(I wonder if the poster, two reviews below, is that Amber girl... And I hope that the person below me undergoes some anger management)

Keep yourself hydrated because Professor Peter M. Felker's lectures are a tad dry.

I admit, coming into this course with Felker was a bit nerve-wracking, after perusing through the previous reviews of him on this site. But it appears that he's made significant changes. He made his tests much more doable. The first midterm was overly simple; three mere plug-and-chug problems with an open book, one page of notes and two hours to finish the test (I'm going to boldly state that nothing can be more overkill than this setup). What should've been a deathly class average of an F- became an A-. And I've seen the previous tests to make such a comparison.

Felker made his second midterm much harder than the first midterm (average was around 50%), and the final was relatively the same difficulty as the second midterm. I've taken the AP Chem test and got a 4. That was during junior year of high school, so whatever knowledge I've had in chemistry was purged from my head. However, I strongly believe that I would have done fine on his latter two tests should I have retained that knowledge. That's my approximation of how difficult Felker's class is.

Scerri was my first choice, but he was completely full by the time of my enrollment. Felker definitely does not provide the same amount of entertainment as Scerri does -- unless, of course, you're much like the person two reviews below. Felker wastes no time, though. He teaches in a professional manner, and what possibly makes him "boring" is that he delves into very technical manners of each topic. Depending on your eagerness to learn about chemistry, his lectures may pique your interest enough to keep you awake or you'll just have to find a comfortable position to sleep. Fair game: he does tell you what will be on the exam, and on the tests that I took, they did show up, exactly the way he said they would. On other hard problems, you'll just have to rely on your critical thinking.

Overall, after coming out of this class, Felker is just your average college professor. His lectures are understandable, he offers help during his office hours and his difficult tests are balanced out by the curve.

And yes, he's a burly man. But don't fret if you're forced to take him.

that girl below me is right. (hopefully not a guy)
Basically, look at that picture. THAT IS NOT FELKER. That must be his picture from middle school.
The first time I saw Felker, I thought it was Brad Pitt. He makes Scerri look like a baboon. He would kick Scerri's ass too.
So overall, yeah he's not bad at all. However, this is a self-study class, as I believe he said in the beginning of the quarter. Read the chapters, do the example. This is not one of those classes though where you can be like, "i'm cool i took AP chem because i'm a fag. I don't need to study for this. I got know it alread cuz i'm a fag." Felker's exam questions are hard. But the thing that makes him fair is that if you do the hw, find old tests, and ask for help, you'll do fine. You'll go great actually.
did i mention you get to use your textbook and a page of notes for his tests (3 pages for the final)? Guess what? that doesn't help shit. You only need the book so you can use appendix D for thermodynamics. And you only need the page of notes to write stuff so that you don't have to find it in the book.
Which is why his tests are hard. There's a misconception of, "oh not only did I take AP chem, i have the book and some notes so basically i'm soo cooolll."
NO
first midterm was easy. Everyone thought Felker was a pushover.
second midterm. OH MY GOD FELKER BROUGHT THE HEAT ON THOSE PUNKS! I remember specifically this one kid coming out of the second midterm.
This kid, must've felt bad about his exams or something, was talking to his friends about getting drunk at a bar and getting into a "bar fight".
Yes, you.
I'm talking about you.
I know you're on here right now, giving Felker all one's for ratings, making fun of his pic. You're probably reading mine, and saying, "oh my god this kid is a bitch he likes felker."
OK, let me get this straight. You want to get drunk. Fine, that's cool. But you said you wanted to get into a bar fight. And not just any bar fight, you wanted to fight Felker.
Yes you said Felker.
So, let me get some things straight...
1) you know he doesn't actually look like his bruinwalk pic in real life right?
2) Felker doesn't drink beer. He's a pirate and drinks whiskey and rum.
3) HOW do you expectate to PHYSICALLY OVERCOME and BEAT UP your Chemistry 20B professor when he just OWNED YOUR ASS INDIRECTLY thru several PIECES of PAPER known as the second midterm? How do you expect to do that huh?

You're probably just made that after the fact Felker failed your ass, you're still uglier than him.

TAKE FELKER.

Felker is like the cutest professor i have ever seen. altho his lectures are boring, just looking at the way he lectures is fun. he takes good control of his body and hes very well-coordinated. he must have played football when he was in highschool. you must take him for sure it will be an experience!!! and oh, his exams are extremely entertaining!!!

Not the worst teacher, but also not the best. I liked him better than Professor Scerri (who I had for 20A). He explains the material but there is definitely a lot of outside studying.

MT-1 was ridiculously easy.
MT-2 was a bit harder
Final was a bitch. So hard. Every question had one extra element that throws the entire process off.

A big thing is finding his past exams...whether it be on VOH or through friends. All of his tests are similar the next year.

Overall, I recommend him.

Not a very effective professor. He knows his stuff, but can't seem to convey it well at all. The exams are hard and you'll essentially have to teach yourself the material. Lecture gets very boring very fast and chances are that halfway through the quarter you will stop going completely. I wouldn't necessarily say "stay away", but make sure you can teach yourself from the (awful) textbook or you will not do well.

Worst Chem professor I've ever had. Lectures were boring and he did not explain what he was doing on the board. If the class seems to dose off, he gets annoyed and the lectures get even worse. When he know the class is not paying attention, he'll say random things and tells everyone it will be on the test. Even if you write this down, when you see it on the test, it will be the complete reverse of how he did it on the board, which is twice as hard as doing it forward. Don't take him if he is teaching two lectures, because he makes two tests, one is easier than the other, so even if one lecture does poorly because the test was harder, he curves it based on comparison with the other class, so everyone will get lower grades on the curve. Since my class had a lower average than the other class, he lowered the whole grading scale to make the average a C instead of a B- like the other class. Because of this, half of my lecture had to retake the class, and most of us ended up getting A's. Don't take Felker even if he is the only professor teaching.

Felker isn't the most exciting lecturer, and his homework is not always like the midterm/final. But he does give practice midterms and a practice final. However, the practice ones are just previous midterms. Our second practice midterm had several problems that we could not do because he never covered them, and he never tested us on. That was just a waste of my time and made me worry that the midterm was going to be harder than it was. Overall I think that his chem 20B class is pretty tough, but it could be better and it could be worse.