material he uses are powerpoint slides, which are some of the ugliest and longest slides I've ever seen, that have a lot mistakes. Even though he only reads from the slides as his "lecture," he somehow confuses and contradicts himself throughout the lecture (this happened on multiple occasions). When students ask him questions about the content on the slides, all he does is respond by repeating what's on the slide and doesn't actually respond to their question. Also, the practice problems are elementary questions that aren't even close to the difficulty of the exams. In order to learn the material, Khan Academy, the Organic Chemistry tutor, and your TA (if you can get Kevin, GET HIM, literally the best TA.) will be your best friend.

As for exams, they are really LONG (midterm was 6 questions with 3+ parts and the final was 7 questions with 4+ parts). The questions can be really tricky because they aren't like the ones on his slides or on Achieve. The best way to prep for them is to use practice exams because he does recycle questions.

At the beginning of the quarter, Scerri assigns a bunch of Achieve/Sapling quizzes (worth 30% of your grade) that's due at the end of the quarter. Achieve is probably almost as bad as Scerri ngl. The man even said that some of the content covered in Achieve are out of the scope of the course, but of course he still assigns it. Literally the only good thing about Achieve is that there's unlimited attempts.

Finally, the worse thing about Scerri and his class is the way he grades. THIS MAN STILL GRADES ON A BELL CURVE. Like what other professor still grades on a bell curve. It doesn't help him or students, like it's even more work for him to do the math. It also forces us to compete against each other rather than help and feel for one another. Although the curve can help you, it can also SCREW you over like me 🤡. Before adding the curve I had a solid A, but after the curve HE CURVED ME DOWN TO AN A-. Never think your grade is fine in this class.

IF YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO SKIP SCERRI, SKIP SCERRI. TAKE 14B WITH ANOTHER PROFESSOR OR WAIT FOR THE NEXT QUARTER TO TAKE IT. AVOID THE PTSD (POST TRAUMATIC SCERRI DISORDER).

This was my first ever chemistry class and I have left this class absolutely hating chemistry. I read all the reviews beforehand and thought to myself that this class can't be that bad and is probably manageable but I could not be more wrong. Scerri has ZERO organization on his CCLE site and his lectures make absolutely no sense and consist of him jumping from one topic to another back and forth. I did not even know what the topics were so I can study on my own since there is no OUTLINE. The exams were extremely long for the duration and I have not learned one topic in this entire class which will harm me going forward in the course as he is the only professor teaching 14B next quarter too. This class was so bad that I almost dropped and changed to a non-stem major every week. DO NOT EXPECT TO LEARN ANYTHING.

Said this for 14A too but he's literally not that bad. If anything, he was better for 14B by a large margin. My friends that took 14B with other professors had a way worse time because the exams were harder. At least Scerri's exams are graded with partial credit in mind. He reuses a lot of questions from former exams that he provides which were my main source of studying. He had a lot of in class practice problems that were really similar to exam questions too. Attendance wasn't mandatory but I went to lectures because they were interesting enough and he's a funny and unpredictable guy. Idk I think people just hate him because they don't know how to self-study and they get mad when they don't get an A despite the class having enough resources to succeed if you put in the work. The TAs were great and made so many exam study resources that were posted for the entire class to use.

Do not take this class. This is my second class with this professor and I can officially state that I have retained and understand ZERO information. His slides are so confusing and he runs through 100+ slides in 50 minutes. His lectures consist of him reading off slides and even reading the solutions to practice problems without actually going through the way to get the answer. Chemistry is not supposed to be taught this way! It should be progressive and the professor should work throw the answer, not just read the answer off of two long slides in a few seconds as if anyone would understand that. The TA strike after midterms also meant that there were no sections so any chance of understanding the content outside of his lecture was destroyed and there was zero support given from TAs when it was needed the most. The achieve quizzes are SO long and tedious that it felt like I had numerous final exams for the class. The class is graded in the most confusing way ever that it isn't even possible to know what grade you're at and what the curve is. This is the worst class and professor I've ever encountered.