DO NOT take this class with Anderson. Find another way. If you're like me and got backed into a corner and have no choice but to take this class with her, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do but don't even consider taking another difficult class along with it. I have no idea how much of my difficulty to attribute to her, and how much to the fact that this was her first quarter, but this class was a dumpster fire from beginning to end. We were perpetually behind, to the point where she had to start posting additional recorded lectures we had to watch on our own time because class time wasn't enough. The homework was unreasonably difficult because it was supposed to "foster a spirit of collaboration," which would have been great if our TAs had any idea how to do it either. We finally figured out that what was happening was that she would tell the first lecture something, then tell the second lecture a different way, and then say something completely different in her meetings with the TAs, and then we would all show up to TA office hours and have to fight over how to do it because everyone received a different version of the story. Every single answer key she posted was full of errors, and she finally had to put a cap on regrade requests because everyone kept catching the mistakes and wanted their points back. I finally broke down at the end of the quarter and hired a private tutor (TAs were on strike), who pointed out that the reason I missed one of the homework questions is because Anderson forgot to include the other half of the molecule on the homework document. I emailed her about it, but she elected to ignore that portion of my email and I received no points back. Her tests are unreasonably difficult and are full of curve balls. Do yourself a favor though--buy the Klein books. They are worth it I promise, as I was constantly comparing them to my lecture notes and realizing that they actually contained the correct information. Also Professor Dave Explains on YouTube. I did get a good grade in this class but trust me, I had to fight tooth and nail for it, going to as many office hours a week as possible, constantly emailing her and the TAs, teaching myself, hiring a tutor, you get it. Unquestionably the worst class I have taken here, and considering I had Scerri for both 14A AND 14B, that should really tell you something.

If you are looking to take this class, this is the review for you. Imagine you are in the world of Narnia. You are a dwarf living in the woods peacefully with your wife and children. Suddenly, the White Witch comes and takes over all the land, slaughtering those who opposed her, and as a result, you join her forces to protect your family. You say goodbye to your loved ones, knowing you will never see them again, crying as your children grab you. Then, during the war with Aslan, the White Witch sacrifices you, destroying your life as well as that of your family's. Anderson is the White Witch, and your family is your GPA. She was absolutely horrible as a teacher. She taught outdated methods that did not work, her practices constantly had mistakes. She sent out a practice midterm for students to complete as review 12 hours before the test, and half the problems she sent on the practice were "unsolvable" as she said. The key she gave us 3 hours before the test was also wrong and incorrect. I had to teach myself every single concept without her and thank god I did because I would have failed if I did not.

Let me break it down for you:

Lectures: constant mistakes
Practice: Hard and not an accurate representation of tests. No keys given so you don't even know where you went wrong
Tests: Honestly not that bad
Communication: Horrible, barley communicated with students, many went to the hospital the day before the midterm and tried to email her and she did not respond.

If you have no choice as to which professor then good luck. Shes a great teacher.

This class is doable if you put in the work yourself to learn the material. I heavily relied on khan academy, organic chemistry tutor and specifically the Organic Chemistry as a Second Language textbook. Do not rely on her lectures to teach you what you need to know for the exams. The most helpful thing will be doing A LOT of practice problems.
The first midterm was very fair and a clear reflection of what was taught in lecture.
The second midterm had quite a few badly phrased questions that tripped me up, but overall fair questions
The final, I thought, was ridiculous. It was like she taught us addition and multiplication then put it together on the exam without every teaching us PEMDAS. Like the questions were based on what we were taught but then had all these tricky little details to it that lost people a lot of points
Overall, I think as long as you put in the work it is highly likely you will pass the class

However, Professor Anderson is one of the most unpleasant professors I have ever had at UCLA. When asking her a question that she perceives as stupid she will give you a disgusted look while being very passive aggressive as she answers it. She will also rarely respond to emails or messages through canvas so if you need to get in contact with her do it in person. Also keep in mind she is not understanding of any emergency or personal situation that may come up during the semester.

In conclusion, the class itself isn't horrible so I wouldn't pass on it just because she's teaching but you will definitely need to put in more work than you might have to with another professor.

Dumb easy if you use the $40 Klein workbooks that Anderson recommended in the first class period and read from any of the free textbook pdfs that are available online. Shoutout to The OChem Tutor on youtube for going over practice problems I couldn’t figure out on my own.

Anderson was very approachable after class, and always had answers to my questions. Don’t really get the hate against this professor. Tests, quizzes and assignments were straightforward and included carbon copies of questions from the Klein books. I will say that some of Anderson’s lectures were disorganised, but not past the point of comprehension. My experience included going into each lecture having completed the assigned readings and Klein workbook sections; if I had not done prep and worked through the Klein book, I can imagine Anderson’s lectures being difficult to follow.

