This was my first ever chemistry class and I have left this class absolutely hating chemistry. I read all the reviews beforehand and thought to myself that this class can't be that bad and is probably manageable but I could not be more wrong. Scerri has ZERO organization on his CCLE site and his lectures make absolutely no sense and consist of him jumping from one topic to another back and forth. I did not even know what the topics were so I can study on my own since there is no OUTLINE. The exams were extremely long for the duration and I have not learned one topic in this entire class which will harm me going forward in the course as he is the only professor teaching 14B next quarter too. This class was so bad that I almost dropped and changed to a non-stem major every week. DO NOT EXPECT TO LEARN ANYTHING.

Very kind and smart guy, most of the grade is determined by the midterm and final, 30% is homework on achieve(formerly sapling) and they're helpful for the tests as he takes very similar style questions from there for his tests.

He liked showing us all his cat over the zoom lectures, which was my favorite part of the course.

Would recommend taking him, heard he is better than Lavelle

You can't be a bad professor and be rude. Seriously the worst professor at UCLA. Whatever you do try to take this class with Lavelle! Received an A+ in his class due to the enormous amount of support material he gives his students. Scerri on the other hand, reads off of his bullet points and insults his students when asking a question.

Professor Scerri is an extremely kind professor, however his class was not easy to me because lectures were disorganized and unclear. First of all I took this class online even though we were back to hybrid learning. Scerri often had the wrong example on his slides or had issues screen sharing that made the content more difficult than it should have been. I do not feel like I have a great understanding of material (however in 14A Lavelle was awesome and I totally understood the concepts). I never thought I would write a bruin walk review, but I felt that I should to encourage students to take this class with a different prof. Maybe he's better in person?

Scerri is the worst teacher I've ever had. He's a MESS and very unorganized. During lecture, the only material he uses are powerpoint slides, which are some of the ugliest and longest slides I've ever seen, that have a lot mistakes. Even though he only reads from the slides as his "lecture," he somehow confuses and contradicts himself throughout the lecture (this happened on multiple occasions). When students ask him questions about the content on the slides, all he does is respond by repeating what's on the slide and doesn't actually respond to their question. Also, the practice problems are elementary questions that aren't even close to the difficulty of the exams. In order to learn the material, Khan Academy, the Organic Chemistry tutor, and your TA (if you can get Kevin, GET HIM, literally the best TA.) will be your best friend.

As for exams, they are really LONG (midterm was 6 questions with 3+ parts and the final was 7 questions with 4+ parts). The questions can be really tricky because they aren't like the ones on his slides or on Achieve. The best way to prep for them is to use practice exams because he does recycle questions.

At the beginning of the quarter, Scerri assigns a bunch of Achieve/Sapling quizzes (worth 30% of your grade) that's due at the end of the quarter. Achieve is probably almost as bad as Scerri ngl. The man even said that some of the content covered in Achieve are out of the scope of the course, but of course he still assigns it. Literally the only good thing about Achieve is that there's unlimited attempts.

Finally, the worse thing about Scerri and his class is the way he grades. THIS MAN STILL GRADES ON A BELL CURVE. Like what other professor still grades on a bell curve. It doesn't help him or students, like it's even more work for him to do the math. It also forces us to compete against each other rather than help and feel for one another. