I love prof Anderson. She made me really enjoy Ochem, a subject I feared due to reputation. She is also so approachable, and she answers everyone's questions. I feel like I can talk to Anderson without feeling nervous or scared. Anderson is a gem. It was initially clear that she is a new instructor, as the course slides could be more organized (sometimes there were mistakes on there so I ended up asking my TA a lot of things), but Anderson is very patient and listens to us when we tell her our concerns. Her homework assignments and exams were very fair. I think the class was paced perfectly (as long as the student puts in the work). Also, she's really funny.
A lot of students hate her, but I really don't think the class was that horrible. It was in fact one of my favorite classes.

Pros:
- Anderson is funny
- She makes more office hours as needed and allows walk-ins even if she doesn't have office hours
- she stays after class for God knows how long answering questions
- She helps you out-- like seriously. Did poorly on one of the midterms? Ok, she decided to drop the lowest midterm. The two lectures had their final exams at different dates and were therefore at different levels of preparedness? Ok, she curved the final. Did poorly on the quizzes? Complete her evaluations on MyUCLA and gain extra credit that will cover that. Can't learn the amino acids' acidity levels? Ok, she didn't include it on any of the tests. She seriously helped us out a lot, and it's unfortunate that many people fail to see that.
- she answers A LOT of questions during lectures
- if she doesn't get enough time to go over the content in class, she makes supplementary videos

Cons:
- her slides may have mistakes
- you WILL have to study outside of class (I don't really think this is a con, I mean it's Ochem at UCLA...)

I do recommend her, but I will leave with a note that you DO have to put in the effort. Good luck!

Most of the faults of this class lay on the quality of the lectures in my opinion. Slides are misleading at times due to mistakes and Dr. Anderson can get sidetracked at times. This disorganization can be attributed to the fact that this quarter was her first time at UCLA, and I anticipate that she will (probably) be more organized in the future. In terms of assignments and exams, I will say that the problem sets were very difficult while the exams were very fair, almost easy. Dr. Anderson has a exam drop policy and a two problem set drop policy, which makes the class more manageable. There was also a quiz component that would've been given during discussion. These quizzes were also generally manageable and the lowest is dropped during the course.

As much as the reviews say otherwise, I believe it is very possible to succeed in this course if you stay on top of content review (don't fall behind).

This is a review for Anderson's 14D class.

I took her in Winter 2025, which is the first time she taught 14D. It was a very stressful, disorganized experience. If you do both of the Klein textbooks, you will basically succeed in this course, but if not, you will fail the tests. She did not understand why the textbook structures explanations and examples the way they do and did not explain things in any understandable way, sometimes even teaching us the wrong concept and rushing through examples for no end result but confusion. I should have stopped going to lectures halfway through the class because her teachings made me more confused than if I had studied for the entire class myself. Her Spring 2025 class was not much better, from what I heard from my friends. Save yourself the struggle and take it a year later - she's going to quit after next year, from what I've heard, so take it with any other teacher who is more organized, provides answer keys, does not leave halfway through office hours, and is not interested in letting her students better understand content in any other way than giving answers to the homework every week.

Professor Anderson was probably the worst professor I've had at UCLA. While she is a nice person, albeit a bit quiet and unconfident, her teaching style was awful and I had to self-teach myself this whole course. She was extremely disorganized, leading to extreme confusion during lectures. She would only sometimes upload notes before class and even these notes usually had mistakes in them that she wouldn't catch. During actual class, she taught the material in an extremely confusing way that left me feeling more confused after class compared to before. Her problem sets are unnecessarily hard since she creates them on her own, leading to mistakes in the questions and hours of headaches. On the flip side though, this makes the exams feel more fair. I say "fair" but her exams still sometimes asked questions on concepts we never covered in class, which was discouraging, but these questions weren't as hard as the problem set questions at times. Even the TAs didn't know what she was doing at times, which just shows her disorganization. I could go on and on but you can read other reviews to see that she was not a good professor this quarter. The only saving grace of this course was the fact that she dropped a whole midterm, two problem sets, and one quiz but be prepared to put in a lot of time into course to teach yourself the material and complete the problem sets. Since this was her first quarter teaching though, I hope she improves.

This review is from when I took 14D with this professor:

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT take this mediocre professor ever. The reviews from Chem 14C are definitely misleading because tell me why she did a complete 180 with her teaching and resources in Chem 14D?! Just because she might be getting another job soon, does not mean she has the right to mess with our learning and our grades.

Homework/Discussion:
Mackenzie Anderson is the QUEEN OF GATEKEEPING. This girl gatekeeps answers to all the problem sets and discussion worksheets. She says we can go to office hours to get the answers, but it turns out that there isn’t actually a set answer key, so she and the TAs are all giving us different answers. How are we expected to know what is actually correct? We can’t. Of course it doesn’t help that our midterms and final are pretty much the same difficulty level as the problem sets and discussion worksheets.
While of course, I hope you’ll have a choice to not take this professor, if you end up in her class:
Homework/problem sets are all based on correctness and the TAs are told to grade very strictly and harshly. 2 problem sets are dropped. Discussion sections are mandatory; the TAs take attendance and you have to go to your assigned section unless you have approval to attend another one from your TA. You can miss only one discussion section. Homework is 20% and Discussions are 5%.

