Sell the totally useless course reader and workbook. $30 or best offer. Contact me at **********.

You will definitely get an A in this class as long as you do all the required textbook problems, go to lecture and take good notes, and do the midterm /final review posted by the TA's for the course.

Lavelle is a fun man, and he is also quite hip. He is in with the memes, and understands the importance of "exercising your mind and body". For the final lecture before winter break, Lavelle displayed a GIF of a dancing orangutan, and he too got down.
He is not at all self-absorbed or snobby, as some of the past posts have claimed. He is very proud of the many hours of helpful resources available to you, but only because he is happy to see you learning. I feel as if he is doing all he can to help us learn and understand the material (especially in an online setting).
Before taking this class, I'd heard a lot of chemistry horror stories and I am happy to declare that I did not experience this with Professor Lavelle. I recommend taking his class.

Selling 7th edition pdf version of textbook for 20$ (1/4 the price)! Regular price at UCLA store for ebook is 80$! Text me @ **********

One of the questions on his final was "draw cisplatinum" something he never even mentioned in class, then he said it was on his slides but he DOES NOT POST HIS SLIDES. That was probably the most UNFAIR class I've ever taken and i didn't even think the material was hard, he just was awful and unfair. 10/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND AVOID IF YOU CAN OR TAKE SOMEONE ELSE, don't do this to yourself.

The class isn't too hard as long as you dedicate time to doing a lot of independent practice and studying. Attendance is required for discussion, but not lecture, and lectures are recorded. Discussion sections are helpful for expanding on concepts in lecture and doing practice problems. Overall the class was manageable, just do the textbook readings and practice problems he recommends!

Honestly, this class is truly about how much work you want to put in. The class itself can be difficult at times, but totally, totally manageable. I would say the worst part of this class that I am not seeing enough reviews about is the fact that his tests are in person and are hard. I guess thats subjective, but I came into the class thinking they were going to be a similar format to what he did in 14A, where we had multiple questions that varied in difficulty level, but that were all worth 4 points. In 14B, its almost all free response, and the tests are on paper, meaning you have to really really know exactly what you need to do. Each midterm is out of 60 points and often the midterms each had one 12 point question. It was normally extremely hard, so if you got it wrong, you would get a 48/60 which is an 80. You don't think its that bad until you realize that you can only miss 26 points in the whole class if you want to get an A. The class is out of 370 points and you need a 344/370 to get a 93 because he doesn't round up lol. Be prepared to spend stupid amount of time on this class if you want to do well.

Dr. Lavelle is super sweet and very knowledgable in his field of study. His lectures and presentations were always well prepared and he goes at a decent pace. Homework consists of weekly or sometimes bi-weekly questions on Achieve (usually 10-20 questions) that you have unlimited attempts on (you can get 100% if you just make sure to get all the right answers by the due date!) It is annoying that there are 2 sets of midterms but they are evenly spaced out and are only an hour long. Doing the mandatory Chemistry Community questions on a weekly basis does get annoying at times and it feels forced when we have to ask questions, when sometimes I don't even know what to ask! But overall, Dr. Lavelle provides a plethora of resources that are very flexible for all students and he really does want all his students to succeed.

This class consists of two midterm exams, one final exam, weekly homeworks, attendance at discussion sections, and participation in the online chemistry forum. The tests are not overly difficult, and the participation based assignments give you a good amount of buffer in your grade.

Lavelle's lectures are very clear, and he never puts anything on exams that was not explicitly covered in class. The exams are often very similar to the textbook problems, so students who do all the weekly problems can succeed easily. Additionally, the UA sessions offer great support to students who need extra help.

This was a great class and I recommend taking it with Lavelle!

I do think that with CHEM 14A there are enough resources to succeed. That being said, I do think you really need to read the textbook to do well in this class. The review sessions are not that equivalent to the tests he gives. The TAs and LAs tend to just reuse textbook questions which honestly do not show up as much as people claim they do. Achieve is more helpful that people give it credit for. Honestly, I thought it was more effective than the homework questions and maybe equally reflective. This is one of those classes where you just need to devote a lot of time to do well on. Make sure to really understand the concepts of the class. The workload is not bad whatsoever, very manageable but you will need to do lots of outside review should you want a good grade.