CHEM 20B
Chemical Energetics and Change
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: course 20A or 20AH, and Mathematics 31A, with grades of C- or better. Enforced corequisite: Mathematics 31B. Second term of general chemistry. Intermolecular forces and organization, phase behavior, chemical thermodynamics, solutions, equilibria, reaction rates and laws. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
First off, I learnt so much chemistry from her lectures comparing to the horrible 20A class I took. She makes Chemistry interesting. Even though her tests are difficult they are not impossible. The first midterm was manageable the second one was a lot harder and the final, true to a lot of reviews, was downright difficult. Each midterm composes of 4 cumulative questions with smaller parts. They pretty much put all the knowledge together into one big problem solving question. DO NOT let yourself get stuck on ONE problem and try to be careful of the one that you can do. Whoever grades the test like to take off points on ridiculous details. The cheatsheet helps but the key to study well in her class is pay attention to the OWL type of homework and don't do them mindlessly. Also, study in a group and do the back of the book problems. They are really similar to what she gives on the test. Last and not least, find exams online with the same format and try to do them. For me, those exams help a lot.
First off, I learnt so much chemistry from her lectures comparing to the horrible 20A class I took. She makes Chemistry interesting. Even though her tests are difficult they are not impossible. The first midterm was manageable the second one was a lot harder and the final, true to a lot of reviews, was downright difficult. Each midterm composes of 4 cumulative questions with smaller parts. They pretty much put all the knowledge together into one big problem solving question. DO NOT let yourself get stuck on ONE problem and try to be careful of the one that you can do. Whoever grades the test like to take off points on ridiculous details. The cheatsheet helps but the key to study well in her class is pay attention to the OWL type of homework and don't do them mindlessly. Also, study in a group and do the back of the book problems. They are really similar to what she gives on the test. Last and not least, find exams online with the same format and try to do them. For me, those exams help a lot.
Most Helpful Review
Walsh is a decent professor. Her class isn't very hard at all. She gives out handouts in each lecture which provide a good summary of what you need to know for exams, but it's very helpful to go to lecture and listen anyway since she only lectures for about 20-30 minutes anyway. She also gives you practice exams before the two midterms (one during 5th week and one during 10th week). If you read the notes and do the practice tests you should do well on the tests. In addition to getting at least 50% on the tests, you have to turn in all the lab reports to get at least a C-. The lab reports consist of a pre-lab and post-lab due every week and are pretty easy (most post-labs are done with your lab partner). If you have questions, ask one of the T.A.'s because Walsh doesn't seem very approachable or helpful.
Walsh is a decent professor. Her class isn't very hard at all. She gives out handouts in each lecture which provide a good summary of what you need to know for exams, but it's very helpful to go to lecture and listen anyway since she only lectures for about 20-30 minutes anyway. She also gives you practice exams before the two midterms (one during 5th week and one during 10th week). If you read the notes and do the practice tests you should do well on the tests. In addition to getting at least 50% on the tests, you have to turn in all the lab reports to get at least a C-. The lab reports consist of a pre-lab and post-lab due every week and are pretty easy (most post-labs are done with your lab partner). If you have questions, ask one of the T.A.'s because Walsh doesn't seem very approachable or helpful.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - Ok this is somewhat incomplete seeing as I couldn't even complete his class. In full honesty, even though I dropped this class week 4, I still attended some of his lectures with my friends because this guy is definitely a character. His class is basically all a bunch of different topics going on at the same time, and the expectation is that you learn all of it completely and effectively. What I mean is that all of the reading, the homework, the lectures, and the discussions were all disconnected from one another, but the midterms were comprehension based that combined every piece of material. I would agree with the rest of the reviews that Weiss is kind of arrogant, however I really liked this about him. I would rather have an arrogant and engaging lecturer than someone who had no idea what they were talking about. He was pretty funny, and if you paid attention what he said didn't seem too crazy or outlandish. He just covered supplemental material during lecture, so it was pretty hard to make up. This made it pretty difficult because I had to miss an entire week of class due to personal reasons. Anyway, the main complaints: homework was pretty time consuming considering that we wouldn't cover any of the content during lecture. Weiss was also really proud of the fact that he taught 20BH, the honors version of the class. As someone who took all of the honors physics 1 track, it made me laugh that he was always talking about how great that class was and how special they all were. I didn't feel affected by it, but it definitely could be bothersome to people. His lectures tended to go in places that didn't feel relevant but definitely were, so if you weren't paying attention it was harsh when it came time for midterms. The midterms were also held after lecture, so you had an extra time commitment which was kind of annoying. pros: Weiss is entertaining as shit and if I wasn't graded in his class I would've loved it. The homework and discussion worksheets had higher weight in the class than the midterms, so if you messed up it was okay. Tests were completely open note, so you could've brought a lot of material to the test. I would say this class is somewhat comparable to an honors class, so if you're a chem major I would try and take Weiss because he's definitely a good contact. He promised basically everyone in the class research. All in all, don't take chem 20B with Weiss if you just want a standardized chem class because it's a lot more than that. Just take 20BH if you want, or wait til you can get an easier prof.
Spring 2025 - Ok this is somewhat incomplete seeing as I couldn't even complete his class. In full honesty, even though I dropped this class week 4, I still attended some of his lectures with my friends because this guy is definitely a character. His class is basically all a bunch of different topics going on at the same time, and the expectation is that you learn all of it completely and effectively. What I mean is that all of the reading, the homework, the lectures, and the discussions were all disconnected from one another, but the midterms were comprehension based that combined every piece of material. I would agree with the rest of the reviews that Weiss is kind of arrogant, however I really liked this about him. I would rather have an arrogant and engaging lecturer than someone who had no idea what they were talking about. He was pretty funny, and if you paid attention what he said didn't seem too crazy or outlandish. He just covered supplemental material during lecture, so it was pretty hard to make up. This made it pretty difficult because I had to miss an entire week of class due to personal reasons. Anyway, the main complaints: homework was pretty time consuming considering that we wouldn't cover any of the content during lecture. Weiss was also really proud of the fact that he taught 20BH, the honors version of the class. As someone who took all of the honors physics 1 track, it made me laugh that he was always talking about how great that class was and how special they all were. I didn't feel affected by it, but it definitely could be bothersome to people. His lectures tended to go in places that didn't feel relevant but definitely were, so if you weren't paying attention it was harsh when it came time for midterms. The midterms were also held after lecture, so you had an extra time commitment which was kind of annoying. pros: Weiss is entertaining as shit and if I wasn't graded in his class I would've loved it. The homework and discussion worksheets had higher weight in the class than the midterms, so if you messed up it was okay. Tests were completely open note, so you could've brought a lot of material to the test. I would say this class is somewhat comparable to an honors class, so if you're a chem major I would try and take Weiss because he's definitely a good contact. He promised basically everyone in the class research. All in all, don't take chem 20B with Weiss if you just want a standardized chem class because it's a lot more than that. Just take 20BH if you want, or wait til you can get an easier prof.
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