I really enjoyed this class with Professor Lavelle. Although I did not get the grade that I wanted, I learned a lot. This class was manageable, but my only problem is that the homework and lectures didn't really measure up to the difficulty of the tests. Sometimes things that were only covered for a brief minute would show up on tests, so pay attention closely to lectures! I would 100% recommend taking this class if you want a good chemistry background.

Dr. Lavelle is possibly the worst lecturer I have ever experienced. He is so unclear and ambiguous. If you take this class with Lavelle, go to the UA workshops instead of lecture. It's way more helpful because they explain the topics way better than Lavelle ever could. Lavelle does offer lots of resources like Chemistry Community and review sessions that are helpful; however, some of his TAs are literally incompetent. His UAs are much more intelligent and actually have great tips for his class. Lavelle is also very tricky and ambiguous on his tests. The questions are terribly worded and the average is always a C. This class is NOT curved and neither are the tests. I do not understand why he wants his students to perform so terribly. This man will set you up for failure!

Before taking this class, I had been drawn into the assumption that Lavelle was a very strict and intolerable professor. However, as the quarter progressed, Lavelle seemed to be very open and helpful and allows students to have numerous opportunities to prepare for his tests (which are definitely very hard). The most important takeaway from this class was that you cannot cruise through the class by straight memorization; It requires complete, yes I mean COMPLETE understanding of all the concepts Lavelle goes over. Finally, his final is difficult but doable (very similar to his midterm).

Tests were stupid hard, at least for me. I came in knowing I wasn't good at chem and genuinely worked really hard to get a B. Dr. Lavelle always bragged about having tons of hours of extra help (review sessions, office hours, etc) and I went to several of them but I don't think this helped me on the exams. My TA also wasn't the best and I've heard from other people that their TAs often messed up grading for every exam. I wish I could have gotten an A but that just wasn't feasible for me. That being said, I did have a friend who was taking 14A with Caram at the same time and it seemed like her class was even harder so you might be better off with Lavelle if those are the only options.

Probably the worst professor/teacher I have had so far. His homework questions are nothing compared to his exam questions and claims to have "so many resources to do well" when these "resources" are review sessions held by people who will only give you the basics and not information Lavelle would test you on. His exam questions are incomplete, for example, in our final, the TAs had to tell us to use the actual yield that was given to us instead of the theoretical yield for two questions when in the question we're only told to use "the yield". Our midterm average was a 72% and he was actually HAPPY. Lavelle is horrible - please save yourself, your GPA, and your sanity and take someone else PLEASE.

Lavelle was an awesome professor, I would definitely recommend taking his class. He is very passionate about chemistry and very passionate about getting everyone to understand and pass his class. This being said it was still tough - this is coming from someone who did not take AP chem in high school because it was not offered.
1. Get the book!! The book helped me a lot in expanding on the concepts he talked about in class because I did not have the background knowledge most people had.
2. ALWAYS do the homework and online assessments. Lavelle takes questions from these and puts them on his exams (easy points)
3. He gives 2 tests which aren't too bad. Just make sure to study for an adequate amount of hours.
4. The final and midterm were hard and a bit tricky, but if you go to review sessions and study everything he tells you to and pay attention in class, you should be able to get by just fine.
Although I personally got a B- in the class, I feel like I learned a lot this quarter and am adequately prepared to take chem 14B unlike some of my peers who feel underprepared when taking 14A from a different professor. I highly recommend Lavelle! Its tough but its worth it!

Lavelle is honestly such a gem. I didn't learn very much in my AP Chem class in high school, but Lavelle is a great lecturer and I feel like I'm walking away from the class with a solid understanding of everything that he's taught. I used to hate chem but now I genuinely enjoy it. He provides so many resources for people to succeed, whether it be his online modules or countless hours of review sessions before exams. It's also really endearing how hard he tries to connect with his students (he plays music before every lecture and ends every lecture with a chem meme). Overall, I would definitely take this class again and am looking forward to 14B next quarter with the legend DJ LL himself.

Lavelle pretty much just reads off of his slides. They're not NOT helpful, but doesn't truly reflect the difficulty of his exams. The homework does not reflect the difficulty of the exams either, and the only true practice you'll get is from the midterm/final review packets that he posts. The midterm was very difficult and the average was around a 70% while the final had an average of 78%. My best advice is to do a LOT OF PRACTICE PROBLEMS!!! Do all the homework ones, find some online, anything. I did well in AP chem in high school but I got a little lazy knowing that this was a repeat of what I had done. This class is hard but doable. The class average this quarter was an 82%.

Selling course textbook (loose-leaf). Mint condition, in binder, used only for HW time to time. Text me at **********. Thanks!

I thought this was a very fair class. I struggled in it because I suck at Chemistry and only took one high school chem class which I didn't do well in. The small tests and exams are not too bad as long as you study for them. In my case, I fell asleep in classes and didn't pay attention, but managed to pull off my grade by studying many hours on my own (30-40 hours for final, 10 hours for small tests, 25 hours for midterm). I can't say much about the lectures, but Lavelle does provide a ton of review session with practice problems and practice tests that help a lot.

Tips:
1) Do all the homework problems as he using some of them on the final/midterm
2) Go to review sessions or at least do the practice problems given out
3) Pay attention (he told us to draw cisplatin on the final and I was dumb lucky that that was the only 5 minutes I paid attention in that class)