Professor Scerri is horrible. I agree with the people below that like his course reader because you do not have to buy a textbook, but he is a mess. His lectures are all over the place. His office hours are useless. And his finals are ridiculous. Science majors, there is no way to avoid him...sadly! But if a new teacher comes along...take them no matter what!

He's a great lecturer. BUT he can be very rude and arrogant. I went to his office hours and he was NOT helpful. He was very cold and unwelcoming and repeatedly said "We went over that in lecture". If I had understood it well enough in lecture, I wouldn't have gone to his office hours in the first place! He answered my questions so quickly that he was basically brushing them off. I could tell that he wasn't really interested in repeating himself or trying to explain things clearer in any case.

So basically, a talented man and an organized lecturer, but an arrogant one who doesn't really make teaching his priority.

Very fair class. Although the material during lecture can feel overwhelming, if you go back and go over the slides you should be fine. His tests are VERY fair, he is not trying to trick you at all. I had Lavelle and felt his class was way more work and his tests more complicated than Scerri. Just put in extra work outside of lecture and you should be fine.

For some reason, people are really going off on Dr. Scerri in these reviews. Please DO NOT BE MISLEAD!!!! Dr. Scerri is an amazing person, period. He is a wonderful lecturer, his workload is minimal, and he encourages questions more than any other professor I've had so far. I've had Dr. Scerri for both 14A and 14B and I was honestly nervous to take him at first because of some of the reviews I've read, but he has blown my expectations out of the water.

First, let me start by saying this: we literally have no homework in this class. Our only workload consists of four Thinkwell quizzes which are not bad at all (you get three tries and unlimited time on each one and you're allowed to collaborate, so you can definitely get 100% on all four and this makes up 50% of your grade) and that is it!! He also has suggested problems that he recommends we do but I didn't do a single one of the suggested problems from the textbook and still ended up fine. My biggest advice is to just study his lecture slides and make a study guide using the problems from lecture. Some people say his slides are confusing, but they're honestly really thorough and they're organized in a super strategic way so you can learn by just reading through the slides and referencing your notes.

One thing that I absolutely love about Dr. Scerri is he is SO OPEN to questions. He stops every ten minutes to ask if students have questions and he will answer ALL questions. Literally there were times when people asked him to repeat a whole entire section from lecture and he did it with no hesitation. Even more so, he'll stay a whole HOUR after lecture to answer questions if they take that long! Lecture ended at 1:50pm for us but after lecture, there would always be like five people who stayed until 2:45 or so. After he was done answering all of our questions, he even cared about getting to know us on a personal level and we would all introduce our pets or he would play guitar for us or we would talk about some deep philosophy on life and the universe. Dr. Scerri is absolutely hilarious and maybe some people mistake his sense of humor with arrogance, but he is genuinely just trying to be funny and he has a golden heart. He really cares about his students. He wants you to succeed and he is there for us to help make sure that happens, so take advantage of the resources he offers!

I'm going to miss Dr. Scerri and I would definitely take a class with him again if I could. Out of all my classes at UCLA so far, Dr. Scerri has created one of the most positive and light-hearted atmospheres, such that I enjoyed coming to lecture every day because I always knew I would get a good laugh out of it.

Also, about his exams: I do agree that there was a time crunch on the first midterm, but he was receptive to our concerns and made the final much more manageable timewise. As for the content of the exams, it is very doable. Just study his problems from lecture, and make a study guide!!! My study guide saved me in both the midterm and the final. I didn't do any of the practice exams he posted, but I spent like 20 hours making my study guides and that was enough to get me through.

Take this class if you have the chance! And get to know Dr. Scerri!! Go to his office hours, ask a ton of questions, and turn your cameras on during lecture. Also, stay after lecture because that's when all the fun times happen and you get to meet Dr. Scerri's cats (: Great professor, great person. Would highly recommend.

Chemistry 14B with professor Scerri was honestly a breeze. He was overall very clear during his lectures and provided multiple practice exams to help prepare students for the midterm and final. I found his exams to be very similar to the practice tests which allowed me to so very well in his class. I took him for 14A as well and can say I truly enjoyed his class and am glad I had the opportunity to take them.

Chem 14B with Scerri was honestly a very enjoyable class. I had him for Chem 14A as well! His tests are pretty much based off of content on his slides, if you are unsure of certain concepts just ask him. He uploads the slides online, so you can TECHNICALLY get away with not attending lecture. My advice is to always attend lecture because he emphasizes what he is going to be putting on the midterm/final. Go to the classes before each big test because he does a quick review and he will leak one or two important concepts on the exams. The discussions are not mandatory, but going to them won't hurt you because the TA will help you. He makes a lot of small jokes in class and he is an overall pretty funny person so this class should be enjoyable :P.

I’ve taken him for 14A and 14B, and he just might be my favorite professor so far at UCLA. Scerri is a straightforward lecturer. He gets straight to the point, and doesn’t waste time talking about things you don’t need to know on his tests. Because of this, some people might think he’s “rushing” through his lectures. His past exams are useful. Study those. He also does not curve down, as many people claim. They just don’t know how to calculate their grades correctly.

I felt the need to write this because the reviews for this class made me so extremely nervous but, now, I would have taken it again and honestly wish I could have had him for 14A as well. Dr. Scerri is extremely helpful and always made himself available to his students. I went to office hours and asked so many questions even I felt bad, but he answered them all and never made it feel like a burden (even the office hours before thanksgiving break). He was very clear with the way he answered and went beyond a "yes/no" to help you truly understand. He was transparent with what would be on the midterm and what he thought would not be fair. If you go to office hours, you will know what to expect (especially on the midterm, I feel it was pretty fair- the final was a bit harder but you will be ok)

Dr. Scerri is very funny and it made going to class fun. He would include little jokes here and there. You can tell when he lectures that he is extremely smart and his way of explaining things covers all the bases. most classes confuse me when they try to simplify non-basic things but Dr. Scerri points out the special cases and makes them understandable. Do not be too nervous for this class- sit in the front, go to office hours when you can ! the whole scary scerri is not true and he is honestly very sweet

He curved so that was nice, but the exams were very difficult, often with so many typos that when i took the test with accomodation i spent like an hour on a question he told the class to skip.. this happened multiple times. he yelled at a student for stretching his wrist??? like loudly.

I don't get the scary Scerri hate and him/his class isn't bad. From what I heard he probably learned from his past criticism because he's definitely not as bad as the traumatizing review say though the reviews definitely helped me way overprepare. All his stuff is attendance mandatory and his tests are now mcq which is such a life saver. He isn't evil by making all the choices seem plausible so if you do/approach the problem wrong you can easily tell based off the choices + no sig figs or unit stuff to worry about. I basically skipped all lectures but I went to my discussions with my goat Dimitri who is an amazing resource and extremely helpful TA. Some tips would be to review the slides and the questions in it, definitely know the conceptual stuff, and to do Dimitri's test preps.