Anderson dropped our lowest 2 of 10 homework grades, our lowest 1 of 4 quiz grades, and our lowest of 2 midterm grades. Our quarter got messed up because of the TA strike, but Anderson would provide help in office hours and over after class to make up for this and I still managed to learn a lot.

While I feel like many of the past reviews are fairly harsh, straight up do not take this class with this professor if you have a busy schedule- either with school, having a job, personal, etc. You will have to put in so much individual time/ effort if you want to do well. I am not usually someone who attends office hours, but I went at least weekly for this class, often times multiple times a week. In addition to that, office hours are PACKED and you will get maybe 5 minutes each time to ask your questions before feeling like you are holding things up. Another critique I’ll give is Professor Anderson’s vendetta against giving answer keys. I’ve personally never been in a class where they do not provide correct answers after submission. Her response was that she can no longer use the same homework’s/ test questions if she did this. Im sorry but is that not a major part of the job? To come up with and write material? The homework questions were often extremely difficult, which is fine, BUT the fact that the correct answers were never released completely defeats the purpose of learning from difficult material. Again, if you brought this up to her as a concern, she would tell you to go to office hours to figure out the correct answers, but I’ve touched on that already. Again, this class took up SO much of my time and mental energy, I really wouldn’t recommend it unless you are into chemistry.

Honestly, I did not feel that this class was nearly as hard as the other reviews said. I'm generally an A student but am by no means super good at chem or a chem god. However, I do put in the time to study class material each week which helped me get an A in this course. Overall, o chem is supposed to be challenging and I feel that we got let off relatively easy compared to other professors. Anderson was a bit disorganized and sometimes had errors in her slides and things were quite last minute in terms of practice tests and grading, but I feel like that most of this has to do with the TA strike affecting grading and the fact she is a new professor. One big complaint I heard is that she doesn't teach very well. This was true in the beginning but towards the more difficult topics she improved. However, being that this is a college course and 14A and 14B was mostly self-taught in my experience, I didn't expect any different for this course. If you're like me and do most of your learning from textbooks and videos, this class should be doable for you. If you only learn from lectures then don't take the course with this professor.

This may come off as rude, but personally, I felt that a lot of students in the course through platforms like Bruinwalk and GroupMe would complain about things that were really not the professor's fault and inflate negative reviews which became very annoying as the quarter progressed. Of course the class is hard it is o chem idk what some people were expecting. Of course you have to put in effort outside of lecture but she gives you all the resources to do so: the textbook, two workbooks, homework, practice exams, and quizzes. If you are not willing to put in the extra work then you will not do well, which goes the same for every other stem course. I strongly believe we got let off easy. What other professor drops a whole midterm, one quiz, two homework assignments, gives 3% extra credit towards the final, and weighs the midterm higher than the final. In addition to this, the exams were exactly like the homework sets, quizzes, and practice exams. These were three additional resources that helped immensely on the exam.

My final takeaways:
-Don't let the negative reviews scare you because a lot of people had positive experiences and walked out with A's.
-If you are someone who doesn't rely much on the lecture to learn then this class is for you, if the opposite goes for you, don't take this professor.
-Study very hard for the first midterm because it is way easier than the other exams so If you do well, the rest of the quarter will feel less stressful.
-Study homework sets, quizzes, and practice exams to prepare for the exams.
-Don't buy the course materials just find them on libgen, especially the textbook because the workbook explained way better and the textbook was vague and hard to follow for a lot of topics. she also uploads free shortened textbook chapters on bruinlearn.

While I agree that Dr. Anderson was disorganized and sometimes unhelpful throughout this quarter, some of these reviews are excesssively harsh. Calling a professor who literally dropped an entire midterm score "unaccomodating" or inconsiderate seems a tad aggressive, especially when the midterms were generally fair and answer keys were set up to give us as many points as possible. That's not to say that the exams were necessarily easy, but that has to be expected in an organic chemistry class. Dr. Anderson isn't some monster who genuinely wanted everybody to fail, which was clear from her dropping the lowest assignment in every category, offering 9!! points of extra credit for the quizzes and final exam, and adjusting her grading scale so that people wouldn't fail. Her lectures do need to be cleaned up and I agree that she could definitely be more thorough in checking to make sure that her materials are consistent and accurate, but every major critique in all of these other reviews can easily be chalked up to the obvious: being a new professor in the quarter system. I'll take back what I say if she's as disorganized and rushed in the winter, so correct me if I'm wrong then, but Dr. Anderson showed every sign of being able to clean up the class and dare I say, make it as enjoyable as an organic chemistry class can possibly be.

