For anyone who's taken organic chemistry, or any chemistry course, you know it's hard, and is jam-packed with a lot of information, but Castillo makes it so much easier to understand. I definitely would not have gotten through organic chemistry this tough quarter without her. She is so understanding towards her students' needs, especially during this pandemic and other social tensions going on. She gave us several extra credit opportunities and even bumped us up 1-2% at the end of the quarter. I'm not going to lie, the midterm was a lot, and took me the whole 4 hours to do, but it was fair in content. After taking Lavelle for 14A and 14B, it's definitely a lot different and I feel like I understand chemistry much more and can actually do it successfully!

Considering this class was online due to the current circumstances, I felt like Professor Castillo did her best to accommodate all students. It really felt like she cared for each one of us, with multiple chances at extra credit, extra office hours, and lenient overall grading policies.
The overall final class grade was split by the following:
Midterm: 20%
Quizzes (5 total): 30%
Discussion: 20%
Final: 30%
The professor gave multiple chances at extra credit, which were easy to do by a simple review of the materials presented during the week before. She also gave the option to students to opt-out of the final exam and keep the grade that students had before the exam (you were also allowed to view the exam before deciding to take it or not).
Additionally, Prof. Castillo gave a nice curve for the class, so my B+ was boosted to an A-.
Highly recommend this professor, as she knows what she's teaching to the core and can actually help you answer any questions you may have.

If any of the old reviews make professor Castillo seem bad, don't believe them! No matter what professor teaches the class, o chem is always gonna be hard and its gonna be a grind to get a good grade . Regardless, Castillo was so nice and interactive this quarter, and she is super passionate about what she is teaching and I feel like that made her lectures so engaging . She is super helpful and would always answer questions, and she really enjoyed watching students interact with the zoom and draw as if we were really in a class . She's such a sweetheart and really wants her students to do well, made the final optional this quarter with everything going on so she truly cares about the students

Dra. Castillo Rodriguez has been my favorite professor at UCLA. She works extremely well to make the class fair while also getting through all the necessary material. She gives a ton of extra credit and is willing to put in extra work/time with you if you seek it. She is so wholesome and an amazing chemistry professor.

Professor Castillo was super accommodating with our final and you can tell that she cares about the students. She even changed the grading scale heavily to make sure that students were less stressed. However, the midterm grading was absolute chaos. There were so many errors with how my (and many others) midterm was graded. My score went up five points after the regrade (so make sure you ask for a regrade if possible). The quizzes were fairly easy if you study. I also recommend watching YouTube videos because Professor Castillo can be a bit unclear with her explanations. Overall, the material in this class wasn't as bad as 14A or 14B with Lavelle.

Ok this is the first time I have ever gotten an A range grade in a chemistry class at ucla. Professor Castillo is honestly a really nice woman and during this whole pandemic kept checking on us and asking us how we were every beginning of class. Our class online would just joke in the chat the whole time and she would just laugh along with us. She's obviously very passionate about organic chemistry and would get so excited during class! However, there were a LOT of mess ups during this quarter....ESPECIALLY the midterm. There were over 400 regrade requests, that should speak for itself. It was truly stressful watching your grade fluctuate on gradescope for 4 weeks straight. Everyone got marked off for not writing "pi bonds" after the number (she fixed it tho). Also the most frustrating question on the midterm was like 4 terms where she asked us to define them for someone with no chemistry background and make it less than 20 words. I got 2 of them marked off because it was "too vague"....like yes it's vague, that's what you asked for!! The regrades weren't completed until like Week 10. The below reviews are true, she does sometimes get annoyed with questions and I have heard that she doesn't respond to emails very well. For the final there was a lot of confusion, as at first she said she was making it more questions and less time (even though for the midterm everyone ended up taking the full 4 hours). However, everyone emailed her and some emailed the department, and the final ended up being optional. She also ended up changing the grade scale so an 85-92 is an A-, which was extremely helpful. I definitely wouldn't have gotten as high of a grade if this class was in person and not open-book. All in all I really did enjoy professor Castillo as a person, however I think there is a LOT of room for improvement

Castillo was one of the best professors that I've had at UCLA. Honestly I hated chem before I took this class, but Castillo got me to love ochem more than gen chem! I've never had such a great chemistry professor. I had Lavelle and absolutely hated every part of 14A and 14B, but with Castillo, I loved every minute in 14C. She genuinely cares about her students and as long as you do the discussion sheets and provided practice problems, you should be set for the midterm and final. We had 6 quizzes, which were pretty easy and helped buffer our grade and make sure we kept up with the material. Her midterm and final can get quite hard, but as long as you practice with the material she gives on lecture slides and worksheets, you can get a good grade in the class.

