The man is cool to talk to but thats about it. I found it difficult to understand the material with him as the professor. At the beginning of the quarter he explained, "How does one succeed in my class." Let me tell you, I did everything he asked for and still got a D on both midterms(individually at least , there is also a group portion that acts like a "curve"). I kid you not, I have no idea how I got an A- because i thought i was going to get a C+ or B- best case scenario. I think I must've done really well on the final(doing better on the final exempts one of your midterm grades). At the end of the day, this class is not worth the headache and stress. Find a different professor.

Where do I even start? Barr is a terrible professor: he seems to be caring and concerned about our learning at first but after a while it all goes to shit. He is pretentious and has no good intentions in teaching. His teaching philosophy emphasizes collaboration, and while this approach isn't harmful to us, it should not be mandated for COLLEGE STUDENTS. Students are in a constant state of confusion and making us work together just makes us more confused.

The discrepancy between his lecture material and exam content is the reason we struggle. The material in CHEM 20B is not exactly easy but a good amount of effort should result in a decent grade. Not in Barr's class though. He is a decent lecturer and explains concepts with example questions. HOWEVER, his exams are not reflective of the course material and he expects us to understand these "higher level concepts" that he barely explains in class. He does have a group portion for the midterm which helps your grade slightly.

There are a lot of things I dislike about Barr, but the one thing that I hate about Barr is how he refuses to release answer keys for his problem sets, homework, and practice midterms. He claims that solutions would not benefit our learning, but that's just gatekeeping... It's really frustrating and it just shows how indifferent he is when it comes to students' success.

OVERALL: this class isn't impossible, but you will keep questioning yourself the whole quarter. Go to office hours because he usually goes over problem-set questions. This class is poorly designed and I DO NOT recommend it. Barr needs to start taking student feedback as a professional. I hope he realizes his flaws more than he boasts about his strengths. Good luck to those of you taking Barr.

No just No. Absolutely do not take him if you have the chance. The class isn't impossible and you'll most likely do much better than I did if you like chemistry; but if you're like me and it's just a requirement, then this class will most likely be no fun at all because his lectures do almost nothing to prepare you for his tests. There's a serious lack of resources to study for this class, most of your studying will have to be based on any old exams you can find which will definitely be different then your upcoming exam. Overall just try not to take the class with him but if you do I suggest you find a group of people who are good at chemistry and prepare to do an immense amount of practice problems..

Heres the thing, Barr is a professor people love to hate. Now would I say this out loud? No, no I wouldn't. But everyone else on here made him seem like the worse guy and teacher they'd ever met. Maybe its because I'm an engineering major and have delt with FAR worse but this man is so generous in his grading LMAO. For reference, winter quarter was the worst quarter I have ever experienced mentally. I was lacking in ALL of my classes and failed the first midterm. I watched all his lectures in 4 weeks, crammed, and I got a 60 on the final and like a 65 on the last midterm. I STILL GOT A B. I failed every quiz except for one. For the first midterm, I made up like all my answers on the test, EVERYTHING. Like not a single thing I put made sense or was correct and I got a 60 percent... This man grades so easy and gives so much partial credit and extra credit. In summary, do I personally like the man or the class, nope. But is his class super forgiving and generously graded YES! So don't be scared to take this class, I think Barr has read his horrible reviews from years prior and got his shit together.

The class itself was fine, but Barr made it a lot worse than it had to be. He doesn't ever explicitly say what he expects from students. His tests were sometimes loosely connected to the material and students would have to guess compounds and names that were never shown in class. This class could use some help in terms of logistics, and the majority of the students had a hard time enjoying it.

To the person who said this is fuckin UCLA and if you can’t handle this course you’re going to die in your future classes”.... you’re a fucking asshole. Keep to yourself and sit down.

Avoid at all costs. Makes 20B harder than it should be.

Ok this professor. WHERE DO I EVEN START. I definitely learned a lot, and I'm glad I did because I had Kavner before Barr and it was the worst, however, Barr was really engaging. You come into the tests thinking they're so hard and look back and see how easy it was. I averaged like mid 80s which was "Some flavor of an A". The quizzes tbh are harder than the exams. The first exam was super easy, it's just EXTREMELY easy to overthink simple things. Also, the TA's grade very generously. Like VERY generously. I literally got points for putting down something completely wrong (Literally said x=1) and got partial credit for an extra credit problem. Don't be worried, you'll be fine, Barr has definitely gotten better. He's like the Corbin of Chemistry but easier. Everyone loves to hate him but he really wants us to do well. His office hours are 1.5 hours but often extends it an extra hour just to go over problem sets, etc. Like its very clear that he cares about us. You dont need an A on every exam to pass, an 80+ will get you some type of A in the class (according to him), so don't stress. And no, you don't need to know anything from 20A to do well. You also don't need to read the textbook. I lived off of problem sets, and office hours. Looking at my grade, you'd think to not listen to me, but I make stupid mistakes on exams and it costs me so many points, I also happened to fail the first quiz (one incorrect answer messed up the rest of the parts). I think I was around an 87, when an 87.5 was an A- and an A was an 89, so not too far off, tbh I think if I wouldve gotten 2-3 more questions right on any exam I probably would've gotten an A but oh well. TLDR: You'll be fine. DONT fall behind and go to office hours. You'll survive.

For it being his first time teaching, Barr was decent. He's very enthusiastic, passionate, and invested in our learning which is nice having a professor that cares. Also, he provides a lot of resources for practicing the material and provides students with opportunities to get help in terms of office hours, campuswire, review sessions, and being open to questions during lectures. He's quite helpful when you ask him questions directly through audio and patiently and thoroughly explains the concept until you understand it to your satisfaction.
A lot of the negativity towards him comes from his insanely difficult midterms, which is fair as they are very difficult. However, his final, which was still challenging, was significantly easier than the midterms and has a much greater affect on your overall grade, giving you a chance to improve you grade significantly even if you did poorly on both midterms. Nevertheless, you do need to put in a lot of work for the class, as there is a lot of material to learn, understand, and master. It is quite a difficult course which can be a little disheartening at times but you definitely learn a LOT and in the end it works out better than expected.

Ngl, I think the reviews portray Barr a lot worse than he is, but also I think he's probs the worst prof I've had at UCLA. I despise how he didn't want to give answer keys to problem sets because he wanted students to go to office hours, which makes it hard to ask your question since everyone there wants to ask their questions. However, I think if I tried harder to learn the content I would've done better in the class. I just didn't like Barr that much overall so I didn't give the class that much time. However, I still did decently enough on both midterms and the final to get a B, and I liked the group midterm aspect too so I think that's why I ended up with a B. I think that if you can get over his personality and have a good TA to ask questions to, a good grade is achievable. Also, I had a great LA so shoutout to Tamara for helping me through this trying time.