Honestly, I feel this class gets a lot more shit than it deserves. I, 100%, believe that I would be more peeved if I did not receive an A, so take this review with a grain of salt, since knowing my grade will give it a more positive skew. I went into this class utterly terrified due to past reviews, but left feeling... okay

Firstly, the categories and weights that make up your grade are: Achieve (30%), Midterm (30%) and Final (40%). Unfortunately, you are graded on a bell curve, it didn't seem to make much of an impact this quarter (for better or for worse). It seems like many of the complaints regarding down curving stemmed from COVID quarters where averages were far higher than they were in person. I'm not arguing that this justifies down-curving, but it doesn't seem like it's as common when there are in person exams.

The most important thing to know about Scerri's exams is that questions are often times pulled from previous exams (he posts around 3 each for the midterm and final). The amount of time allotted felt very reasonable. Some of the multiple choice questions were a little finicky, but overall not awful. This was definitely the case with the midterm for this quarter.

The final this quarter was... odd to say the least. Because of the TA strike, Scerri was forced to make the exam fully multiple choice (45 questions). While most questions were solvable (or at least, were solvable considering what we were taught), there were a few problems that we were not equipped to solve. These questions, luckily, were removed from the final entirely, so our exam was out of 41 instead of out of 45. We were not given the results of the final unfortunately, I do understand however that distributing final results may have been made difficult because of the strike, but it obviously would've been very helpful to know, especially for students who didn't do as well as they expected or hoped. I do not think making this exam online would've been a good idea. Because this class is curved, going online would only punish students who decide not to cheat on the exam. Overall, the questions on the final weren't awful. I hated the electrochemistry questions, but granted electrochemistry just sucks in general.

In terms of achieve, it's horrible if you leave it until the last minute. My final score could've been far better if I didn't have to spend hours upon hours finishing achieve during week 10. Scerri did extend the deadline multiple times, which was nice, however I did just end up putting achieve off to the new deadline. If you manage your time throughout the quarter, achieve is very doable, and serves as a free 100% to your overall grade.

This class does require a lot of self studying outside of class, but I do believe Scerri is very straightforward about what you need to know for exams. Solved examples during lecture are often times 1:1 parallels (both conceptually and word for word) to exams seen on the exam. He is pretty responsive to emails, so that's nice. The TA strike did make post midterm content harder to understand and fully comprehend, but the curved nature of grades makes accommodations (like online exams or 24 hour exams) difficult to implement without unintended side effects.

Overall, 6/10 class. I barely have HS chem experience, so if I could do ok, I'd wager anyone could.

Scerri is a cool guy, but not the greatest lecturer. I often found that going through youtube videos and attending discussion sections helped me understand what was going on in the class. Also, doing all the practice pdf exam problems he provides helped for preparing for the midterm and final. Achieve was sometimes helpful but mostly time-consuming problems that aren't that related to exam problems.

Scerri is condescending but his accent is nice. He is not the best professor in terms of teaching but at least he is consistent and predictable. Don't ask questions unless you want to be chastsised. Don't recommend but he could be worse.

14B was such a rollercoaster that I'm not really sure where to start...

Class breakdown: 50% Thinkwell quizzes (3 attempts, most problems are found online), 20% midterm and 30% final. No homework, no extra credit, and discussion attendance is optional (but helpful!).

Scerri made the exams extra long ON PURPOSE so that students were prevented from cheating. While I don't want students to cheat, this system prevented most of us from finishing the exam, reviewing answers, or submitting on time. He would say for the final, "there are only 8 problems, 6 free response and 2 multiple choice". This seemed very reasonable, until we were doing the exam and one of the MC was numbered 7a, 7b, 7c, 7d, 7e, 7f, 7g, 7h, 7i, and 7j, and none of them were related conceptually, so there were actually 10 multiple choice problems in "one" problem.

This class also made me dislike chemistry more than I ever have before. I don't know if it was the abstract, intangible concepts of thermochem, the overall disorganization in electrochem, or everything in between, but this class made me think "why the hell am I doing this? because I hate this". I wouldn't say that the disinterest was widespread, so don't take that too much to heart.

I wish I could've taken this with another professor. I'm not going to be mean and say that my disdain for the course was entirely Scerri's fault, but I think his teaching style (scrolling through a PDF) probably just wasn't the best way for me to learn.

Also, I keep reminding myself that professors are going through the same Zoom fatigue and exasperation that we're feeling too. Scerri was very optimistic throughout the quarter and as a person he's wonderful! He even played his guitar for us and cracked jokes often.

