This class was difficult, but this is to be expected for an ochem class. Dr. Anderson was a little unorganized, but given this was her first quarter teaching this class and there was a strike in week 7, she did a good job. As she gets more experience her class organization should improve. Her lectures were clear and her notations were helpful. I would say that there were definitely topics I did not understand in the lecture, but this is to be expected -- these are very difficult concepts and require time spent outside of class studying and practicing. I would highly recommend finding pdf versions of the Klein book and the textbook that she recommends in class -- they have great practice materials which are super helpful. The tests were also very fair. The two midterms were not too difficult for an organic chemistry class, and she tested us on things we went over in class. The final was more difficult but nothing crazy.
My main complaint was that she was late posting lecture slides and study materials (like practice exams). This was annoying, but in the future now that she has created these materials they should be posted on time.
But honestly, the biggest plus of this class is the grading scheme. Dr. Anderson has an extremely lenient grading scheme -- you can drop your two lowest homework scores, one quiz score, and one midterm. Overall, the content of this class was difficult, but Dr. Anderson did a good job teaching us and giving students materials that would allow them to succeed. Some advice: do the practice problems that are assigned even if they aren't mandatory, read through the textbook/Klein book to better understand topics, and expect to have to put in the work to understand the material. Sometimes you can't understand a topic in a one-hour lecture and that's ok. Good luck! :)

Wow, it's amazing how heavily people can blame their own incompetence and inability to dedicate time outside of the class to the professor. Sure, Mackenzie was not overly organized during her first quarter teaching at UCLA, but again, it's her first quarter in the midst of a unprecedented TA strike -- so let's not expect perfection. The class is Organic Chemistry at the #1 public university, so whoever is expecting a cake walk is out of their mind. Yeah you need to dedicate a lot of time to this class outside of the prescribed lectures and discussions, but that needs to be expected.

Maybe we should all spend a little less time "tearing [Mackenzie] down" and spend a little more time learning our functional groups! Blaming the professor for a hard class cannot be the solution.

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!

I went into this class scared af she was gonna be terrible like the reviews said but she wasnt, she was SUCHHHH A GOOD PROFESSOR. All the reviews are from when she first started teaching which is why they're bad but she has improved alot so IGNORE THE OLD REVIEWS.

Grade Breakdown:
2 Midterms: 30%
4 Quizzes: 15% (lowest dropped)
10 Problem Sets: 20% (2 lowest dropped)
Discussion Attendance: 5% (miss one)
Final Exam: 30%

Idk if all the TAs were like this but mine basically never took attendance LOL. We had discussion worksheets but most of the time we would just go over homework problems. GO TO OFFICE HOURS, they literally work out the problems on the problem sets for you so go to them!!! Professor had one zoom office hour (idk if she does this every quarter) and recorded it so if you miss it you can watch it later. I really loved her lecture slides because she would go through every example in real time with us which made it so easy to understand. HIGHLY reccomend you have an ipad if you take her because itll make following the slides easier i guess (obviously dont neeeed it but very helpful). Shes a young professor but also very millennial so she can be relatable but also very cringey. The midterms and final were VERY FAIR. The practice exams she would give out were pretty much the same to the exam so very helpful. There is no mandatory textbook but she does reccomend you use the textbooks. They have free pdfs online so don't buy it. There is a curve at the end of the class. I don't know by how much but I ended the class with a 91% which is usually A- but it became an A. She offers extra credit for the LA surveys. She reccommends you buy a model kit so you can easily visualize molecules but I didn't buy it and did fine. So I don't really reccomend you buy it but if you think itll help go for it because she lets you bring the model kit to the midterms and final.

