Professor Shao is an amazing and super kind, supportive professor, and I'm really glad to have had her as a professor in my first quarter at UCLA. Although the content can be difficult and fast paced at times, the professor truly wants to help students succeed. For instance, she provides a lot of helpful resources (lecture notes, recordings, expectation questions, etc), and her office hours are super helpful and individualized. Another little thing that I noticed was that she responds to student emails quite quickly, so if you have any urgent questions or concerns, definitely don't be afraid to reach out. In terms of the workload, I think the majority of the workload comes from actually studying/reviewing the lecture content, which (for me at least) took up a lot of time since there was so much content covered in each lecture. That's probably just a product of the quarter system though, and again, the professor provides a lot of support to make learning the content more manageable. Overall, I really liked this class, and Professor Shao is a really caring and approachable professor. I wish she taught more chem classes.

Professor Shao is really helpful. Definitely will take her class again.

Professor Shao is amazing! I especially liked how she uploads the lecture slides before each lecture so I can follow along during the lecture. Since lectures were only 50 minutes long, she does go quite fast and at times it can be difficult to follow but she offers lots of office hours and is fast at replying to emails. If you understand her in class examples and discussion worksheets, test shouldn't be challenging considering how she allowed notes for each of them. Shao cares about students actually understanding and making connections between concepts rather than memorizing templates and formulas. Would highly recommend her for chem20a!

I totally agree with all the comments which are saying this class is a disaster, but I just don't understand how these guys could all get an A. I'm taking this class right now, and after the first midterm, my score has already below A (to receive an A, you have to as least get 94%). I didn't do well in the first midterm but almost my best. My score is almost the same as average 73%. I spent over 5 hours on the assignment on Cengage at the end of every chapter, which can't be more depressing. This class will definitely ruin my GPA.

These reviews are very much sugarcoated…

First note: This class is really, really easy to get at least a B, but gets progressively much harder after that. Homework and worksheets are such a large percentage in the class where if you get 100% on them (which is realistic), you would only need a 10% average on exams to get a C-.

Second Note: I felt that (especially for the first unit or 2), that a physics background helps a lot more than doing something like AP chem. If you haven't taken a physics course in HS, or forgot a lot of info, the beginning may be tough.

As long as you do the work and ask questions, you'll do fine. She is a good lecturer and is amazing during office hours. Super nice. Her midterms are fast paced, but the questions are fair. Overall, would take again.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND PROFESSOR SHAO FOR 20A! As a first year, I had heard from students in the past that 20A is generally pretty tough, but Professor Shao truly made this class as painless as possible. I will admit, Chem 20A is a tough class from a conceptual standpoint and isn't what I expected from my first chem class here at UCLA, but Prof. Shao gives you all the resources you need to succeed and understand the material. She is the type of professor that truly wants to see us succeed, and this is evident in the way she makes resources available to students (open office hours, MULTIPLE review sessions before each exam held by the TA's, notes posted from every lecture with annotations, expectation questions that are aligned with the course material & are posted before the exams, etc)!

Discussions are mandatory if you want the points for the collaborative worksheets that are graded! Discussions were extremely helpful this quarter because it allows you to collaborate with your peers and ask the TA questions about course content (TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS!). There's also homework through the cengage OWLV2 platform which can be pretty time consuming (5ish hours per assignment, 1 assignment every week, or sometimes every other week). I feel like the homework did a decent job at establishing a conceptual foundation, but you need to do also make sure you pay attention to the questions given in the worksheets and in lectures as well.

Exams are challenging, but they are definitely fair! If you put in the effort, go to office hours, and stay on top of the course material, these exams should be manageable. I can easily say that Chem 20A was my favorite class this quarter, despite it being quite challenging.

She is such an understanding professor and truly cares whether her students actually understand the course content. Chem 20A is a very challenging and fast-paced course but her grading scheme and testing methods help students succeed. She is very approachable and stays back after each lecture to answer all doubts and has long office hours as well. She sends surveys after each midterm and final and you can see the feedback being incorporated into the course. Lectures are streamed on zoom as well as recorded so if you are unwell, rest assured that you can always catch up. Her notes are also posted on canvas for reference and before each exam, she posts a sample question/expectations documents which really help with preparation. HIGHLY RECOMMEND Dr Shao for Chem 20A!!

Professor Shao is a very kind professor. She prepares clear and understandable lecture notes before each lecture, so having a copy of them to follow along and study is super helpful. Although her online homework problems can be long and tedious at times, they are nonetheless helpful and not too hard. Her tests are neither super challenging nor easy, and it is best to learn from mistakes to do well on the next test/final. As long as you pay attention in lecture, review notes, and seek other online resources, then this class will not be too difficult. The grading scale is also quite generous, allocating a large percent of your grade to worksheet scores (which you work on in discussion sections). This is especially helpful if you're not the best test taker (like me).

PLEASE TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER.
I never expected that I would finally get an A with my first midterm grade being 68%, but I did! The material this class covered is VERY HARD for me, but she did well in explaining things. Her class is very helpful, and she is really responsible for her students (as she is the only professor I met who uploads a video explanation that walks through all the previous exam problems). She is one of my favorite teachers now. I would HIGHLY recommend people to take this class with her!!