I'm fairly certain Dr. Deifel will no longer be teaching at UCLA, but he co-taught this with Dr. Casas so I expect this will be applicable to when she's teaching this, especially since it seemed like she really admired his style and his connection to the students.

If you were to imagine a millennial teaching organic chemistry, that's basically Deifel. He uses his vape to show mechanism routes, calls us "kiddos," and ended every lecture (including the first) by saying I love you all and pretending to cry. He does a lot of rambling, which I'm not a fan of but some people eat it up. He is very clear in his lectures about what will and won't be on the test, with the added bonus of him culling a lot of the stuff because he finds it redundant.

The actual labs are super boring and have ridiculously long waiting steps. The majority of them are just running TLC, staining it, and then performing liquid-liquid extractions. Get lucky with a lab partner and it won't be so bad. Whoever grades the pre and post-labs has some sort of deep rooted anger that they're taking out on the students though. It is so upright and will just take points off for random stuff, which sucks because that's like your entire grade. The final was easy enough that it didn't matter though.

Deifel is one of the best teachers I’ve had. It is clear that he genuinely cares about each and every one of his students. He makes himself available for all his students to address any questions or concerns. Deifel is funny, engaging, and made me excited for the 8am wake up (I know it’s crazy). He is incredible 10/10 experience.

Deifel is a very helpful guy, holds lot of office hours and is always open to questions from text. Lectures are engaging and Deifel is overall a very nice and helpful professor for what is a class that has difficult material.

He's a very fun professor, he has so many office hours and is free whenever to help students. He's very passionate not just about the subject but also about his students and gets to know almost every one on a more personal level!

Dr. Deifel is a godsend. I cannot express how useful his lectures are, the clarity of his lessons makes chemistry easier to understand. The nature of this class makes it challenging in itself, however, Deifel will hold you by the hand throughout the quarter and answer questions if you show up to office hours. Homework and participation are worth essentially 50% of your grade. Plus, the exams are relatively difficult but straightforward, so you will get a good score if you study. Definitely take this class if you can.

The lectures are important, but it takes personal devotion to truly know the material.

You don’t have to read the textbook to get an A, but you will need to spend some independent time learning in some form (Organic Chemistry Tutor FTW)

Deifel is really funny, and he really keeps the class engaged. Although it is my hardest class this quarter, I always look forward to coming to class.

His review sessions before tests are a godsend. If he didn’t do those, succeeding before tests would be a lot harder for me. The tests are hard, but he puts his best effort into being a highly valuable resource to you. Thank you Deifel!

Very engaging lectures and a great teacher. Has helpful reviews before the tests and lots of office hours for extra help. Cares about students learning and provides many resources. I don’t like chemistry much but found this to be one of my favorite classes.

Professor Deifel is a phenomenal teacher, and when you take one of his classes, you can tell he cares about you as a student and a person. I had him for 20L over the summer; he opted out of having a TA and instructed both lab and lecture instead. You can tell he's passionate about chemistry and teaching as a whole. I'm a chronic lecture-napper, but I stayed awake in his class because he's engaging and funny. In lab, he keeps a friendly and supportive attitude if you struggle with any of the procedures, but he DOES NOT joke about lab safety. He's also goated for buying us our lab notebooks and letting us do our work near his office. He's very approachable and a great guy to talk to about chemistry and life in general.

Deifel is a somewhat old-schooled style professor, in that he will lecture on the board with chalk, and supplements his own lectures with slides that previous professors have used for the class. The class is always interesting, but suffers a little bit from issues within the department(i.e. equipment issues, etc.) that tends to be out of his control. He's one of the rare professors who have extended office hours during the week, when you can go in and talk to him about both class content, and a variety of other things in and out of chemistry. His education experience makes him really personable as a professor, so definitely find him during office hours!