Conclusion: HIGHLY RECOMMEND LOVE HER!!! she made me actually like chemistry

Anderson was a lot better than I expected based on past reviews. I think she has become more comfortable with teaching however she still seems very nervous and disorganized at times. I think this class is very manageable using her lectures, the discussion worksheets, and the Klein book practice problems. She gives out her past exams which are very similar to the actual midterms and finals. I also really appreciated how she recorded her office hours. Definitely don’t shy away from her class! (Don’t buy the model kit… never used it once)

Reading all of the previous reviews, Dr. Anderson seems like someone completely disorganized who cannot teach and gets extremely flustered. I do not think this is necessarily accurate anymore, as she has now been teaching for a while, so her lectures flow well. She goes at a very fast pace though, so rewatching lectures or at minimum reviewing slides is important. An important thing to note is that you cannot go into this class expecting the lectures to teach you everything. The Klein book is absolute GOLD and should be read prior to lecture. Do the practice problems. She does a good job of guiding learning and giving you a good bridge between the rather simple stuff in the Klein book and the more difficult applications on the exams. Her lectures are insufficient on their own due to the sheer scope of material required for this class, which means that sometimes she'll lecture about 5 different exceptions to some rule that she never even mentions. Out of the chem department professors, she's been the best teacher I've had (not including Dr. Pang for lab, mans a legend); however, you can't rely on her to teach you everything. She does a good job of answering question during lecture, although it's obvious she sometimes gets frustrated with redundant questions that could be answered by just reading the book or looking at a previous slide. The homework is challenging, so try to work in groups or go to office hours to get questions clarified. The quizzes are pretty easy, but the discussion worksheets are rather difficult. Those aren't graded, but it's good to understand them to do well on exams. She puts questions on exams that feel out of left field because they're different from anything covered in lecture, but if you actually have a solid understanding of the concept, they're doable. There's also a lot of partial credit on exams. Overall, Dr. Anderson is a decent professor, has definitely improved over time, and is a rather generous grader.

Overview: Professor Anderson was probably one of the funnier instructors I've had at UCLA (many may fight me on this but her corniness was enjoyable). She was clearly very knowledgeable about the content and her slides were structured to ensure that we knew only the important concepts of organic chemistry. I think my biggest issue with the class, however, was that there were many instances where she rushed the content we were learning and come to find out that some were the more important topics in the class. It was tough to deal with at times, but it wasn't hard to figure it out yourself through youtube videos or office hours. Her office hours were also very helpful, as she is a very nice person and obviously knows her stuff, but is just really awkward. She is also very accommodating!! In the beginning of the class, she mentions a couple of textbooks that may be useful to your learning. In my opinion, the only one worth the time is Klein. It truly saved my grade and gave me a more in depth understanding of most of the concepts that we were learning.

Grading:
20% Problem Sets (Lowest 2 dropped, 9 total)
15% Quizzes (Lowest Dropped, 4 total)
5% Discussion (Lowest Dropped, Based on Attendance)
- Note: There are discussion worksheets given in these classes, but you do not have the answers to them. Instead, you must work with other members of the class and with the TA to get the answers. (I never did these).
30% Midterms (Two Midterms)
30% Final

If your scared about taking the class based on other reviews, don't be. Organic Chemistry is not as bad as many make it out to seem and to be honest, I loved it. Had I studied more for the midterms (personal issues), I definitely feel I could've gotten a better grade. I had an average of around 55% for the midterms and got a C+ on the final and ended with a B, so if I could do it, you definitely could do it.

TLDR: Take the class with Anderson, attend OH, use the Klein Practice Books!!!!, and most importantly, believe in yourself.

We should have access to the discussion section answers as there is no point in doing them if you don't know if you are correct or not and we should not have to go out of our way to ask the TAs for the answers.

Weaknesses: Professor is mentally disorganized sometimes. Lecture slides are mostly empty so it is hard to understand the purpose of the slide (what we should be learning). Our exams were harder than prior exams for some reason which seems unfair. We also lose lots of lecture time because she starts 2-3 minutes late every time. She doesn't give enough detail to understand any topic, but then asks conceptually and technically challenging questions on the homework and exams, which is unfair.
Strengths: Good at answering questions and good at explaining topics.