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I loved this class. I personally messed up some labs but Dr. Pang was always perfectly clear on what he wanted. The tests were fair if you studied and reviewed the slides. The labs were straightforward and my TA was pretty lax as well which made things run more smoothly. Dr. Pang is engaging, genuinely concerned for student learning and just an amazing person all around. If you get the chance to take this class with Pang, do it!

Final grade: A

Class is really straightforward. Everything you need to do is given plainly in the slides and lectures. The labs are a big part of your grade, but they are graded by the TAs. Just be thorough while following all the guidelines. Ask TA or Pang if you have questions. The tests are big and scary with a bunch of parts, but are easily passed simply by knowing what was on the slides and lectures.

Professor Pang is a G. Despite having a bit of an accent, he is clear and concise in his lectures. He always comes to class prepared, gives out powerpoint packets; labs are pretty straightforward, as long as you follow the "cookbook." I swear, at times, Pang is so clear that it makes regular chemistry class concepts, such as acid/base, easier to understand. As far as the labs go, they are purely busywork, most of them are really similar to AP chemistry labs. The labs do take a while to do. Personally, I don't procrastinate, but if you are one of those people who likes to do everything last minute at 2 in the morning the day its due, from what I have heard, it can be done.

Some of the labs are partner labs, whilst others are individually based. Don't worry about bad data; Pang always says that he cares about the calculations and on HOW to do the lab, not the overall data results.

Pang is a ridiculously fair dude. I originally got a B in this class, went to talk to him about it and he changed it to an A-.

However, that being said, I got that grade because I had severely underestimated this class because of all these raving reviews saying how easy it is.

TBH, it THE LABS are pretty easy if you've taken AP Chemistry, however, his tests are the most excruciatingly annoying little shits ever. He has an EXTREMELY specific rubric for TA's to follow, dictating exactly how much credit and partial credit is to be awarded for each question. In it, he is looking for very particular things that he talks about in lectures, or asks about in prelabs. Master it the material, review conceptual bits on his slides, your post and prelabs, and most importantly, the study guide he gives you. Do it twice if need be. And on the tests, avoid mistakes, read carefully, think like Pang.

He's a very good lecturer and extremely helpful, if not a little bit too much by always rambling in office hours. He's also lowkey a troll, but not on grading. That shit he is very fair on it.

Labs depend on the TA. Mine was taking off points for having incorrect MSDS information (you'll know what that once you take the class). When you're looking for the safety diamonds, you'll find different ones for the same chemical. Look specifically for what form the chemical is, whether its powder, 5%, 10% etc.

Also another reccomendation is to finish up your prelabs and postlabs early to get them checked by your TA during his/her office hours. Other TA's can help, but they have different looseness to their grading if you will even though Pang is also extremely specific on lab rubrics.

Pang is a great professor. If you want to do well on his test go through the lectures notes and learn the definitions for the midterm. His tests are fair, just make sure you do the work in the class and you can get a good grade. Come to lecture and pick up slide notes.

He's very fair in his grading, but don't expect an A if you don't get A's on the midterm and on the final exam. Most of your labs are partner labs, so if you have a good lab partner you'll have an easier time in this class. This is a reasonable class in terms of curriculum, but it was way too much work for a 3 unit class.

Dr. Pang is really one of the best professors I've had the privilege of having at UCLA. He is very caring of students' learning and gives lots of opportunities for students to seek out help. He holds office hours like every day and visits each lab section, when not lecturing, to make sure things are running smoothly. Taking this class and 20B concurrently really benefits you as a student because they overlap so much, by learning one you really learn the other. In terms of workload, there really isn't that much maybe 1-4 hours a week at most (for some tricky lab reports). What I will say, though, is that your grade is ultimately determined by your TA. The biggest portion of your grade comes from lab reports and "lab technique", I had a pretty strict and inexperienced TA so his grading was sort of all over the place and he wasn't much help. I got a 46/50 on the Midterm and averaged As on my lab work, a few lower scores at the beginning, but overall mostly full points. The material is not very hard to grasp, all acid-base titrations, chemical kinetics, and stoichiometry with some topics not covered in 20B like detergent chemistry and beer's law. Overall, really enjoyed 20L with Pang. I highly recommend taking Pang over any lab instructor.

