After taking 14D with Dr. Reilly, I desperately wish that I had Dr. Ow for 14D. In 14C, the classes were fast-paced but clear. If you do ALL textbook problems assigned you will succeed. Dr. Ow's lectures have a lot of content, but he rarely falls behind and plans the class well. He finished with content before exams so you have time to prepare. You know what will be on the tests as long as you keep up with the material.

I'd recommend taking this class with a different professor.

Dr. Ow was a decent lecturer who cared about his students' success and did his best to make a difficult class more manageable but there were a number of aspects of this class that I didn't really appreciate. The class moves extremely quickly and exams were entirely multiple choice. His class is not graded on a straight scale, where an A is a 94%+. For the entire quarter you could miss 5 questions for an A. The class average was a B+ so understandably there was no curve. The most frustrating thing was that he refused to round grades. A number of students - myself included - ended with a grade between 93.6-93.9% and did not get rounded to an A.

- Discussion: 12%
- Practice exams: 3%
- Top 5 of 7 quizzes: 20%
- Midterm 1: 20% (18 MCQ)
- Midterm 2: 20% (19 MCQ)
- Final: 25% (21 MCQ)

For people with no experience or prior organic chemistry knowledge, this class is quite difficult, and I wouldn't recommend taking it alongside other difficult classes. I think the biggest reason it's challenging is because you need to spend enough time learning all reactions (reagents, mechanisms, purpose, etc.). Discussion section and TA/instructor office hours are essential to getting practice and doing well in the course.

This quarter was also really stressful because Dr. Ow made the exams multiple choice--which means we could only get about 5 questions wrong overall to earn an A in the course (94%+). It's really important to start off strong and with good study habits.

Glorious King Franklin Ow.

While this is the last of the 30 series, I'd say that in terms of difficulty it is actually slightly easier than 30B. There is a lot of material to get through, but in terms of variety it's less than 30B because you have a lot more patterns to utilize.

With regards to the professor, he's one of the best at UCLA and a personal favorite of mine. His expectations are always very clear in terms of what you need to know and as a lecturer he's fantastic at conveying the material in an effective way. I walked out of almost every lecture feeling confident I understood everything he explained. Dr. Ow is very emphatic on patterns you can recognize as a sort of shortcut for learning the reaction mechanisms and products, which makes it easy to pick up on things quick. He's succinct with the only fluff being him trying to engage deeper with the material by explaining pharmaceutical or industrial applications of certain organic compounds and reactions. He's also quite funny and sometimes uses anecdotes to describe parts of the class. I found the lectures to be engaging and effective, so I went even though they're recorded and livestreamed on Zoom.

Given the course, you definitely need to still be practicing with the textbook problems provided. I don't have the exact gradescheme because I no longer have access to the Canvas course, but it is similar if not identical to the other Ow markschemes. Discussion attendance was probably around 10%, the two midterms made up 40%, the final was about 30%, and the remaining 20% was split between the best of 5/7 quiz grades. I thought everything was very fair, and the average was in the high 70s to 80s for the midterms. He also always reserves lectures for review before exams, which is pretty helpful because it shows problem solving strategies and gives you a hint as to what to expect on the exam. All of the exams and quizzes are very doable if you're keeping up with the material, and the final and quizzes were all multiple choice. A small amount of extra credit is also offered for filling out LA surveys and course evaluations, in addition to turning in your submission of the practice exams. Because this is organic chemistry, you can't leave it on the backburner, but if you're keeping it in view, it's very very feasible to do well.

This man sounds just like Donald Trump when he talks. I'm not really a natural STEM student at all and I passed the class. The class is graded on a curve, so for the most part whatever letter grade you technically earn, he will grade you one grade higher, give or take. There's no homework, only tests and discussion attentance that is graded. Office hours are helpful but for the most part you have to teach yourself by doing textbook practice problems he assigns (actually quite helpful, but easy to fall behind as the course moves on)

Ow is a great professor. He has an organized class. His lectures were clear and his office hours were helpful. He's intimidating but means well and will answer your questions. If I could retake this course, I would spend more time in office hours. For Life Science majors, the grading scheme is much different than what we're used to: Your exams and discussion attendance are basically the whole scheme. There's no "fluff" to protect your grade. Low key tanked my GPA but I stacked it with too many other classes. If you're worried about this too, don't make the same mistake I did.