Professor: She was the sweetest professor I've met at UCLA. She was just so kind and full of positive energy (which was needed in these turbulent times). I went to her once, at the beginning of the quarter freaking out about a quiz that went wrong, and she listened to me, and assured me that one bad quiz wasn't going to ruin my overall grade. The fact that she was so understanding and caring meant alot to me.

Course: She was very observant about how students felt about the material and would move at a pace that was right for the students. We did end up skipping a lot of material near the end, but the stuff we did cover, I understand fairly well. What sets her apart is that she was always thinking about what aspirations her students had and tailored the course that would best help pre-med/life science students.

Tips: Go to Office Hours. She is really sweet and will go over a problem until you get it for sure. There are alot of little rules that I feel like I would've missed if I haven't gone, and my quiz scores definitely improved after.

> She doesn't use the textbook. There is no point in buying/renting it for this class specifically.

> Do the optional worksheets and discussion worksheets, and make sure you read/watch all the material she posts for that week. All of those resources are amazing and helped me learn Ochem more.

The Questionable things: She promised many extra credit opportunities and then "revoked" them. She claimed that getting an "easy" point on the quiz counted as EC, but all the students expected a bump in the grade, or like a point to make us a question they did not get. I'm still not sure how her EC works, but I guess it worked out all right for me. My advice, is that if she offers EC, then just do it because she was treating it like an easy "extra" assignment as opposed to as EC, and don't factor the EC into your grade, just to be safe.

Quizzes were worth a big percent of our grade and each question was worth 2-3 points, and it was usually out of 10. Since there was no partial credit, missing one problem could be a huge deal for your grade. She let us drop one quiz, but still.

Like alot of people said, the midterm grading was a mess. I wish that instead of trying to change grades everyday, she would sort of "take back" our scores, regrade all tests, and give us a final score back. A few students argued with her about a question, and at the end, she admitted that the answer key was wrong and we all got our points back. Considering all this, I was really stressed about the final, but luckily she made it optional.

Conclusion: She is overall a great person and very good at explaining material. There were some bumps along the way this quarter (like the midterm, EC etc.), but I think that she will have those sorted out by next quarter. Based on the reviews, I guess I had her for her second quarter teaching, so I'm fairly confident that she will continue to grow as professor with time. If you get an opportunity to take this class with her, then go for it. She is a phenomenal chemist and an even better, compassionate and understanding person.

OVERALL: Overall, Dr. Castillo was very accommodating of the transition to remote learning. We had 5 quizzes total, 1 midterm, and 1 final (which was made optional due to uncontrollable current events). All exams were open-note. The lowest quiz score was dropped, and she also offered extra credit opportunities to gain points back on the quiz, along with the LA survey. Only 5 out of 10 discussion worksheets have to submitted for full credit, although discussions were not mandatory.

LECTURES: To be completely honest, she is not the most engaging lecturer and although her explanations may not be super clear, there are many outside resources (OChem Tutor, Dr. Hardinger's past worksheets/notes, KhanAcademy, etc) that you can use to supplement your learning. I would recommend using Dr. Hardinger's resources if you can find them because Castillo often takes her definitions/explanations/exam problems directly from his content (plus Hardinger's notes are super useful and very clear). She also offers multiple office hours and tries her best to answer every question.

She changed the grading scale as follows:
Adjusted grading scale:

93.0—100.0 = A
85.0—92.9 = A-
80.0—84.9 = B+
75.0—79.9 = B
70.0—74.9 = B-
65.0—69.9 = C+
60.0—64.9 = C
55.0—59.9 = C-
40.0—54.9 = D
0—39.9 = F

MIDTERM: For the midterm, she gave us a 5-hour window to complete and submit the exam on GradeScope. Although she said in class that it could be completed in under an hour, it was the same length as a traditional midterm (i.e. one that takes around 2-3 hours to complete, longer if you didn't study and need to keep referring back to your past notes).

The midterm exam grading made a lot of students angry; there were a lot of complications with the answer key/inconsistent grading, partly because it was her first time hosting an exam online. It will most likely be smoother in the future. The majority of the class had to submit regrades either because they felt grading was unfair on certain problems, or the grader flat-out marked them wrong when the answer was right.

If you would like access to completed practice exams and detailed notes, send me an email at ************* and I'd be happy to do so :) No charge, I feel like we all need to help each other out right now!

I love this woman! Super sweet and an honestly great Professor! She want her students to succeed!!!

Selling past exams, notes and practice problems!
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