I would not recommend to take this class with Scerri unless you absolutely have to. The grade is divided 30% for sapling quizzes, 30% for the midterm, and 40% for the final. The class is essentially asynchronous and I ended up watching all of the lectures on 1.5 or 2 speed the next day. The lectures only consisted of him reading through the (already posted) lecture slides but, occasionally, he would add new information or complain about how few people had their cameras on.
There are 5 sapling quizzes, all due at the end of the quarter. The questions come from the textbook and there was some overlap to the class content, but just as much content was never introduced during lecture. I would not recommend reading the textbook or doing the practice problems because there is just too much of a disconnect from the actual, tested class content.
The midterm and the final were excessively long and tedious. If you took AP Chem, the midterm should not be too difficult but towards the end of the course there is a good amount of new material that you will have to study in depth. Thankfully Scerri posted practice tests that were in the same format as both exams which were helpful for studying for the exams. Discussion was not mandatory, but I wish I went more often since the TAs essentially review the material from the past week. You can go to any section so I would recommend asking around to see which TA is the best.

I feel like Dr. Scerri is not given enough credit for the time he invests in his students. To me, it seemed that he answered every relevant question asked of him, and he always made time for students to voice their confusions. Some people complain that he brushes students off & appears condescending, but I think they were just misunderstanding him. He has a good sense of humor & sometimes shows his cats on camera-- he is a nice guy.
While I did struggle with many of the concepts taught in this course, I believe that was a result of my own lack of preparedness for this class. I did not have a strong chemistry foundation coming in, and I was very quickly overwhelmed, but that is to be expected of a college-level chemistry course-- it's gonna take some work to get the grade you want, don't expect it to come easy. If I really tried to concentrate on the material during lecture, I understood it. Dr. Scerri is a clear lecturer if you really listen to him. Although I sometimes found his slides kind of confusing and disorganized, if you asked him to clarify them, he would.
The bottom line is that this class is difficult in that there is a large amount of material you are expected to learn, but you are totally capable of learning it if you're willing to put in the work. Dr. Scerri provides many resources to facilitate student learning, including recorded lectures, lecture slides, practice problems, office hours, and a textbook.

Okay here's the thing.

Scerri is a terrible teacher. His lectures are disorganized and confusing, and he's not exactly eager to help students. HOWEVER . . . his exams are very predictable and easy to study for, and he grades entirely on a curve which really helped me out.

My recommendation? Take this class with him, but don't expect lecture to help you. Watch Professor Dave Explains on Youtube and study off past exams. You'll be fine.

This class was extremely fair, the midterm/final were based off of previous years exams... so literally study those and you will be fine! My only chem experience was Honors Chem from sophomore year and I wouldn't say that was helpful at all. Many of the concepts he goes over in class aren't too hard and there are tons of videos on the internet that will help you understand the concepts more if you need.

Overall, the workload for this class was extremely light and many of the test questions were pulled straight from lecture/previous exams. Scerri himself is not that most helpful or best lecturer, but the TAs were generally helpful. I would highly recommend looking at various TAs worksheets when studying for the exams.

Scerri is VERY conceptual-heavy in his teaching, which translates into his tests, as well. I've heard other professors focus a lot on calculations like stoichiometry and energy equations, but Scerri will gloss over those and delve into pros and cons of periodic table types and the history of different theories, even beginning the course with a sort of philosophy of science. This somewhat makes his tests easier, which are extremely fair and if you pay attention, you will do well.

His tests are predominantly short answer, one being a midterm and one being a final. The third part of your grade are these 4 super easy online quizzes using Thinkwell (which yes, you do have to pay $25 for) where you get 3 chances at each quiz to get a 100.

His lectures are quite fast-paced and unhelpful because he covers so many topics in such a short amount of time, but expects you to know them quite well. So hope you have a good TA (avoid Maryam at all costs) or take advantage of his office hours, where he is much more helpful.

Chemistry for life science doesn't sound like a daunting class, as it is a course required for all life science majors, however when taught my Professor Scerri, it is quite excruciating. I am yet to have a professor that provides less clarity, helpfulness, or desire for student success. Scerri is evidently a successful chemist who has been placed in an undergraduate class and hates his job. He rambled and over complicated nearly every chemistry principle in lecture and provided difficult, morale shattering midterms and finals. I dropped the class after the first midterm because though I needed the class, I couldn't stand being in such an unwelcoming environment. Even the TA's found his techniques and teaching style ineffective and retaught most concepts in an easier way. Not only was he a bad teacher, but there were many times where he insulted the lecture hall insinuating we were unintelligent for our age and college. Over all, if you must taken chem 14A, I would avoid Dr. Scerri even if it means waiting an extra quarter, or even a year.

If you can take ANY other professor I would recommend it. Chemistry is already hard enough to learn without a professor who tries to make everything as confusing and difficult as possible. The midterm and final makeup almost all of your grade and there is basically no partial credit. The only positive about this class is that there is basically no homework and as long as you complete the take home quizzes correctly you can get an easy 100% on that section of the grading. The lectures are poorly organized and jump around to different topics frantically so only take this class from prof Scerri if you already have a confident base knowledge about chemistry.

If you have taken AP Chem or have a strong background in chem, I'm sure you'd do fine in the class. But for those who don't, this might be a more difficult class especially with Scerri. Scerri's slides and lecture in general is so disorganized and it's hard to follow along. He tends to embarrass others during lectures when questions are asked as well. I will say that the exams are pretty fairly made and his past exams are extremely similar. We only had achieve quizzes that are due at the end of the quarter. So our grades were only based on the midterm, final, and achieve quizzes; I think this makes its harder to achieve a better grade in the class. If you can take this class with another Professor, I definitely recommend doing so!

He's literally not that bad lol. I went in expecting way worse and I came out with an A+ without putting in THAT much extra effort. I watched some supplemental videos when it came to the quantum stuff but otherwise I reviewed his slides, did the mandatory achieve homework, did the provided practice/former exams that are incredibly similar to his actual exams, and I went to zoom office hours a few times. He's straightforward and concise which can make it hard to initially grasp the material beyond a surface level understanding but as long as you study (which any college course will require you to do), you will be fine. He's not the best professor I've ever had but I still enjoyed his class and think he's over-hated.

Scerri does NOT communicate well and there are errors in the answer key, literally always

Grade Scheme: 30% quizzes (unlimited retakes) + 30% Midterm + 40% Final

Participation not counted, can just watch recording.

Still, really easy to get a high grade with little effort if you already know chem, if not, then you just have to put in some work. He's not that bad guys.