NEVER EVER EVER EVER — and I mean NEVER EVER — take this class. Like many of you, I checked professor Ow's BruinWalk reviews and saw what seemed to be a beaming ray of sunlight — great overall rating, great professor rating, and EVEN outstanding comments from previous years. Well, I need all of you to look past all of that because ALL WRONG. EVERYONE IS LYING.

As an academic overachiever, I have found myself thriving with a 4.0, valedictorian, and even getting through my first year of college with a 4.0 across the board. So, when I say this class has single-handedly made me reconsider everything I know about science, myself, and the educational system, believe me. I had many friends with other chemistry professors, and they seemed to walk away from 14A unscathed. But Ow, on the other hand, has managed to create the absolutely most impossible class that has left many of my friends — myself included— feeling an unrepairable sense of doom, self-doubt, and lack of trust.

If you don't feel like reading everything I have to say, remember this one thing:
Ow DOWNCURVED the entire class. That pretty much sums it up.

After a quarter of sleepless nights, studying until my nails bleed, and ultimately trying to absorb every single detail, I still managed to find myself constantly surprised and disappointed by the truly unexplainably impossible nature of this class. In the end, I did get a B+, which honestly isn't that bad. But when you take a step back to realize the sheer amount of effort to reach this point, it suddenly becomes clear that this B+ symbolizes Ow's result for a student who has pushed themselves to their very limit.

I will give him credit that in the very first lecture he gently "warned" us, but the warning honestly should have been a red blaring siren because everything immediately went downhill. Each exam had an entirely different format from each other, none of which aligned with the practice exams. He did preface that they might not necessarily align, but the reality is that he truly does not create resources for us to succeed in the slightest. The ONLY people I know who even captured an A in this class were students who were scraping to ignite their chemistry knowledge from high school. Even a friend of mine who scored high As on both midterms found themselves unable to get an A in the class.

I went to office hours — which made me feel somehow emotionally penalized for showing up. He made me feel like it was my fault, as an individual, for asking for help. He invites questions to be asked but then makes you feel stupid for asking them in the first place. And the cherry on top, he offered two opportunities for 0.2% extra credit. Gee thanks. It almost felt like a slap in the face because that extra credit essentially makes no difference, and any difference it does make was ENTIRELY ELIMINATED by the class down the curve. So, if you spend the quarter attempting to calculate your grade — throw that method out the window. Your grades will ultimately be unknown to you, and unknown until he has decided how he wants curve — which was DOWN — AND ALREADY IMPUTED INTO MYUCLA. Once your fate is sealed, there is simply nothing you can do.

That being said, success in Ow's class entirely relies on your capacity to either 1. remember everything from high school or 2. miraculously become Ow and read his mind. If neither of those things pertain to you, then you simply do not stand the slightest of chances.

For some of you, taking Ow may be your only choice, in which case, I am very sorry. Say farewell to your 4.0 because after this class it will not be coming back. However, I can provide a slight bit of advice that can hopefully prepare you for your fate to come:
- The exams will present questions that you may have never seen before, so when you study, think BEYOND the content. You need to learn the context of chemistry outside of the things covered in class in order to succeed.
- mentally prepare yourself and lower your expectations. I came into this class filled with ambition, but I quickly found myself being disappointed time and time again.
- grades are not everything.... one quarter of chemistry certainly will not define the trajectory of your life. So try to remind yourself that you are so much stronger than 14A with Ow.

To those of you who have made it to the end of this review, I applaud your commitment to success. It is clear that you want to do well and that you are willing to take extra time to make that difference in your academics. I wish you all the best in your enrollment times and good grade fortune in the years to come.