Everyone, fear not as you enter the 14 series. As a scared cat that had not taken Chemistry since ONLINE with cartoon labs in high school, I somehow pulled an A+ in this class. Dr. Ow is the best you get for 14A or any other class, let me tell you I love this man so much. Yes, he can be quite aggressive sounding if you ask a question in lecture, but I think that is just how he is. His slides go over what is covered on exams very well and he does not pull too many tricks or surprises ever; I found all exams extremely fair. On the first exam though, I did not fill out the boxed area for the answer, as i ran out of time, and got a 64% because of it, but I got an A+ still after locking the hell in for the next two exams, and I somehow got 34/36 on the final, saving me.

I believe it was very helpful as I’m in AAP PLF sessions, so if you are able, totally join one!! I found discussions n
NEVER helped as the TA acted as if we should know literal rocket science, so seek out other resources for sure to be successful.

First two exams are mixes of free response solving, mostly using equations for the first exam and knowing all of the bonds and things he puts on the slides for the second one. The final is 36 multiple choice questions and sadly the average was 72% on it, and I don’t know that he curves unless the average strays too far from about a B+ (chem dpts typical grade).

You got this ik its a bit scary but if u can, absolutely take it with dr owowowowowowo, he also made me laugh just due to his bluntness a lot so that was entertaining and worthwhile!

Grade distribution as of Spring 2025:
Mandatory discussion attendance - 12%
Canvas Quizzes (basically practice quizzes) - 20%
Practice Exams - 3%, graded by completion
Exam 1 - 20%
Exam 2 - 20%
Cumulative Final Exam - 25%

NOTE: You won't need Achieve to access the textbook, all quizzes are in Canvas and practice problems are in the content of the book and not the courseware, so I'm sure you know where to get the textbook elsewhere.

Dr. Ow is a really good professor to introduce chemistry with. Even though I had experience in AP Chemistry, a lot of what we learn in 14A goes even more in-depth than any high school/AP Chemistry type course, while still emphasizing the fundamentals. If you have to memorize something, Dr. Ow will make it VERY CLEAR. If you have to know a certain concept/type of problem, Dr. Ow will make it VERY CLEAR indeed. Homework is NOT graded. However, do not let that fool you; practice problems are essential for succeeding in this course.

Lectures are recorded, both through BruinCast and through Zoom, which he uploads in case BruinCast takes too long. In all honesty, I've only attended one lecture in person my entire quarter because this class was during the section of a different class I had to take (by unfortunate coincidence). Instead, I always made time to take notes on the recorded lectures.

Even if you do not attend lectures, do not slack off with practicing and keeping up. Topics can go by fairly quickly in a quarter system and pop up when you least expect them on an exam. Go to office hours, whether it is Dr. Ow's (his were unfortunately 8am this quarter) or your TA's. Shoutout to Kathryn for being such a goated TA. She gave a lot of practice and knew the ins and outs of the course content very well, you can tell she has a lot of experience.

The CHEM14 series is designed so that the average grade is around a B+, but don't let that scare you. With lots of practice and seeking out of resources, you will thrive even if unconventionally, like what I did with conflicting lecture times.

Dr. Ow was a decent professor and fairly helpful. I didn't find the class particularly hard, but be sure to study every single slide he posts. Even though he often said that we wouldn't go that in depth for certain topics, he would ask questions on his tests that were on slides he didn't go over that much - I found that these were the points I missed the most on all his tests. The class consisted of two midterms, a final, and discussion attendance.

This is my second course taken with Dr. Ow, and I honestly cannot convey how great this man is. He's definitely my favorite and probably the single best professor I've had thus far. The material is obviously very complicated, but Ow is able to explain it in a way that makes a lot of sense because he goes through problems from the perspective of how he would solve them. He points out patterns and key clues that help show you how to solve a problem, doesn't unnecessarily complicate things, and is actually pretty funny and engaging during lecture. He's also very responsive via email and hosts frequent office hours, so he's definitely in your corner.

Because there is a lot to cover, the amount of material shown in lecture can feel a bit rushed at times, but because he pays attention to where students struggle the most, the amount of lectures allocated to each topic feels pretty good. Ow also has review lectures before midterms instead of trying to jam in material that isn't on the midterm but may be confusing, and we had an entire week worth of lectures before the final that were purely review. The exams themselves were very fair because he communicates clearly what will and won't be on the exam, and they are very similar to the old and practice exams he provides. They also aren't wildly different from the stuff that you are shown in class. The only non-exam assignments are weekly quizzes and discussion attendance; there's no homework assigned for you to do. However, you should still expect to dedicate time to practicing outside of discussion and the quizzes because that's the only way to get better at the retrosynthesis and multistep reaction questions. If you're willing to put in the time, it's very, very feasible that you can get an A.