Prof Scerris is the best professor I've had so far at UCLA. He is really funny and honestly the people who have bad things to say about them probably didn't put enough work into the class to get a good grade. In this class, you take away exactly what you put in to it. That being said, it is a lot of work, but you will benefit if you put in the effort. The midterm was really easy, just study using his old tests because I had seen and practiced every question on the exam before I went in. The final exam is really tricky though so prepare to study a lot and master the material. DO NOT MISS LECTURE. It is very valuable and the only way to effectively learn the material. Also, the quizzes and homework are easy As so try to do as well as you can on them to boost your grade come finals week. Also, the class is HEAVILY curved so if you have an A in the class based on raw scores you have nothing to worry about come finals. He is also very willing to meet at office hours outside of class and is very helpful and ready to answer any questions. This class is not hard if you do the work and meet with him for any clarification.

Chemistry with Scerri was difficult but doable. DON'T buy the textbook, Scerri doesn't assign anything from it. I never opened the textbook and I got an A+, it's really only necessary if you want a lot of extra practice problems. I came in with a pretty trash chem background, I didn't take AP chem, and my high school chem class was a joke, yet that was fine for this class. I came in worried that my lack of chem experience would make it impossible, and it definitely made it harder, but it wasn't impossible. Scerri is very light on required work, there were only 2 homeworks and 3 online quizzes for the whole quarter, and discussions aren't mandatory (but still go, they were very helpful, at least for my TA). The rest of your grade is exams, which are curved pretty nicely. The thing with this class is that you HAVE to self-study by doing practice problems, past exam questions, and watching khan academy videos (seriously, sometimes nothing will make any sense and you'll have to watch a bunch of videos). Do the practice exams bc he recycles a lot of questions. Scerri's lectures were super fast paced and he would cover things without actually explaining how to do them, hence the need for self-studying. Scerri also expected us to know a LOT of chem coming in so that makes it hard if you don't have a chem background. And half the questions on the exams weren't even chem, they were questions about the history of chemistry. However he and the TA's make it clear which people/experiments are the important ones, and you're never asked to memorize dates or anything like that. Honestly lectures were pretty useless as most of the time I'd just be lost and not understanding what he was doing, but you can make sense of it by looking stuff up and asking your TA a lot of questions. I had Gokberk as my TA and honestly he was the only reason I got an A in this class, he made sense of everything and would give us practice quizzes (ungraded) in discussion section which helped a lot. Pay attention to what Scerri emphasizes in the review sessions (he had an in-class review session for the midterm and all of the classes in week 10 were reserved for review for the final) and study any anomalies with trends, graphs, etc. that he points out in class. Overall, this class wasn't so bad for a chem class, but you need to put in the time to self-study and hope you get a good TA.

Scerri's class if difficult if you are a person that needs to have concepts explained to you thoroughly to understand them - Scerri tends to speed through his lecture posts and does not go into detail about a lot of the topics on his slides that later may show up on exams. However, he posts all of his slides ahead of time, so I recommend copying them down or printing them before class to understand him better. Also, his tests are not that bad once you realize that everything on his tests will come from his slides, so there are no questions that you only would have gotten from Thinkwell or from the textbook (which is not needed, don't buy it). Know all of the material on his slides (even the pages with only a diagram that he barely explains - those diagrams might show up) and do a few past exams that he provides plus some from the test bank and that should be enough to do well on both the midterm and the final.

Scerri's class is difficult but definitely not impossible. He tends to speed through important concepts and instead indulge in tangents that are unrelated to the exam . While his lectures and exams are primarily concept-based, you can get by with memorization rather than comprehension. You can also look over past exams and visit TA office hours to check if you have a firm handle on the material.

Dr. Scerri's lectures and slides are totally unorganized and incredibly difficult to follow. He curves on a bell curve, which means you can often be curved down. His exams cover history and conceptual ideas instead of actual chemistry problems, which is pretty frustrating. He is very unhelpful in preparing for exams, doesn't hold review sessions, and doesn't tell you what you need to know in advance.
Lectures are boring and confusing, and he doesn't explain topics well at all.
Take a different professor if you can.

This class was not taught well at all. Scerri likes to make exam questions about the history of chemistry, not the actual chemistry problems at all. You will have to study everything on your own. His review sessions are literally him teaching the class over again during week 10 and he explains it even worse than during the quarter.

Chem 14A with Scerri is easy if you've done your AP Chemistry right. It's not so easy, if you haven't. He's a very low maintenance professor -- barely gives homeworks or quizzes, and doesn't have compulsory lectures or discussions, but he gives very ad hoc exams, that might catch you off-guard if you haven't checked his past years' papers out. The past years' papers, in fact, are an accurate metric of the kind of questions he gives, since he barely ever changes the format or the material.
He doesn't explain very well, so the exams become really difficult for first timers.

If you've taken a chemistry class before, this class should be fairly easy and straightforward. Complete and review all of the past midterms and finals Prof. Scerri sends out, as many questions reappear on the current midterm and final.

Taking 14A with Scerri can be difficult. He does not give that much work (two graded homeworks, 3-4 online open book/person/professor quizzes) but his lectures can be hard to understand. He projects the course reader on screen (so I highly recommend taking notes before class) and often just uses it to branch into more information. He is very focused on concepts, but it's very easy to tackle what he will test you on. Focus on understanding and being able to copy graphs he provides, definitely focus on little things (ie: philosophy/history of chemistry), and, of course, the content. The midterm can shake you (just because he asks for such random information) but once you are able to figure out his thought process behind making exams, you can easily prepare for the final. The textbook can be 'bought' from the 3rd edition up, so it's easy to find online for free.

I was expecting to come into an introduction of chemistry, aside from what I had already learned in high school. However, that was not even enough for one week. The professor went through everything very quickly. He speaks as if though we should already know what he is referring to. He said buy a textbook but he never said what to read and honestly there was so much you can't just pin point a chapter. His lectures were boring and monotone. You could miss the lectures because you wouldn't really pick up on anything. If you fall behind day 1 because you don't understand the topic, there is no chance at recovering. I went to every single lecture and still didn't understand. The tests were hard and it covered historical parts of chemistry. Only take this class if you HAVE TO. And try to get another professor.