I thought this was a solid class. I took this my sophomore year for the psych major, and I hadn't taken chemistry since sophomore year of high school. lectures often have mistakes in them that do get corrected, but overall they were informative. they also had great practice problems. what really helped was lab. Spencer was probably one of the best TA's I've ever had, he was so clear and explained everything really well. Definitely attend section if you need help and clarity. Scerris was also nice and I did think he was approachable, you can stay on the zoom for a good while afterwards to ask questions. if you follow along the practice questions and do the homework, the exams really shouldn't be difficult at all. don't shy away from this class, I was scared at first but really there is no need to be nervous.

a lot of the reviews here bash scerri and the class but it’s about as hard as you’d expect a college-level (weeder) chem class to be. i studied hard and it was doable. (not easy, doable.)

grade distribution: for my quarter, it was 30% hw (easy 100%), 30% midterm, 40% final. the midterm and final themselves weren’t curved but the final grade was. (iirc it was a downgrade :( ). no extra credit.

lectures: scerri goes really fast in lecture which was def a struggle to keep up with but i HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend going to his office hours. he’ll go over material again and again and you can ask follow up questions, which you can’t really do in lecture. he’s also not that scary. he actually has a sense of humor (i know, how surprising) also, he usually stays behind lecture for a few minutes to answer questions. even if you don’t have questions, i recommend you hang out there so if someone else asks a question, you can benefit from the answer.

homework: the class uses owl for homework assignments, which has lots of attempts and you can keep coming back to it. it’s due at the end of the quarter but don’t fall behind cuz it takes forever. one problem is that the owl questions aren’t even what you’re expected to know for the course, so just speedrun them and you’ll be fine. (it’s an easy 100% so do not mess up. it’ll put you at a huge disadvantage for the final curve). other than owl, there’s no other hw.

exams: for exams, scerri does reuse so many old questions. do as many of his past exams as possible and that’ll set you up really well for the midterm and final. he posts a couple on bruinlearn but see if you can find others (like at the test bank, etc.). don’t start studying too late — there’s so much to study.

your ta will usually have practice questions for you to do. if you want more practice, other tas also sometimes post their questions on bruinlearn, so you can check that out.

also, this course is def not just like ap chem since it does cover some quantum stuff. it is complicated and you will have to work at it, but find a good study group, engage with the material, and you’ll be able to do it.

good luck!!!

The class itself is not that hard, especially after they removed o-chem. I found his thinkwell quizzes to be quite confusing and frustrating but they did help me learn the material before exams. Do all of the recommended homework problems and you'll be fine. Know everything that he talks about in his slides because that is the material that will show up on the exam. I don't consider this class unreasonable at all.

I did not take AP chem in highschool

I would not recommend to take this class with Scerri unless you absolutely have to. The grade is divided 30% for sapling quizzes, 30% for the midterm, and 40% for the final. The class is essentially asynchronous and I ended up watching all of the lectures on 1.5 or 2 speed the next day. The lectures only consisted of him reading through the (already posted) lecture slides but, occasionally, he would add new information or complain about how few people had their cameras on.
There are 5 sapling quizzes, all due at the end of the quarter. The questions come from the textbook and there was some overlap to the class content, but just as much content was never introduced during lecture. I would not recommend reading the textbook or doing the practice problems because there is just too much of a disconnect from the actual, tested class content.
The midterm and the final were excessively long and tedious. If you took AP Chem, the midterm should not be too difficult but towards the end of the course there is a good amount of new material that you will have to study in depth. Thankfully Scerri posted practice tests that were in the same format as both exams which were helpful for studying for the exams. Discussion was not mandatory, but I wish I went more often since the TAs essentially review the material from the past week. You can go to any section so I would recommend asking around to see which TA is the best.

Eric Scerri is the worst instructor I've ever had the displeasure of having during my time at UCLA, and throughout my entire lifetime of education. He couldn't care less about the success of his students and fails as a teacher in a multitude of ways. 1) His lectures are not only monotonous and boring, but irrelevant to course material and do not, in any way, prepare students for the exams OR homework in the course. 2) the homework on Achieve provides a ridiculous amount of busy work; which could be useful, however, the problems are ALSO irrelevant to the exams given. 3) the exams. Absolutely ridiculous tests, impossible to finish in the slotted time amount, always riddled with mistakes that are only given after Scerri figures them out mid-test and then has proctors write the corrections to the question mistakes on a whiteboard, piece of paper, etc. These exams are not a measure of what is taught in lectures or homework, the only reason I was able to pass them was because I had an angel of a TA (AJ, you are my savior) and had to lean on her immensely to teach the class; something she is certainly not getting paid to do (at least not to the level she should be). 3) Scerri is extremely unprofessional in his communications with students; he is extremely rude and unwelcoming and is extremely inflexible and fails to accommodate his students' needs whatsoever.
I am frankly shocked that UCLA would allow such an awful instructor to step foot in a classroom or lecture hall, much less get paid for what he fails to teach. cannot even fathom how he's kept a job here for 20+ years much less 20 days. I've never had a worse teacher, instructor, lecturer, joke of a professor, whatever you can call him; in my life. And I'm 150% sure that the majority of my classmates would agree, he is astonishingly awful.

