I have never written an evaluation here, but just this once only for Neil Garg. Excellent professor, excellent super TAs, and excellent class overall. He convinced us that organic chemistry can be fun and improved our skills in problem solving. His Spring 2012 class gave him a standing ovation on the last day and there was a reason for it.

I had 14D and 89 with him. By far, the most amazing professor at UCLA. Very inspirational and makes you want to learn and come to class. Makes learning enjoyable and is just an overall funny guy. 14D is normally a hard class, but the way he teaches makes it so easy to understand. He is always available to help and answers every question in the best way he can, never making it seem like you have asked a dumb question. There are no dumb questions with him, he just wants to make sure you really understand the material. The way to do well in the class is really go over all the problem sets and practice midterms so that you know how to do each problem perfectly. And when taking the tests, (there are no surprises on the tests, you know exactly what to expect), make sure to double and triple check your answers. There are many extra credit opportunities so make sure to take advantage. Definitely take this class if you have the chance. As far as Chem 89 (the honors section), its a really chill class and you get to learn a lot of cool things without the stress of really worrying about your grade with the added benefit of being able to get know Professor Garg better. Again, by far the best professor I have ever had.

All-around great professor, and a really nice guy if you get to know him. He teaches his material in a clear and thoughtful way and really encourages understanding among ALL students...

Highly recommended!!

N. Garg is by far the best professor I have had at UCLA so far. He presents the material in a concise and engaging manner. He also asks people to come up to the board and sometimes rewards students who participate. I would highly recommend him for any class he teaches, especially 14D.
He offered extra credit for people who made music videos about Ochem. You probably have seen some of them on youtube already. Be ready for one of the most fun classes you have taken at UCLA. And who said Ochem was horrible?

Garg was pretty much the first person in the Chem department that seemed to care about our performance and our interest in chem.

Lectures: He outlines his notes directly around the book, so if there is something you don't understand or need more practice on, you can read up more on and get extra practice problems from there. He also makes it pretty fun. If you go up to the board, you can leave with a prize. I was a little disappointed I never won a periodic table beach towel, but still pretty cool.

Availability: Has a good number of office hours and sticks to them. I definitely showed up a fair few number of times and he helped me out. Also, if you can't make his OH, he spreads his TA's out really well so there's an OH going on. The TA’s all worked in his lab and/or know him personally, so they definitely put forth A LOT of effort too in offering help to those that need it.

Personality: He is a genuinely kind person, and he wants people to succeed and find their niche. He takes the time to know a good number of his students, especially those that participate and come to office hours. He offered an incentive for those that participate in class, that he would bring us to the Faculty Center and treat us to lunch. Probably the coolest thing any professor has ever done for me. And while we ate, he told us horror stories about grad school, and even offered us career advice.

You can tell he really cares about what he does, and he wants to see you take an interest in chemistry, whether it’s for that quarter, or even as a possible career. I went into 14D dreading chem (and everyone’s favorite Thinkbook), and after 14D + his honors 89 course, I left trying to declare a chem minor. Later on, I even took a graduate seminar course that he opened up to undergraduates, which (pre-14D) is probably the last thing in the world I would ever considered doing before. Seriously.

All that being said, this class is not a cake-walk; Ochem is going to be Ochem, and you will need to put in the work regardless. Pre-read the lectures, listen, read again, practice. Don’t confuse his kindness with easiness. But Garg makes the experience a lot better than most other professors I’ve had, and if you put in the effort, you will take a lot out of it on top of the grade.

This is the class where I was able to show my abilities in problem solving, critical thinking and of course learning a lot. As UCLA students we know the cycle of professors we have to deal with. I wont mention specific names but we know who the Ochem professor (not plural) everyone has to deal with. That being said, Professor Garg class was thus far my favorite in my undergraduate undertaking. YOU LEARN A LOT IN THE CLASS.

