Dr. Reilly is a very compassionate and clear professor for Chem30A! She really wants to help students to the best of her abilities, and was good about having office hours, review sessions, extra practice problems, video keys, etc. to help students. This past quarter, she did lecture very quickly and at times it can be rather difficult to keep up with what is going on. But I walked away with a very strong understanding in the end. If you take her, here's some things to know:
-Dr. Reilly lectures extremely quickly, especially after the first midterm things start flying by. Really try to look at the material that will be covered beforehand, and review it consistently after.
-Reilly makes very helpful worksheets that are pretty reflective of the kind of material that will be on exams. Definitely do all of the worksheets and go to discussions.
-The textbook problems were not too helpful/reflective of what is expected. Often they are significantly easier. Maybe do some early on for practice.
-One frustration I had with the class was how much of the exams relied on being creative with mechanisms/synthesis. You can still understand the reactions but still do very poorly on exams. Do not let the 1st midterm fool you! Exams got significantly more difficult afterwards. Practice, practice, practice with the resources she makes + anything you can find.
-Averages of 2nd midterm and final were in the 50s, low 60s, but Reilly adjusts her grading around these. She wants a more difficult exam for a better distribution.
-Its been said that Reilly manipulates grades at times significantly, and values improvement, so don't be discouraged!

Very hard class, amazing professor. The first Ochem class will be hard for anyone, but the professor makes it so much better. she posted the lecture notes online so you print them before lecture and then work through the problems in class. It makes lecture so much better and I actually learned a lot more. The material is hard so I read the textbook before class which helped a ton. Grading is 23% midterm 1, 23% midterm 2, 45% final, and 9% bacon (online HW, very easy, and free). She also offers 1.5% extra credit for going to lecture which is nice. The test are very hard midterm 1 (avg. 83%), midterm 2 (avg. 52%), final (avg. 60%). The key to do well is do good on mdterm 2. The material on midterm 2 is not hard but you learn a lot of reactions between weeks 4-8 so make sure you stay ahead of schedule and know all the reactions very well before then. The really hard test is the final. By now everyone knows all the reactions, so she adds tricky problems that don't just test your knowledge on memorizing reagents and reaction, but to truly think like a chemist and draws a little on acid/bases and general chem knowledge from chem 20A/B. Overall to do well in this class you need a solid understand of chemistry and there is no way to fake it

She is one of the best professors I have had at UCLA. Her workload isn't too bad, and he gives out plenty of A's as long as you understand the material. Take her by all means, I would definitely recommend her.

I really liked Professor Reilly! She's a wonderful professor and is so helpful both inside and outside the classroom. She held an insane amount of office hours, and I went really often and was satisfied every time we talked. She posted all of the handwritten lecture notes on CCLE, and we would print them out and fill them out in class. For every discussion worksheet, she would post a video answer key of her doing out the problems, which are SUPER helpful and can save you time if you can't make it to office hours. There was a review session before every exam, but they were run by the LAs. While most of the LAs are really nice and smart, they also make the review sheet that they go over during the review session, and I felt like the problems were more for pushing your thinking and went beyond what was expected on the exam, which was kind of unhelpful if you were going to review exam material. Professor Reilly also posts a lot of extra practice, which I recommend doing ALL of it because they'll really help prepare you for the midterms/final, especially when it comes to mechanisms and synthesis problems. While she does go kinda fast, office hours do remedy that, as she goes through any and all questions thoroughly and will explain concepts multiple times if you don't understand them. My only complaint is that the first midterm was relatively straightforward, and our average was a B-, which is really good. However, she made the second midterm and final extremely difficult, and the respective averages were an F and a D-. The second midterm and final were really difficult for most of the class, me included, and the questions were meant to push your thinking. However, that was a problem for the second midterm considering the extreme time constraint (during a 50 min. lecture period). For the final, it was more understandable, as it's 3 hours, but it was still extremely hard, and most of the class stayed all 3 hours. However, she does offer multiple XC opportunities and easy homework points through BACON. Overall, I would definitely take her, even though her exams are difficult, because she's really nice, helpful, straightforward, and a great chemistry professor!

Reilly is very clear in explaining each of the concepts. The class is organized in a way that is very manageable. The pre and post labs are very straightforward. If something is unclear or you do not know the answer to the question, you can always go to her office hours or TAs office hours to ask for clarification and help. She is very willing to help and is very approachable.
Our final was 40% so worth a little more than previous classes she taught with 35%.

