Like other reviews have mentioned before me, this class requires a lot of hard work and dedication, especially because it demands a substantial breadth and depth of chemical knowledge. Even after having taken AP Chemistry in high school, I found 14A to be incredibly challenging. As a professor, Lavelle definitely knows his material well. My major criticism of his teaching would be that the information and examples he present in his lectures are not an accurate reflection of the difficulty of exams; however, I think a large part of it has to do with the class itself rather than the professor. I would heavily recommend people to go to LA workshops, do every single practice problem that Lavelle assigns, and review exams from past years. This class can be daunting, but it's definitely doable.

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This is coming from someone who had never taken chemistry before this class. I was absolutely terrified at the beginning of this class, but Lavelle was such an amazing professor that I felt so much more confident in time for the midterm. He explains concepts at a manageable pace, so attending his lectures and office hours is super helpful. He also provides the most resources outside of class I have seen, including a million review sessions, relevant practice problems, and Chemistry Community. This class was certainly very challenging, but I always felt like I had the resources to succeed; it was just on me to use them.

Lavelle was an okay professor for my first quarter. Although he provided many resources, I felt that his resources did not properly prepare students for the exams. His exams would include small details and omit concepts he stressed in class. As someone who didn't take AP Chem, it was rough, but it was okay.

There is not a lot of homework in this class to cushion your grade if you do bad in the tests, which I thought were pretty hard.

The Chem14 series is the nightmare of the LS core. Prof. Lavelle is a nice professor but sometimes made this class more difficult than it needed to be. First of all, he does not post his slides online (nor Bruincasts his lectures) even though he is obsessed with his Chemistry Community nonsense. So, if you miss a detail during the lecture, good luck figuring it out. Chem. Com. is basically a forum where you can ask or answer other peoples' questions and you will get 5 points for that each week. There is also a weekly homework that you need to turn in during your discussion. There are 2 tests and a midterm. I found the tests to be doable but the midterm was what got me. After the midterm disaster, I lost all my motivation to try any harder. The thing with his tets is that he does not give any examples that are related to the difficulty of the exams. There are many helpful LAs(much more helpful than the TAs, shoutout to Lyndon) and they hold weekly review sessions. They also hold the review sessions for the midterm and the final which are actually what helped me pass this class.
Overall, yes this class sucked. Even though I thought that I tried hard, whatever I was doing seemed to not work (also, chemistry was my worst subject in hs). But if you are already okay at chemistry, you should be able to get a B- with some effort. You probably are gonna dread this class but Lavelle is not the main issue here. It's more the material. He tries to help, but I would have rather hoped that he changed how he taught the material.

Lavelle provides a lot of resources and organizes a lot of review sessions and I found them rather helpful. He clearly cares about helping his students and goes above and beyond to do it. I also appreciate how, when he lectures, he'll often pause at the end of a slide to give people time to write everything down. In conclusion, would definitely recommend.

I did not have a chemistry background coming into this class, so it’s not impossible to get a decent grade with Lavelle. HOWEVER, I hated this class with a burning passion.
Yes, Lavelle organizes a ton of review sessions (which he brags about constantly during lectures and emails), BUT many of them are unhelpful, especially because most of his TAs are disorganized and super flustered when put on the spot. There were only 2-3 UAs’ review sessions that I trusted to go to that were helpful, but it took me a while to figure that out, and by that time the quarter was almost over. Most of the ones I ended up going to were a waste of time, or repeated information that didn’t challenge you/prepare you for the difficulty of the tests.
The tests were poorly written and vague, because like I said the TAs were largely unorganized and lazy. And Lavelle never checked their work, or clarified how they should grade. On one midterm, I literally received zero partial credit on the questions that I missed due to one single calculation error, so I complained to my TA and he basically agreed that I deserved the points, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
Lavelle’s lectures and wording are not helpful and unclear. I copied down very word he said and still i could not understand what he was teaching. Yes, I didn’t take AP chem so I wasn’t as prepared as a lot of people in the class were, but I still don’t think Lavelle should have just assumed that everybody did. He basically taught (and tested) the material as if it were already review, which I thought was completely unfair coming from very little chem background.
With regards to grading, I thought it was pretty generous, considering that I got a few C’s on my exams. As much as I despised chem community, it did give me a good grade cushion. So as long as you do everything he asks you can pass his class, but probably at the expense of actually learning something.

I read bruinwalk reviews before taking this class and actually kind of disagreed with most of the ones I read. I liked Lavelle a lot, I thought he was a really straightforward professor, his lectures were fast-paced but made sense, and he gave us tons of resources and opportunities to study. The homework wasn't hard at all you only had to do 5 problems a week and 5 reviews on chemistry community which was easy and basically a free 100 points in the class. The tests weren't really surprises either I also thought they were really straightforward and we covered the material pretty well. I took chem and ap chem in high school so I had some experience in chemistry but overall just show up and study regularly you should be fine.

DJ Lavelle, an absolute icon, but he teaches an absolutely tough class.

I had almost 0 chemistry background -- last time I took chemistry was high school sophomore year. That said, this class was HARD as I was relearning a bunch of high school topics before the first lecture (recommended through his modules on his website). These topics are tested within the first few weeks, so make sure to learn them.

Professor Lavelle loves his baby Chemistry Community and will boast about them on his exams, which honestly makes the class a bit more bearable. Otherwise, his tests are often times not worded the best and are unclear of what he's asking. Although frustrating to lose many points by not understanding what's being asked to do, the class only requires a 50% to pass (250/500 points).

The homework load itself isn't terrible -- only 5 problems from the textbook and 5 posts on Chemistry Community per week. BUT, be sure to go through each homework question he assigns as 1-2 of them will appear on exams.

Be sure to attend workshops and review sessions that you need help with, but don't attend all. It won't do you any good to just mindlessly copy notes on topics that you just need to review on your own time (I learned this the hard way!)

Otherwise, okay but difficult class. Hopefully 14B gets easier :')