This was Professor Shao's first quarter teaching and she did pretty well. The textbook that she had us buy was not very useful as it included too much information rather it's more useful for you to get more familiar with her notes and watch a video to familiarize yourself with the content rather than read the textbook. the cengage assignments did not reflect what was being taught in the course most of the time, except the stoichiometry ones, but that was because stoichiometry has a universal practice/question format. The midterms and final were based off of the worksheets which had one to two questions and the issue with the class was the lack of practice problems. Overall the TAs and support system were great. She offered lots of review session for the midterm, she tried to have office hours and the TAs did as well. It was a great environment and I would take the class again.

Honestly this class and Professor Shao were both pretty great. The class moves fast and you probably won't understand everything in lecture but if you try your best and ask questions you'll do fine. The tests are mostly like homework and Prof Shao/the TAs are very helpful and great at explaining the content.

definitely take this class with her. her grading scale is super generous in that most of your grade is allotted to your worksheets during your discussions and your homework. both are really useful and i recommend doing them. the cengage assignments aren't that time consuming if you do four or five questions a day out of the week. she is really willing to help and had her lectures broadcasted or recorded so you can either watch them in your dorm during your lecture time or later. your final isnt worth almost half of your grade so don't worry about it, although her final is a lot easier than her midterms if you review the midterms and her sample questions. she's really caring and i would definitely take this class with her again.

Professor Shao was an amazing chem professor. Her slides/lectures were clear and engaging and the homework was lengthy but easy to keep track of. You have a worksheet to do in each discussion, which helps your grade and also is your main tool of studying and understanding the material. She is easy to contact and very understanding. Her tests are difficult but they are reasonable if you actually understand, connect, and internalize the concepts.

This professor is the best professor you should take for chem 20A. I passed AP chem at a (competitive) nor cal high school with an A-, and in this class the excessive EASY homework and 30 points EXTRA CREDIT helped me get an A+ in chemistry, for putting in a day to 2 days before studying for exams. I completely recommend this professor for those who are not the best or suck at chem or even are great at chem. The material is rich and extensive, across all the chem classes, but atleast you will not have to worry about your grade in this class. She also grades very generously on tests, giving partial credit and even takes regrade requests if you want higher points where deserved. She is super nice, and very responsive when need be.

If you're entering 20A with little in-depth chemistry knowledge (as I did), I would highly (highly!) recommend Professor Shao. She provides so many resources (well-organized notes, practice problems, exam study guides, review lectures) and is sincerely dedicated to helping students succeed. The online homework is relatively light and the discussion session worksheets act as a helpful (and often necessary) review. Exams are more difficult in terms of content, but doable if you review the discussion worksheets and practice problems. She doesn't curve them, but the letter grade itself is buffered a bit and there are plenty of extra credit opportunities. Overall, I would definitely take this class again and recommend to other students.

This review is for Chem 14C: Structure of Organic Molecules, taken with Dr. Shao in Spring 2023.
Dr. Shao seems to be a kind and caring professor, and this was her first quarter teaching Chem 14C. Her lectures were incredibly unclear, fast, and disorganized. She would have slideshows that she would annotate on during lecture, where she mainly rushed through a wide variety of practice problems rather than explaining the concept with clarity. The lectures were unclear and fast; she often did not have time to field any questions because she wanted to rush through all the day's slides.
Outside of class, Professor Shao offered to help students in office hours and via email. Via email, Dr. Shao was quite blunt with her replies and not very helpful. Most of the learning done in this class was via Youtube videos and studying with friends. The lectures were unclear and Dr. Shao did not provide much clear help outside of class either.
As for the exams, they are open note, so there is no memorization needed in this class, which is a relief considering that organic chemistry is considered quite memorization heavy. There were 2 midterms and 1 final exam. The tests were written quite fairly; the two midterms were rushed in terms of time, but the final felt quite short and simple. Each exam had multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and then longer comprehensive problems. There was scope for ample partial credit. The first midterm was slightly curved up, but the second midterm and final were not curved.
Dr. Shao's grading scheme was incredibly friendly. The class average was an A-, which seems high for an organic chemistry class. She offered 3% Extra Credit in the form of surveys and feedback forms and then an additional 1% Extra Credit in the form of bonus questions on the final exam, which really boosted grades. Additionally, discussion section worksheets were worth 24% of the grade, and Canvas quizzes were worth 16% of the grade, most of which were free points.
Overall, for an organic chemistry class, Dr. Shao made it quite easy to get a good grade in this class. The exams were open book/note and there was a lot of extra credit offered. However, Dr. Shao was not a clear and helpful lecturer, and it felt like I did most of the understanding of the content of this class by myself via Youtube videos. All in all, easy A class but mainly all self-learning outside of lecture.

THIS IS FOR 14C - The class doesn't exist on Bruinwalk yet so this will have to do

Shao herself seems quite nice, welcoming, and accommodating to students. I'm sure she's an amazing person. The class however is another story, which I will tell in 3 chapters: lectures, discussions, and exams.

