You can tell that Professor Shao is new to teaching, so her explanations were not always the most clear, and she was unable to explain things multiple ways most of the time. HOWEVER I still thought she was an excellent professor because she makes up for her inexperience with a forgiving grading scheme, incredible organization, and an abundance of practice material. I think she's a solid professor, and if you're struggling it's very clear she wants to help you succeed.

Professor took experience from her previous quarter and adjusted the exams so they are more manageable compared to what I had heard from my friend. Need to do more practice in the book to be able to do well. She listens to students' opinions after every exam which I think is very nice.

I say my overall experience isn't bad, but you really need to put the effort into this course
This course requires self-study due to the concepts and the homework are not being integrated perfectly. The homework is worksheets in the discussion and long cengage assignments due at the end of the week. You have to first fully understand the concepts in the lecture in order to understand what the homework is talking about. Shao posts all her lecture notes and recordings on bruinlearn with great audio. I stopped going to lectures after the first midterm because I find recordings were more helpful than live lectures. My TA is very clear and straightforward in the discussion which is really helpful in understanding the material as well as the homework. The cengage assignment is a bit miserable. You sometimes need to google/look at the answer to finish the assignment. The lecture didn't cover every homework assignment.
However, these assignments are really important because her midterms and finals were based on these assignments. I only lost 5 points in the first midterm just because I give an eye on the assignment that week. Also, all the tests are open notes which you don't need to memorize any formula. You can finish them properly as long as you are sensitive enough to the concepts.
Overall, I say my experience in Chem20a is easy and not troublesome.

Professor Shao is genuinely invested in her students’ learning. She takes into consideration student feedback and adjusts her lectures and class structure accordingly. She also provides lots of study resources (midterm review sessions, expectation questions, etc).
There was definitely a steep learning curve for the course material. I received a 69% on the first midterm. This class taught me how to effectively study, and it is very, very possible to receive an A in this course if you put in the time to review lectures. Professor Shao’s exams are very fair; not easy but also not extremely difficult. She writes exams so that students have ample time to complete them.
Discussions were incredibly helpful; exam questions were very similar to discussion worksheet problems. I also had the best TA Rakesh Bal! He was very good at explaining concepts that originally weren’t clear during lecture. He was also very easy to reach and replied quickly if I ever had questions about the content.
Overall, I would definitely take this class again. The grade scaling was very generous and in favor of students. Each midterm (two total) was worth 15%, discussion worksheets were worth 30%, homework was worth 20%, and the final was worth 20%. The workload itself is not a lot, however studying to simply understand the material is time consuming. Chem 20A with Professor Shao was definitely my hardest class of the quarter, but also my favorite.

Not going to lie the first midterm was awful. However, the class is curved and it is very easy to get an A or B with her grading scale. (50% of the grade is homework and passing is a 55% in the class) Also, tests are open note!
Shao's lectures slides are easy to follow, but sometimes she goes too fast. Slides are posted before lecture and recordings are posted.

General:
Shao is definitely a great professor at UCLA because she genuinely does listen to feedback and tries to correct mistakes that happen during the quarter. I have had her twice at UCLA and I have seen so much improvement and have genuinely just really appreciated her as a professor in the Chemistry Department. It is by no means an easy class, and I don't think that it is fair to judge a professor based solely on this being a hard subject so sometimes I don't necessarily trust other Bruinwalk reviews. Studying for it almost daily/every few days is definitely going to set up a student to do well in the class. The textbook is optional but does help clarify topics, but I found myself reading it less as the quarter went on.

Discussion and Lecture: Personally, I felt that the discussion worksheets did not help at all. They were often very long and did not really relate to what Shao was talking about, and the TA consistently took off points without explanation. I stopped going to discussion and tutorial because there were quite a few mistakes and things we didn't cover, so I think it'd benefit the TA and the students if the TA had the material to review as well to plan her own reviews based on them. In terms of lectures, Shao has recorded lectures she uploads to her Youtube Channel at a good speed, but she does not have Bruincast so showing up to lectures to write down what she writes on the blackboard can be more helpful. She also uploads her lecture notes in both an annotated and a blank form for students. The lectures can feel rushed, but to be honest most classes do because of how fast we have to go to condense material in 10 weeks, so I think that she does a good job pacing everything and you can tell she has thought out her lesson plans clearly and effectively.