This class was extremely unpleasant, but not impossible.

Pros:
-Dropping the lowest midterm - if you do badly on the first one you have a second chance, and if you do well on the first one you don't have to worry about the second one
-Fair midterms. While both midterms were relatively fair, the first midterm was EXTREMELY easy (I think everyone in my lecture hall finished in 30 minutes). This was probably because she was originally planning the midterms to only be 50 minutes long, though
-Responding to student needs. In general, I'd say that Professor Anderson did a good job responding to questions, as long as it was something that EVERYONE was struggling with. You might have to wait until late the night before it's due, but if you're all struggling on a homework set she might post a hint or extend the due date and address it in lecture the next day
-Teaching to the test. I admire Professor Anderson for making her own slides, and she only taught what was absolutely necessary for the exams. By using the slides and the supplementary Klein textbooks (quick but necessary), you pretty much had all the material you needed
-Extra credit. Anderson offered 3 points of EC for the homework and 6 points of EC for the final for filling in the teacher evals

Cons:
-Errors. Many people have already discussed the numerous errors in the slides, practice exams, and sometimes even actual exams themselves. In addition, something was almost always wrong with Gradescope not assigning the correct number of points, so if that happens just email your TA or Anderson
-Crowded office hours. I attended office hours nearly every week (the difficulty of the homework almost required it). The one on Monday (before the homework was due) was always extremely, extremely crowded. Like, running two hours long and people sitting on the floor and having to be turned away crowded. I think this definitely could have been avoided if she offered some Zoom options so that we could all hear the questions being asked (so we didn't all ask the same one 50 times) or if she posted more "hints" about the problems
-Inconsistency. Whether it's the students, TAs, or even Professor Anderson herself, sometimes no one has any idea what's going on. I remember one hw question that I attended a TA's office hours for where everyone was split between two different answers. We asked the two TAs who happened to be there and they gave different answers, and different students and TAs claimed that Professor Anderson told them BOTH answers at different times that day. Eventually this was resolved when Professor Anderson posted a "hint" late that night and extended the due date
-Useless discussion sections. I don't think Professor Anderson set expectations with the TAs about what they were supposed to teach when, so some discussion sections learned material others didn't and some learned the material differently. I had two TAs (I switched a few weeks into the quarter because I found my first discussion section pretty useless), but a common trend is that the TAs do problems that are way too easy for the questions we'll be asked on exams and may even lag behind the lecture material by a few weeks. Because of the TA strike, I ended up not even having discussion for the last 3 weeks of the quarter, and I don't think it impacted my learning at all
-Last-minute changes. For example, Professor Anderson originally announced that our midterms were going to be 50 minutes long and during two of our regular lecture times (which I already thought was sus), but they ended up being changed into the standard two-hour long ones in the evening A FEW WEEKS INTO THE QUARTER. There were also problems with the practice midterms and answer sets being posted very late (like, the night before or the day of the exam late)
-Difficult final. I did well on the midterms and expected the final to be equally fair, but I don't know what happened. It was extremely long (and in a time when there weren't as many TAs to grade due to the TA strike, leading to us only getting our final exam grades THE SECOND WEEK OF WINTER BREAK), had some genuinely baffling questions (which even redoing all of the homework sets, practice midterms, and actual midterms apparently did not prepare me for), and had TWO difficult IR/spectroscopy questions (you'll understand when you get there). It just felt like a final slap in the face

Tips for succeeding in this class:
-Klein all the way. DO EVERY SINGLE PRACTICE PROBLEM in the relevant chapters of the Klein textbooks (both first semester and second semester topics). You can find these as PDFs online. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL before diving into the (very difficult) homework. I cannot overstate how helpful these books are - if I could send Dr. Klein a dozen roses or kiss the ground he walks on, I would. (As a side note, don't bother with the Vollhardt and Schore textbook)
-Park yourself in office hours. They're a battlefield, but get there early to guarantee yourself a spot. Even if you don't talk to Professor Anderson directly, eavesdrop on other students' questions or ask people if you can compare homework answers and exchange numbers
-Buy a model kit (or borrow someone else's for tests). It can save you a lot of time when trying to figure out whether two molecules are the same/enantiomers/diastereomers, etc.

Overall, yes, this class took a lot of time, but again, I think that's pretty standard for a first ochem class. It won't kill you, and the other people in the class are genuinely nice and want to help you. Do Klein, go to office hours, and make friends, and you'll have a much more pleasant experience.

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).