Lectures: Pang is a great lecturer. He’s very engaging, and he gives you print outs of the material he is going to cover for that lecture which is really nice because you don’t have to write much. More often than not, he goes over the same material that you learned or are going to learn in Chem 20B, and more often than not I thought that he did a better job explaining the material than my 20B professor. Material wise, it’s not too difficult, but Pang still is very clear and thorough with the material.

Actual Labs:
I really enjoyed the labs. They were definitely tedious at times (titrations, spectrophotometry, reaction rate labs, specifically), but none of them are very difficult. Overall, it was a very fun experience, and if you work at a relatively average rate, you’ll more than likely get out of lab early which is a definite plus.

Lab Reports:
The lab reports are super easy. Pang is extremely clear with what he wants from you, and as long as you follow his instructions, which as I said before, are very easy and clear, the reports will be a piece of cake. Nothing too difficult with the reports, you just have a pre-lab and a post-lab each week, and the questions aren’t difficult. There are also a decent amount of partner labs, and you don’t really get to choose your lab partner, but it’s not a big deal. It’s nice because you only turn in one lab report so it’s less work for you overall.

Exams:
There is one final worth approximately 10% of your grade, and then a final worth approximately 30% or so of your grade. They weren’t difficult at all. The first midterm averaged around an 85%, and was mainly computational. The final wasn’t too bad either. It was very conceptual, but it wasn’t difficult as long as you just went over his extremely comprehensive study guide. For both exams, Pang definitely gave you the materials you need to succeed ahead of time. The average for the final was around a 74%, which is pretty decent.

Extra Help:
Pang gives out a lot of practice assignments and study guides, so you’ll have lots of pre-exam material to work with. He also has an unfathomable amount of office hours between him and his TAs. I always went to my TA for help because he was grading me, but I heard that Pang was really nice with his time as well. Overall, if you need help, there will be a time that works out for you for sure with one of the TAs or Pang. There’s plenty of help provided for this course.

Overall:
Your experience with this course really depends on your TA. Pang is a phenomenal instructor, and is very clear and organized. He always gave us “lucky light sticks” before our chem 20B exams which the entire class loved, and when everyone says that they love Pang, it’s for a good reason. However, Pang only impacts the course to a certain amount as the TAs are the ones who grade your lab reports, they’re the ones helping you run the experiments, etc. My TA was really chill and cool, and I talked to him a good amount of the time after lab was over because I had free time, and that was really cool. Basically, hope you get a good TA, but most of them are pretty good for the most part. I had an 8AM lab which sucked, but this is always an impacted class, so just take whatever spot you can and deal with it. Even though waking up so early sucked, the actual lab experiments made the experience worth it. Plus, a lot of people did really well (the class overall grade average was an 87%, and the class is not curved, so about 50% of students got some form of an A!) I would highly recommend this course with Pang.

Honestly Dr Pang is such a cool dude (it's kind of sad how one of my favorite professors I've taken at UCLA is just a lab professor, but honestly he's just great). His lectures are boring and they were all super early, but he prints out his lecture slides so you just have to stay half awake in order to write down the stuff that will help with your labs later. The labs themselves weren't hard (lots of titrations), but I've heard that it really depends on your TA (mine was awesome and really helpful; others, not so much). The workload took some getting used to in the beginning, but honestly what lab doesn't have too much work assigned to it? There's only one midterm and he gives you a study guide for it (and for the final). The study guides are much harder than the actual tests, but it does really help you understand the material (and if you're taking Chem 20B concurrently, helps you study for that class as well). He's super considerate of students, has office hours nearly every day, and once gave all of us some extra glow sticks that he used in a demonstration, as good luck for our exams in other classes. The worse thing about Pang is that he blows up your email, but honestly he is one of the best professors in the chem department!