TLDR: Taking chemistry with Scerri is definitely doable, getting an A- is very possible, but getting an A is hard to do. You will get confused and rely on your peers and TAs for guidance more often than normal, but it's ok!! You'll be okay.

I had Professor Scerri for both 14A and 14B, and did receive A's in his classes, but I think this is mostly due to prior exposure through AP Chemistry, and having him two quarters allowed me to better understand his teaching style and slides. I think one difficulty in his class is that his slides are not organized in a way that emphasizes the important concepts. This makes studying for exams a bit difficult, so what I would suggest is to go through all the worked examples in class, try them on your own before you look at the answer, and also do practice problems from the textbook. (I found the textbook pdf online for free). Also DO ALL the old midterms/exams that he gives you because he often repeats problems or has similar ones on the test, so understanding those makes the exams super easy. The hardest part about this class is he doesn't assign us much homework or projects or anything, so it's really up to the student to take the initiative and do outside practice to double-check you understand the material. If you don't have that kind of time or ability, then I would suggest trying to get another professor.

Scerri is a fine lecturer, but I have to spend lots of time after each class going through the lecture slides and working out problems for myself since he moves very quickly. I found 14A and 14B incredibly challenging, and Scerri's TA's are not great. Some TA's are MUCH better than others, so you have to figure out which sections to go on your own. The exams are much harder than the lecture practice problems, so if you don't do practice in your own time, you will not do well on the exams. I wish the TA's would assign homework problems from past exams and then check them so you could get feedback on what you did wrong.

Scerri is...not bad. I appreciate him always uploading his slides, and his exams (midterm, online) were mostly problem solving based--so if you know how to plug things into equations, you'll be fine. He spends a lot of class time going over practice problems, where he teaches you how to plug things into equations, so just make sure you understand how to do it before zoning out. I would say he's actually pretty receptive to questions asking for clarification/to repeat something, so don't be shy!

I do not have an AP Chem background, but this class was manageable. I definitely feel like 14B was easier than 14A (memorizing all that VSEPR was hell), but of course, I took this course online and opted out of the final. Good luck!

Due to everything that happened this quarter, Scerri made the final optional and no -harm. He also promised not to down curve people who decided to opt-out of the final. When everyone received their official myUCLA grade book grades, it was lower than everyone was expecting. When asked, he sent us an email back blaming us for using the normal 93-100 is an A grading scheme. Turns out there was a system error. He is quite stubborn as a person. Discussion sections aren't standardized, so some TAs will just review material and others will have worksheets. Scerri as a lecturer is okay. He's not fantastic but he's not the worst professor I've ever had. He isn't always the best at explaining things, however. His lectures feel like he prepared the slides a while ago and each lecture he finds out what he put on those slides. We have "homework" in the form of thinkwell quizzes it costs $35 I believe. Try your hardest on them. They're untimed 20-question quizzes that you can take 3 times. He takes the highest score. Do your best on them because it will help you study for midterms/finals, and it creates some buffer in your grade if you don't do well on exam. A lot of the questions have answers online, so just google a question and you're likely to find the answer in a brainscape flashcard set.

Professor Scerri in my opinion is the best professor in UCLA for Chem 14A & Chem 14B. I had to take chemistry 14A 3 times and the 3rd time I took it, it was with him and I passed it with a B+. I disagree with other reviews on this page over this professor! I don't have a strong background in chemistry but managed to pass chem 14B in my first try and with an A+! The workload isn't much and please don't spend your money buying the textbook for either chem 14A or chem 14B if you take Scerri! You don't need it! All you will need to pass his class are his lecture slides and his past exams and you are good to go! I really enjoyed his class and he is really passionate about the subject himself. You only have to purchase thinkwell for this class where you will be taking 4 quizzes on topics you learn in class and you have one midterm and final! Try to do really good on those quizzes because they will help when it comes to your final grade! Im honestly really sad Scerri won't be teaching Chem 14C but I'm very happy to have gotten to take his class for 2 quarters! Recommend him 100%! I was really happy with my grade but very unhappy with the grades he gave my friends since I was a witness of how hard they worked and he said he wouldn't downcurve but he ended up doing it to the grades of my friends! That's the only thing I didn't appreciate so if he says he won't down curve, don't believe him, he will! SO TAKE THE FINAL EXAM!

Dr Scerri is pretty bad at lecturing. He's overall a cool person to talk to but teaching is not his strong suit in the slightest. His tests are insanely difficult, your entire grade is mostly dependent on two tests and he does down curves. I would not recommend taking this class.