To do well here's what you should do: Attend lectures and write everything down. Write the clicker question down as well because even though the y may seem simple Garg drills you with these examples so you can easily build upon them in the problem sets and exams. Read the book for good backup but Professor Garg himself provides great and understandable answers with rationale to questions posed. What I also found very useful is to go over the last lecture's notes before the beginning of the your next lecture. It recaps for you what you learned and gets your mind in chem mode. It really helped me focus and understand concepts at a deeper level. Do the problem sets early and do them repeatedly, understand what drives a certain rxn or even concept. For the midterm and finals, do the problem sets and attend OH as well. Garg is welcoming, knowledgeable and understand what we have undergrads have to deal with.

Personally, I really grew from this class so much so that I wanted to go after an ochem major (if only ucla had one). You cannot say enough about this class and professor. Garg makes you think, but helps you along the way.

Hands down the most pleasant experience any undergraduate student can have with respect to organic chemistry. Do not miss an opportunity to take a class with Neil Garg, you will regret it for the rest of your life...there's not much more I can say, just take him!

This is the first time I've felt compelled to write a review on BruinWalk. I've had some good professors while at UCLA but Neil influenced me (and I think it's safe to say a lot of students) in more ways than one. He is a different kind of professor. First of all, he relates to his students. He remembers your name (in a classroom of 380), which is insane. He's very easy to talk to so just go to office hours and get to know him. He's a really nice guy and the office hours are really laid back so it's a great chance to get to know him better (and for him to get to know you better). You can tell he's a genuine guy with your best interest in mind right off the bat. Neil tells you he's not there to trick you, and he really isn't. The tests are straight forward if you have studied the notes (the whole class is based off the notes, problem sets, and practice exams) so just study those-- it's an awesomely structured class because you don't need to buy any supplementary material (he even makes the clicker optional-- you only have to shell out $15 only if you want the chance at some extra credit). As said below, Vollhardt is not necessary. Just take good notes and study them (keep up with the material consistently, make sure you don't get behind) and you'll be fine. He makes sure there's a lot of office hours during the week before exams (and even the day before/day of exams) so that you get your questions answered in case anything is unclear. There is really no excuse to complain about the setup of this class-- what you get out of it is proportional to the amount of work you put in. Neil never talks down to you or asserts any air of self-importance. Often times professors will make the rest of the class feel average while the top students are applauded but that doesn't happen in this class-- he rewards the top students and encourages the rest of the class to do well next time. He assures you that you are all intelligent people and encourages you to make a change that will catalyze your doing well in the class-- he even offered a one on one counseling session of sorts to anyone that wanted to talk with him about how to improve their scores/study habits. I don't know about you but I haven't had that kind of professor since I've arrived at UCLA, let alone in a pre-req class. He motivates you throughout the quarter to really think about your career choice and compels you to ponder whether or not you really want to do medicine. He tells you to pursue your true interests and tells you that through a personal experience. Although I do indeed want to pursue medicine I appreciated hearing that from a professor because he obviously cares about how happy you will be in the rest of your life and he obviously realizes that college is a decisive point in time of our lives/careers. There's a lot of extra credit opportunities for you to boost your grade in case you didn't do so hot on a midterm and the TA's and Neil all have a good sense of humor so just make them laugh and have fun while doing it and you'll be golden. Part of the reason I felt compelled to write this review was because of the negative posts concerning the scope of this class/his teaching. Of course each person is entitled to his or her opinion so I respect that fact but I have to disagree with the implications/tone with which the posts were written with. Saying that Neil throws reactions at you and doesn't really explain it is not true at all. He understands that we have 10 weeks to learn o-chem and understands that we are all life science majors, a huge chunk pre-med (I think ~90% answered on a clicker question that they want to go into medicine during the quarter) so some of the students are bound to be taking the class by pure technicality. Knowing this, he tries to engage your interest and give you the groundwork to o-chem so you can understand any of the MCAT/other material you may encounter in the future with some familiarity. He tells you this explicitly during the quarter. Of course he can't teach you all of o-chem in 30 lectures. And it is respectable that he wants to let his students benefit from knowing a handful of major reactions with main points (some more thoroughly than others) than having to memorize every single detail about a reaction which would probably be less effective in the end anyways. During the quarter he asked whether or not we wanted to know the mechanisms/details to some reactions and every time the students said "no" unanimously because it was already enough material as it was. So in my opinion I disagree with some of the posts below saying that Neil "taught surface o-chem" with a critical tone. Neil's very obviously a really smart dude who's passionate about his work/teaching and I hope he never loses his fervor for teaching like I have suspected is what happened to a lot of other professors (not to be rude, just to be honest). He had the choice to go through every single thing extremely thoroughly but I suspect that he didn't for the sake of us being pre-meds whose majority initial impression of o-chem was not extremely positive. That's not to say it's not a hard class-- as stated below you need to keep up with the material and there are a lot of small points to be taken off on tests that will quickly drop your score (i.e. if you don't do the synthesis problem correctly you're down to a mid B already). I struggled with the synthesis problems alone and it was what made the class tough. But I think the fact that Neil is catering to the interests of life science majors is respectable and you still need to put in a good amount of work to get used to the new material. I ended up with an A- in the class and I was very grateful for it. I struggled with the class at several points through the quarter but Neil and the TA's constant reminding that you always have a shot to redeem yourself in the class was a huge morale push and that was part of the reason I appreciated the class so much. This class was also just a lot of fun in general. Hah

