i took mr. dick weiss for chem153A
he is an alright teacher many people or idiots say he is a very good and his class is an easy A. bullshit beacuse its not an easy A class with mr Weasel.

let me tell you the good things about him
1) he has a sense of humor (he says some joke once while making you laugh)
2) he has a study guide(questions from old exams)that he posts on voh after he lecturers on specific topic its about 12-25questions about that topic with answers which makes you understand the material better.

negative things about him
where to being and where to stop.
1) he speaks very very fast when he lectures and he does not record his lectures. since his exams are based on his lectures i will recommend you to buy a recorder and record his lecture beauase he knows if he record his lectures nobody will attend his class because he has boring lecturing style and he speaks very fast

2) he is has like 2 OH and most time he is unavailable for it. if you go to his office hours and you ask him question you will feel like he does not want to help.for example he will say something like this when you ask him a question "i explained this in the class why were you not there when i said it!" what a dick ha!

3)his midterms avg. were like 65 and 69. and his grading style is not fair because his retard TA"s look for key word when they grade your paper rather than look for the whole picture. oh by the way the discussion sections are pointless beasue his TA's are not very good at answering your questions.

4)the midterm and final both you have to write a lot of short answers for a limited time and you gotta make sure you put the key words(important words) that he mentions in his boring lecture beause if you don't they(TA's) will take alot of points from you.

5)even thought i got an A in his class i wont recommend you to take him. because in order to do well you have to work very hard and spent a lot of time listen to his lecture, read the book and do the study guide questions

I took 153A for Weiss, and I thought it was a fair course. Although I never took 153A with Professor Nelson, I can already tell you that Weiss' course is probably easier by many orders of magnitude. Weiss' questions are more conceptually based and do not ask for specific mechanisms or "two word answers." That's not to say that they were easy either-- you had to connect many topics for the final. Most of his class is about rationalizing a proper response in a short paragraph to his questions. The material is hard in itself so I believe this class was about as hard as it should have been given the dense material.

If you are considering taking Weiss, just remember that anything is better than Nelson. If you want evidence, check out Nelson's bruinwalk page. You will leave with a teary eye and a shattered self-esteem. I will list out the advantages and disadvantages of professor Weiss' course:

Advantage:
1. Teaches Biochemistry from a conceptual perspective by connecting the material to practical experiences. Therefore, you can probably appreciate this subject more since it identifies why Biochemistry experiments affect us daily.
2. The exams are fair and represent the material he covered in lecture. I read the book, and I found it helpful, but quite frankily, you could get an A in this course without a book.
3. Lot of experience. He knows a lot so you will never feel like an amateur is lecturing you.

Disadvantage:
1. He can use confusing terminology... and often times unnecessary words.
2. Can treat students condescendingly at times when holding office hours or reviews.
3. He's an older individual so he probably could care less about you. Sorry.

Weiss isn't terrible, but he's not the best professor I've ever had. He is pretty organized and can be pretty funny at times, and he is really good at teaching the material (most of the time). My biggest complaint is that he likes to use really big and technical words when he really doesn't have to, and sometimes it becomes difficult to follow him since he goes at such a fast pace.

His exams are nothing too unexpected. The questions are similar to the study questions, but he expects a very specific answer usually so it's probably best to throw down as much information as you can about a topic. Also just a note for the final; it's a TON of material. I thought I could do it in four days but I have found myself sorely mistaken. Review early.

I really enjoyed being in Dr. Weiss' class. He is a really effective teacher. He explains things really well. His lectures are easy to follow. He gives you all the questions from previous exams as your study guide. His exams are okay just go over the questions he posts and review the lecture slides and you should be good.

I took Weiss for 153A last fall and he was great. He really stresses concepts. You do have to know a LOT of concepts, and you will be required to memorize some (but not all) structures/mechanisms. I read the book, took good notes in lecture, and stayed on top of his practice questions. I got an A on both midterms and an A in the class overall. He's not extremely available, I emailed him a few times and got immediate responses sometimes and no responses other times, so it depends on the day, I guess. He's also biased against pre-meds generally, but he won't take it out on you or anything, just maybe don't ask for a letter of rec from him. Just work hard and you'll be fine.

The person below must be a dumbass. He is super easy for chem 153A. As a transfer student, I couldn't believe a class at UCLA can be as easy as this. No structure memorization (well, not much anyway, compared to other professors), stresses concepts and reasoning behind things. This class is way easier than the ochem class I took at community college. The final was harder than the midterms, but thanks to dumbasses like the person below me, I managed to get an A- in the class.

I hate this professor. He is a fucking, unfair professor

i really liked professor weiss. he explains things very thoroughly and asks you to focus on principles and not the specifics. the curve for both midterms were really low (at around 65%), and to do well you should know how to do all the questions in the study guide.