I found Shao's lectures to be extremely confusing. She would go through concepts extremely quickly (thank goodness she listened to us and slowed her pace down after the first midterm) and I felt she was lacking in her ability to provide clear explanations. Shao teaches by doing, not really explaining, and as I felt this wasn't my learning style, I didn't have the best time at lecture and would skip all the time. I found my time was instead best used watching a youtube tutorial on the concept before going to / watching the lectures I had previously missed. Yes, I skipped, but I would watch the lectures eventually and only after getting an intro or explanation to the material elsewhere. Whenever I did attend in person lecture, I would sit in the back and listen without taking notes. I tried at first but learned that because of how quickly she went and how low my comprehension was, my in-class notes were garbage. It was much more worth it to take notes from recordings with the luxury of being able to pause. I will also mention that the textbook was completely useless. There's no real need to buy the $80~ textbook and I'm glad I never did. The molecular modeling kit she recommends however is quite useful, and it greatly helps with the stereochemistry unit.

Discussions are important since each TA will release weekly worksheets that together make up a significant portion of your grade and having a good TA makes a world of a difference. I suppose my personal advice is to find a good TA if you don't have one and act as if you're in their section in addition to your own. Do their worksheets and attend their office hours, esp as I found that certain TAs can be better instructors than the professor.

Exams were... something else. It felt as though the entire school had heard about the catastrophe of the first midterm, in which there was a mix-up within the chem department and only 1/3 of the needed tests were printed. Students were made to take the test regardless, with 1/3 of the class with actual tests and the other 2/3 with blank sheets of paper. The execution of this exam was so unfair that Prof. Shao ended up giving an optional in-lecture midterm the next week and discarding the failed midterm entirely. This second attempt at the first midterm went smoothly. The questions Shao asked were all doable based on the content she'd taught in class, with a few challenging problems occasionally thrown in. This test and all that followed it were extremely long and for many people required all of the allotted time to finish. Because of this though, all of the exams were worth many points and smaller mistakes + challenging problems were balanced by the sheer number of straightforward questions. The second midterm and final were also extremely fair. I'm not too sure how the class managed to get a percent average in the 60s for the second midterm, but it seems people got used to it by the final, which had an average in the 80s.

Overall, the class was a challenge, especially with it being Shao's first time teaching it contrast to her experience teaching the physical science version of the intro chem series. People are far from forgetting the mishap of the first midterm, but in the end, all was made to be fair. Prepare to work hard on your own to succeed.

THIS IS FOR CHEM 14 C ( there is no review for her up on bruinwalk so I’ll put it here)

Where to begin … at first we all like professor Shao, she was nice and approachable. She gives 3% extra credit, 30% for discussion worksheets each midterm is 15% and the final is 20%. Our first midterm was horrible the Chem department never printed enough tests so we started late and instead of sending us home they followed through with the exam and we were tearing pages and passing the test around. Some TA’s had different policies when taking the tests. So then the professor decided to cancel those exam scores and make us take it again during class time which was a huge inconvenience to many people. She made the test optional but if you didn’t take it, your other exams would be weighted even more so say homework is 15% it could be 20%. Apart from that the tests were difficult and SOOO LONG !!! I couldn’t even finish my exam at times because of so many questions. The final took me 2:30 hr to finish and we have 3 hours. I swear all those questions are so unecessary. Then for the first midterm she curved but it was only like a 2 pt curve because she determines averaged and tries to make sure the average is a B-. However, for the second midterm everyone did worse than the first it was a D average and she did not decide to curve everyone to a B- ? But she did it when it was a very small point boost ? Make it make sense. She also changed the syllabus I don’t know why ? Overall, I guess it worked out. But for transperacy…

I got full points from homework and discussion worksheets

1st midterm: C+
2nd: D-
Final: C

Ended up with a A- ( but keep in mind it may be different for others since the exams may not be optional for you because we had different circumstances. )

All in all I would never take a class with her again

I low-key thought this class was fine. As a freshman, it does hit you pretty hard in the face because this class isn't easy as the other reviews suggest. Due to some wrong advising from my NSA in orientation, I took chem 17 before this class so I took this class with professor Shao and not Kvaner like most did in the fall. I do not regret this at all. Even though all those who took 20A got easy As, they learned absolutely nothing and had no idea what anything was about. With Shao, you will definitely need to work for that grade, but at the end you do learn a lot which help A LOT for the classes after, notably 20B... Anyways, I thought Shao was a nice professor. She went REALLY quick in lecture because there is a lot of material to cover in 10 weeks. So bonus if you have an iPad, otherwise hope you know how to write quick. There was weekly discussion sheets to fill out which were not easy but so helpful to review for her exams, Do not miss discussion sections. As much as I thought my TA was unnecessary, LAs helped a lot and those worksheets do count towards your final grade so do them at your best ability and don't hesitate to ask for help. Exams were take home and were to submit on gradescope. 2 midterms and one final. Exam 1 was crazy hard and we had very little time to finish it. Exam 2 was a bit easier but still hard to finish on time. Final was easier than 2 midterms, but still had to rush to finish and do well. For exams know how to do in class exercises and discussion worksheets. Also, try to not just glide through the engage and actually spend the hours doing the assignment. It is super helpful to build your ability to exercise yourself. Overall, this class wasn't overly demanding in work, but if you want a good grade, you will have to not neglect it and actually put some effort into it. I also never went to office hours, so you don't need them to do well. And finally textbook is completely useless with Shao.

Recap: If you can, take this class with Shao. You will gain good knowledge about fundamentals of chem 20 A in a fast paced but reasonably constructed course. it will be VERY confusing at times, but with exercise and effort you can definitely do great. Good luck!