TL;DR, take 14D with Professor Garg in the Spring. You definitely will not regret it! Stay positive

Neil Garg is by far one of my favorite professors at UCLA. He teaches you concepts that are relevant to the course and tells you up front what you need to do to succeed in his class: go to lecture and take notes, participate in the clicker quizzes and do the problem sets thoroughly and understand what you are doing.

He starts off with basic concepts that he builds up on throughout the course so make sure you know the foundations before you fall behind!

His tests are super fair testing you on what he has actually taught you or presented in class. Problem solving is huge so brush up combining ideas and applying it to a greater world.

I would definitely recommend Professor Garg for chemically 14d over anyone else!

It really says something about a professor when a lecture hall of 400 is full to the brim throughout all 10 weeks of lecture (with many students even sitting on the steps of CS50), and when the students give him a standing ovation at the conclusion of the last lecture.

Neil is extremely personable, approachable, and in general concerned with student learning. He aims to make the lecture hall feel more like a classroom environment, and he succeeds by and large.

The material is indeed difficult, but Neil's teaching style made it very easy to understand - he used the chalkboard, drawing up and writing up examples and his lecture notes. He provides enough information that students are able to understand concepts, but not so much that it becomes completely overwhelming.

He and the TAs also provide plenty of practice problems, all of which are greatly helpful in preparation for exams. His TAs are chosen directly from his research lab group, and are all highly capable and qualified to do help you succeed.

In addition, Neil is quick to respond to emails and VOH questions (both very helpful for this course), and is very patient during office hours - he will take the time to explain concepts and answer questions to assure that you understand the material.

This class is indeed challenging, and Neil will include problems on exams designed to make you think. However, all of the material is covered in detail in class, and an A is attainable (take this as the word of someone who had done poorly in the entire chemistry series, and yet still achieved an A - even without doing the extra credit).

On the subject of extra credit, Neil offers many creative and fun opportunities to gain extra points, which help reinforce the material taught in lecture. He also tends to introduce themes/culture references for the quarter, which makes things a little more fun and interesting (e.g. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride).

TL;DR - Neil is an amazing professor; if you have the option, wait until spring quarter to take the course with him.

P.S. Tips on acing the course:
1. Learn reactions (conditions, reagents, mechanisms, etc.) the week he gives them to you - they're not too difficult, but there are a lot of them. Flash cards are great.

2. Write down any dates, names, molecules he brings up in lecture/draws on the board. Neil often uses these as extra credit questions on exams, and they aren't tough to remember.

3. The book is not necessary to do well in the course, but it does provide background and thorough explanation to help you understand. (It is rather dense literature however.)

4. Synthesis will most likely be difficult at first, but keep practicing and remember your reactions (see #1)

5. Volunteer for demonstrations/questions in lecture! He may give out awesome rewards =)

14D has definitely been the course I've enjoyed the most at UCLA, as well as the one I've learned the most from. I cannot express enough how thankful I am to have taken this course with him.