I don't recommend this class to anyone who wants to maintain an interest in chemistry. If you have to take this class with him here is the rundown:
HOMEWORK: As of Winter 2020 he uses OWL for homework. It 's like 10 online "quizzes". All the homework is due at the end of the quarter and it's free points basically because they give you 10 tries on the same with different numbers/elements and tell you how to get the answer if you get it wrong. Unlimited time on every "quiz".
TEXTBOOK: There is a textbook that comes with OWL. I never used it.
LECTURES: Possibly the worst part of the class. Not bruincasted, and he posts the Powerpoints but they make no sense. Like actually ZERO sense. Worst formatting on earth, barely any insightful content. When he goes through them in class, there is slightly more clarity. Slightly. He is not a great explainer for complex topics, moves rather fast for no reason, and does not answer questions well. After the first midterm (Week 3), I stopped taking notes and attended intermittently.
TESTS: These are his only saving grace LMAO. Purely based on previous tests. Your TAs should give you a packet of his previous exams. LITERALLY just do these and memorize them and tests are a breeze. Only caveat is most of them do not have the answers so check with someone or ask your TAs if you want.
TAs: I believe this is where you'll get the most actual learning. My TA was not that great, so I attended other TA sections. They can be pretty helpful and are usually better teachers than Scerri himself. If you don't life your TA, DEFINITELY try the others. Attendance didn't really matter at all.

TLDR; don't take this class. if you have to just make sure you go to TA sections and do the past exams.

Chem 17 offers a lot of help for first timers in Chemistry, but also is insanely quick. Scerri covered 11-12 topics in the 10 weeks and, in truth, missing a class or dropping out of focus for a minute can put you behind. I heavily recommend attending his office hours (the ones he holds in the morning I found work best for 1 on 1 time with the professor). The classwork is light, with four online quizzes that are open everything (book, professor, classmate, internet, and can be taken three times with the highest score being in the gradebook) and two graded homework assignments from the textbook. There is one midterm. If the pace scares you, I still recommend taking this class. It absolutely helps with understanding the subject and opens doors for attending professor and TA office hours.

If you have had him for 14A the grade breakdown is identical. 30% thinkwell, 30% midterm, and 40% final. I opted out of the final due to everything that went down during the end of spring quarter..

Scerri comes off as a very arrogant, know-it-all professor, granted I am sure he is incredibly knowledgeable but he likes to say words like "elementary" when describing certain concepts which just comes off condescending. I wouldn't say he is the worst professor I have had, but he is not near the top of the list. I did well in both of his chem classes because the problems he does in class are nearly identical to the problems on the midterm/final.

The best thing to do in this class is honestly rewrite notes to get a better understanding for yourself. Scerri is not the clearest, and you will most likely be confused by his lectures due to the disorganized structure and his poor way of teaching.

Otherwise, I did generally learn a lot from 14A and 14B but I am incredibly glad to be over with Scerri.

Great lecturer and great class . Took it my first quarter at UCLA and it was interesting and a perfect introduction to the classes here. Tests arent hard at all, just use his course readers and the pages he assigns from the textbook

I am selling my textbook Principles of Modern Chemistry by Oxtoby. No notes or highlights, and in mint condition. Text me at ********** I can meet on or around campus. Selling for $60 with price negotiable.

I feel like Dr. Scerri is not given enough credit for the time he invests in his students. To me, it seemed that he answered every relevant question asked of him, and he always made time for students to voice their confusions. Some people complain that he brushes students off & appears condescending, but I think they were just misunderstanding him. He has a good sense of humor & sometimes shows his cats on camera-- he is a nice guy.
While I did struggle with many of the concepts taught in this course, I believe that was a result of my own lack of preparedness for this class. I did not have a strong chemistry foundation coming in, and I was very quickly overwhelmed, but that is to be expected of a college-level chemistry course-- it's gonna take some work to get the grade you want, don't expect it to come easy. If I really tried to concentrate on the material during lecture, I understood it. Dr. Scerri is a clear lecturer if you really listen to him. Although I sometimes found his slides kind of confusing and disorganized, if you asked him to clarify them, he would.
The bottom line is that this class is difficult in that there is a large amount of material you are expected to learn, but you are totally capable of learning it if you're willing to put in the work. Dr. Scerri provides many resources to facilitate student learning, including recorded lectures, lecture slides, practice problems, office hours, and a textbook.