Lectures:
DON'T EXPECT TO LEARN, at least not well, from lectures. You’ll get a summary or a quick rundown at the least. Honestly, I doubt if she actually knows what she’s talking about. Girl pauses at least once or twice during a lecture with a confused look on her face because she forgets what she’s talking about or she just realizes she is telling us the wrong thing. She literally zooms through content and doesn’t care if she’s still teaching you content for the midterm a day before your midterm. She puts that content you just learned basically 1 or 2 days ago on the midterm anyways and guess what? It ends up being basically 90% of the midterm. This comes despite the fact that she posts a “midterm topics” list with every single lecture topic she has covered. Of course it doesn’t even help because she ends up just choosing to test us on the things we just learned 2 days before the exam. We’re basically left to drown in the deep end.
If you’re unlucky enough to get this disaster of a professor:
Lectures are mandatory in the sense that we have clickers. They aren’t location based. The clickers are 5% of your grade.

Quizzes/Exams:
Apparently in her Chem 14C classes she gave everyone practice exams and curves, but does she do that for chem 14D? No, no she does not. Why? I CAN’T EVEN FATHOM WHY. If her lectures were good, homework was actually encouraged for learning and not for accuracy, and we actually got good answers to our questions and homework sets, maybe I wouldn’t mind us not getting practice exams or curves. Because that would be fair. But, we don’t get any of this, so it's really just UNFAIR that we don’t get any decent helpful resources from this professor before she throws us into the hellfire that are the ochem exams. Finally, most ochem professors give you at least a small note card to take to your exams because there is no way in hell that we can cram that much information into our heads that fast to remember everything on an exam. Apparently, Anderson also used to give notecards too, so why the sudden change I ask YET AGAIN. In terms of quizzes, there are 4 throughout the quarter. They are typically pretty decent quizzes since they’re just based on the Klein book that she makes us do chapters out of. The Klein book is definitely a lot easier than the problems she puts on the problem sets, discussion worksheets, and exams, but it doest help with understanding content.
If you end up in this godforsaken professor’s class:
There are 3 exams: 2 midterms that make up 30% of your grade and 1 final that is 25% of your grade. 4 quizzes make up 15% of your grade and 1 is dropped.

Extra Credit:
2 LA feedback forms (mid quarter and end quarter for 2 points each).

TLDR: Mackenzie Anderson = doom. DO NOT TAKE HER. SAVE YOUR SANITY AND YOUR GRADES. But, if you absolutely have no choice, read the stuff above so you can be mentally prepared.

If you’re looking for a course that will leave you more confused than when you started, Chem 14D with Professor Anderson is the perfect choice. This class is a disaster from start to finish, plagued by miscommunication, poor teaching, and a baffling refusal to provide answer keys.

Let’s start with the most infuriating part—no answer keys. In a class where problem-solving is crucial, the fact that students are expected to blindly guess if they’re doing things correctly is beyond absurd. Office hours? Good luck. Clarifications? Don’t hold your breath. It’s as if Anderson actively wants students to struggle rather than actually learn.

Miscommunication is another hallmark of this course. Lecture explanations are unclear, contradictions run rampant between discussion sections and what’s posted online, and half the time, students are left deciphering whether what was just said was even correct. Instead of fostering a learning environment, Anderson’s teaching style leaves students scrambling to teach themselves or rely on outside resources.

And then there’s the teaching itself—or lack thereof. Concepts are thrown onto slides with minimal explanation, and when students inevitably have questions, they’re often met with vague or dismissive responses. The disconnect between lectures, homework, and exams is staggering. It feels like Anderson is teaching one class while expecting students to perform at the level of an entirely different one.

Chem 14D is supposed to be a vital course in the organic chemistry series, but with Anderson at the helm, it’s more of an endurance test in self-study and frustration. Save yourself the headache and avoid this class at all costs.

I had Prof Anderson in I think her second quarter of teaching ever, so I think she'll only get better. I personally found the class to be disorganized and contradictory. Some of the stuff said in lecture was just plain wrong. I recommend learning from Klein's Ochem as a second language book, it corresponded well to what was tested. I do think that Prof Anderson really cares about teaching though, and was actively working on improving. Students are scary, so I had a lot of sympathy for her.

anderson is so nice and organized. she provides lots of resources and her practice exams are similar to her actual exams. i wish she was teaching 14d

I really have no distaste for Prof. Anderson and agree with a lot of the students that the older reviews of her's are largely inaccurate. She was a bit disorganized yes, but rarely did it interfere at all with the actual learning process. She offered numerous office hours and provided you with more than enough resources to succeed. I will remind everyone that this is still a class offered by UCLA's Chem Department, and it is Ochem, so take that to note. But in all honesty, Mackenzie did an amazing job of working with us and I'd wholly recommend you take her.

Unlike the reviews of the past on here, I believe that Anderson has improved a lot in her teaching. She's no longer so scatterbrained and I found that lectures flowed smoothly. I understood like 80% of the procedure in lecture and got the other 20% through practicing problems on my own. She is soooooo good with answering questions in class that sometimes it makes her go faster on the content itself, but not an overall bad thing. I would take again!