Exams: They are open note, open textbook, etc. In terms of exams, this quarter was definitely harder than others. We had two mistakes, one being a canceled score for the Midterm 2 due to misprinting and some changes to the final as the final was happening. A lot of people were complaining (especially the GroupMe), which I understand because it could end up affecting us but I also do feel really bad for Professor Shao because the things that happened for the midterm were genuinely just mistakes. Mistakes happen. It is how someone responds that really shows their character. She did take the time to address the mistakes immediately and gave us all a game plan for a new grading scheme that took this into consideration. I think that that is extremely important to note: the fact that she responds so quickly and is so considerate to her students. She is not a professor who wants to be malicious and make everyone fail, but she also can't just hand out A's, that's simply not realistic. Her changes were the fairest she could make in the moment, and it did not negatively impact anyone who actually tried in the course. Midterm 1 was completely fair and we had a B- average without a curve, so not many people complained except for the possible lack of a curve at the end of the class. However, we did end up getting a curve due to the difficulty of the final. I think the general rule of thumb for Shao's exams are that the midterms are very doable within the time frame IF you prepared well, but the final is much more difficult. Because it is harder, there likely will be a curve and she grades the exams very quickly and adjusts grades the same.

Hope this helps!

I'm going to be honest- I don't know how to rate this class.

Professor Shao's lectures were, on average, pretty good. Her lectures were sufficient to understand the material upon review (which is perfectly fine, as this is thermodynamics and it can be quite difficult to understand), and she did a good job of explaining the material with examples, and didn't bulldoze her way through the material (she stopped to take questions, and that kind of stuff). The only minor nitpick I have is the example count- although the examples she had were excellent, I would say that having more of them would have been nice. She also gave us a lot of practice exams- they were really helpful for MT/final prep, and honestly she deserves a lot of kudos for having released basically every single one of her previous midterms for us to study.

Logistically, however, this course left a lot to be desired. Of three exams, only one of them (MT1) was administered without any issues- MT2 was outright canceled because half of the exam didn't print, and the Final had an entire question dropped, alongside numerous changes to other problems. These spot changes were, to be honest- quite stressful to deal with, and a lot of people were unhappy with how these unexpected deviations affected their ability to get the grades they wanted, even if Professor Shao dealt with the MT2 disaster in a manner that I would say was quite fair. Additionally, some of the answer keys to the practice midterms and worksheets were kind of sketchy- I'm not sure if all of the answers on those keys were 1000% accurate.

Overall, I want to say that Prof. Shao and her course are great- I definitely see the potential, and I would've said that up until the second midterm. However, it would be inappropriate of me to simply ignore the unmitigated disaster MT2 was, and the partially mitigated disaster the final was. Take at your own risk- if you get a good quarter, you'll have at least a decent time, but if you get a disaster quarter, your opinion on this class might be considerably soured.

Honestly I liked this class! Tests were all open note, and all of the slides and lectures were uploaded to the canvas, so it's easy to skip if you like. Class is well paced if you are already familiar with bonding, stoic, and periodic trends like I was. Grading is more than fair, there is always a 5 point curve (85 is an A-) and your grade is only 50% tests, although the midterm average was 65 to 70%

Shao's lecture tone was somehow engaging when I wanted to listen and simultaneously the perfect cadence to fall asleep to when I needed a nap. Her pronunciations of a lot of greek letters are,, uh,, not standard so watch out for that, but she's got good handwriting so its not hard to tell what she means. Overall, def recommend!

This class sucked. I'm not sure how much Shao is to blame for the amount of suffering I endured in this class, but she sure didn't help me too much. The lectures were painfully boring. Shao did not stop much to explain the material. She zoomed through the slides reading off information that was incredibly difficult to understand. Unfortunately, this isn't really a class that you can get out of taking so good luck.

Full transparency, the first few weeks of this class gave me academic whiplash. To preface I hadn't taken a chemistry class since sophomore year of high school and I never took AP, but this truly didn't matter up until the first midterm because none of it was chemistry, purely quantum mechanics. The concepts are very hard to comprehensively understand, especially in combination with the sheer speed of instruction. Professor Shao is incredibly fast paced, but she is organized, passionate, and genuinely cares about her students. She gave us tons of recourses for tutoring and inquiries, which can truly help. In addition the worksheets in discussions and homework are fair in my opinion. Nonetheless, the average on the midterms were sub 70%... But this shouldn't discourage you because the grading scheme isn't very bad. While it isn't curved in a traditional sense, Professor Shao shifted all of the grades down (i.e A = 85-90%). As an example I scored slightly above average on both of the midterms (which was pretty hard to swallow any the time) but did better on the final (which you—proportionally to content—have much more time on) and was able to walk away with an A. All in all, I'd say that this class will temporarily destroy your confidence in Chem and maybe even STEM in general, but if you stick with it and put the work in you should be just fine.