Professor Ow was definitely my favorite professor of the quarter and provided a great introduction to the 14 series. His tests (2 midterms and 1 final) were challenging but fair to the practice tests and his lectures cover everything you need to know. His passion for chemistry is obvious, which makes the lectures really enjoyable, and he has a good sense of humor too. Homework problems are not graded, so it's completely up to you to be accountable with them, but I would say they are a must to succeed in this class as most of the material is problem-solving based. Grades are heavily based on tests and there are no extra credit opportunities, but if you work hard to study the material an A is definitely achievable. One thing that was kind of annoying was he ended up downward curving our class at the end of the quarter because we had too high of an overall class average. It was only by 1%, so it didn't affect me, but if it had brought my overall grade down, I would have been upset. Overall, great professor if you're willing to put in work on your own time and I would take him again later in the series.

i cannot recommend professor ow enough!! he is a straightforward and transparent professor. his slides are concise and he doesn’t overcomplicate concepts during lecture. i took ap chem is high school, but i wouldn’t say it was super necessary—some topics overlap, but we go more in depth with the concepts. professor ow’s midterms (both weighed 20% each) were fair and the practice tests were similar to the actual exam. i believe he does an amazing job of giving his students resources; he posts study guides, practice exams, does reviews sessions, and records letures. on top of that, our discussion worksheets (mandatory discussion attendance worth 15% of grade) and weekly online quizzes (weighed 20%, worst 2 quizzes dropped) help you prepare the exams. homework is not graded, but doing the textbook questions definitely reinforced my understanding of the material and helped me succeed on the exams. he also gave ~0.5% extra credit for completing surveys—not sure how useful this was since he down curved my class by 1%. my only complaint is that our midterms were given during lecture time, so we were given only 50 minutes to complete 7-8 free response questions with multiple parts. i personally thought this was not enough time and had to rush through the second midterm. overall, you have to put in the work to get an A in his class, but it is for sure worth it because this class is a foundation for future chem courses and potentially, other lifesci courses.

Prof Ow is clearly very passionate about the subject and that comes across whenever he is teaching. His enthusiasm is truly apparent in the examples he provides and the way he speaks about the content, which I appreciate, and it also makes me more interested in learning.

Also, Prof Ow is an excellent and very fair and structured teacher: the syllabus was provided ahead of time, policies and grading scale were consistent, exam difficulty was quite fair and similar to practice problems, practice exams are given all of which I feel helped me prepare for the class. I liked that the slides were provided before the class, and they were not too heavy or littered with text, they had just the right amount of content/images/explanations.

Professor Ow however wasn't super receptive to questions; in office hours and during class he answered questions with 2 word answers which made students feel hesitant about asking future questions and like I couldn't always approach Prof Ow. Note that to succeed in this class you really need to practice every day (which, credit to Ow, he lays out fairly in the first week) and not fall behind on the content. Overall, Prof Ow is a phenomenal professor and I'm so glad to have him!

This class unironically made me consider switching my major (another life science) over to chemistry multiple times through the quarter. Only chemistry experience going into this class was honors chemistry in 10th grade, which means that I remembered absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, Ow was the best professor I've had so far - great at putting emotions and a few quips into each lecture so you don't get too bored, and he doesn't enforce timeliness or attendance so you can always watch the lecture recordings on your own time if that's your learning style.
Our first midterm was very easy, second one was incredibly difficult (timing-wise, many people didn't finish) but I heard that was to balance out the grades with Lavelle's. The grading doesn't give too much room for error (discussions are mandatory attendance, everything else is just quizzes and tests) but all you really need to do well in this class is to focus on the study guides and discussion questions. Grind those, and then do them a few times over. The textbook problems take a great deal of time, and I only really used them when prepping for the final. IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE, ATTEND THE CLASS RIGHT BEFORE A MIDTERM AND TAKE NOTES ON EVERYTHING HE SAYS. He goes over everything you need to know in an incredibly succinct and helpful manner that I've seen no other teacher do before.
He was really chill on where we got our textbooks from. There's also the solutions manual in Powell Library, but it's on reserve loan (or whatever) so you can't take it out of the library. I personally didn't use it much because I spent most of my time taking notes and doing the aforementioned problems, but it's helpful to know if you need it.
Overall a fantastic person and fantastic teacher. Wish he taught the other 14 series classes because I'd take his class again in a heartbeat.