Alex is a great professor and the best co-worker. Joining his class, you will have a great opportunity to work with him. Instead of just telling you what to do, he offers you the time to think what you should do and the way you should approach a problem which is very important cause we eventually all need to learn how to do science by ourselves. So take his classes!

I loved taking this course with Spakoyny. I learned a lot about research and developing catalysts.

Taking a class with Prof. Spokoyny is always a pleasure! I have taken both Chem 171 and Chem 172 with him. What's even more helpful than his engaging and funny lectures is that his door is always open to discuss any of the materials or even help you with astute advice on how to apply to grad school. The tests are tough but it's UCLA so that's normal. If you study, do your assignments, make sure you get the material, you'll be fine! I highly recommend taking this class with Prof. Spokoyny!

Alex is a great professor. He is fun and approachable! It was refreshing to have a class that was different from all other classes I have taken. His class will give you an idea of how a graduate research will be like. Also, I liked that we got to work with other classmates and got a paper published as a class! If you are interested in going to grad school, I would highly recommend taking his class.

You will feel right away that Alex is one of the best professors you will see in the chem department. He is a very caring person and knowledgeable. He guides and encourages you how to think and approach problems like a real scientist. You will get to learn a lot of essential techniques that will be useful in graduate research.

I highly recommend his class.

Professor Spokoyny is one of the best professors I met at UCLA. During his CHEM 174 class, I learned how to be a part of a group to work on a research project. I also learned from professor Spokoyny about how to think like a real chemist and approach sophisticated questions in a straightforward way. Although the research project was not easy for me to understand at the beginning, professor and three TAs were always willing to answer my questions during and after class. We were taught to write scientific papers in ACS style and professor helped us one by one on improving the quality of the papers. We were also provided the opportunity to learn a number of lab techniques such as glovebox and Schlenk line.
I highly recommend this class to any student who want to pursue an advanced degree in chemistry or who want to work in a lab after graduation, because it can teach you many knowledge and skills to help you get well prepared for your future study and career in chemistry.

I throughly enjoyed the 'hands-on' and applicability of this class; I feel it prepared me and gave me confidence in my laboratory techniques as well as giving me a real taste of how gritty the life of unexpected failures and successes that day-in and day-out lab work can be. I felt that our class project was engaging and that we were able to actually investigate and carve out a very tiny piece of new knowledge. The TA's were very helpful even if this work was sometimes (or mostly) boring for them (they might have just been exhausted). Alex is very approachable, helpful, and is hard on you when you're not giving your best (as he rightfully should be). This class gave me the ability to reflect on my own failings and how I could do better. Take it, if you're willing to put in the work, you won't regret it.

Probably one of the most unique classes I took at UCLA as an Econ major. I loved Prof. Alex's teaching style - he's a super chill guy, very funny, made use of cool demonstrations and media to supplement the material, and the book for the class was an interesting read. His slides don't have that much writing on them, but as long as you attend class you should be fine, the exams are easy and he clearly emphasizes what to focus on for the exams, as well as reviewing the previous lecture's main points at the start of the next class. He also brought in a guest lecturer who was an expert in his field (Explosives) for a very engaging lecture.

I really enjoyed this class. I’m a Spanish Major and just took this class because I needed extra units. The class consists of a midterm, a final, and a Wikipedia project. It’s not an extremely difficult course but you need to pay attention in class because there is no text book or extra materials, so the exams are based off of what he says in lecture. He provides a print-out of the PowerPoint so you can take notes. He also replaces the midterm with the final if you did not do too well, which is nice. He’s really passionate about his work and he makes classes interactive. He also requires you to attend office hours to elaborate on the Wikipedia project, which was helpful. I learned a lot of interesting facts throughout the course. He mostly cares that his students learn. He doesn’t make his exams hard, he just wants to make sure that you are learning the concepts of the course. I think this is probably one of my favorite class I’ve taken at UCLA, coming from a north campus major.

This was one of my favorite classes at UCLA. Professor Spokoyny (Prefers to be called Alex) was super nice and extremely knowledgeable. The class material itself was very interesting and very important to know. There was one midterm, one final, and a twitter assignment. Class is fairly easy if you pay attention. He even prints out the slides for you! Attendance is also taken so make sure to go to class. I would highly recommend this class!