Prelab Assignments = 20%
Lecture Participation = 5%
Engagement/Participation/Lab Cleanup/teamwork (TA points) = 5%
Postlab Assignments = 20%
Final In-Class Presentation = 10%
Final Exam = 40%

Grading:
99.0% + = A+ | 95.0% – 98.9% = A | 90.0% – 94.9% = A– |
85.0% – 89.9% = B+ | 80.0% – 84.9% = B | 75.0% – 79.9% = B– |
70.0% – 74.9% = C+ | 63.0% – 69.9% = C | 55.0% – 62.9% = C– |
50.0% – 54.9% = D+ | 40.0% – 49.9% = D | 30.0% – 39.9% = D– |

Like noted by another reviewer, it is relatively easy (very doable) to get an A–/B+ (which can be seen in the grade distributions). Pre/Post lab assignments should not be too hard to get full points on, but since there is no midterm (which can be a positive or a negative - depending on your perspective) your final grade is heavily dependent on the final exam. The final is not to hard, but requires some application thinking. To do very well on the final, (even attempt to try to get that A+, you have to basically get perfect on everything, and on the final miss only a few points (at least 97.0+ as even with the buffer from the extra credit in post and pre lab category, 99%+ is asking for perfection). It is very easy to calculate your grade in this class, as her grading scheme is already set and you just have to calculate your own percentage. She mentioned she would scale the final scores if necessary, but she also said that she has never done so in the past, as students have done relatively well on her exams.

Overall, she was a great professor, very manageable and very approachable when questions needed to be answered. She will probably be teaching 30BL/CL from now on, unless something changes.

Professor Reilly is the best. She even makes video answer keys of herself explaining the worksheets.. She also has extra office hours every week to help with additional questions. Her notes are super clear, and herself is just very good at explaining and clarifying things. Chem 30A is definitely not the easiest class, the concepts are not challenging but it takes a lot to get used to. I would definitely recommend to take advantage of every opportunity she offers to ask questions. It’s important to build a strong foundation in Organic chemistry, especially if you are chem e/chem/biochem majors. Overall, I’m very glad that I had her this quarter:) She made O chem so much more interesting and exciting!

Professor Reilly is a fantastic professor. She is clear in her lectures and ensures that students understand the material that is covered. The class itself is structured a bit differently than previous labs, in that it more resembles things that an organic chemist would actually perform in a lab. So expect a lot of reaction monitoring and a lot of waiting for the reaction to run to completion. In my opinion, the worst part of the class were the pre- and post-labs, which are relatively short but ask questions that can be tricky to find clear answers to. Professor Reilly talks about the questions in class, but those that have their lab sections the same day as the lecture will find it frustrating when trying to complete the pre- and post-labs before lecture.

She doesn't have midterms, and she hosts a review session before the finals that I would highly encourage you to attend. It's informative and very helpful.

She's also very caring about the learning of her students and is very willing to help out and discuss matters if students approach her.

Take her, trust me

Chem 30BL is more interesting and applicable than the other lower div chem labs (20L, 30AL). Each week, we had a different theme (forensics, pharmaceuticals, biotech, etc) and the lab that week was based on that theme. Some cool things we did include using carrots to catalyze a reaction, synthesizing a drug that is used to treat Parkinson's, and "recycling"/depolymerizing the PET plastic in water bottles. While the labs themselves can be tedious (you will probably be sitting around for the reaction to occur), it's really nice to see how applicable organic chemistry is to real life.
Reilly was a pretty good professor for this class - slides were clear, and the lab assignments were mostly straightforward (they're all on worksheets).
In regards to grading, you'll need to get a 95% in the class for an A and a 90% for an A-. It's not too hard to do well on the labs and other non-exam items in the class, but the final (35% of the grade) was rather challenging. Thus, you really do have to study for the final and make sure you understand the concepts well. It's relatively hard to get an A in this course, but not too hard to get a A-/B+.

Reilly is very passionate about the class, and she often shared about her experience in the field. This class is in no way "easy", but through the help of Reilly and my TAs, I found the class very enjoyable. Each week, you have a 1 hour lecture with Reilly and a 4 hour lab with the TAs. However, most of the labs did not take the full time. For the one week labs, you have a pre-lab and a post-lab due. Most of the lab write-ups are straight-forward, requiring that you report your data and analyze it. A portion of the lab write-up includes a "digging deeper" section, in which you google some information related to the lab and answer questions. The TAs are picky with the grading, so try to be as clear and thorough with your responses. I was able to get mid 90s to 100% on the labs, where I lost most of my points when processing my NMR data. You also need to do a presentation about one of the labs at the end of the quarter. There is no midterm, but there is a final exam. The final covered the material rather evenly. She prepares you well by posting worksheets for each lecture's material and exams from past years with answers. Her class is straight scale, and it is quite difficult to earn an A in the class because if you are not careful, you will lose points here and there and that builds up. She is very helpful in her office hours especially if you do not know how to read your NMR spectra. She also showed many demos in the lecture, which were interesting. I learned a lot about the applications of organic chemistry to different fields, and I would highly recommend this course to those who are looking into research.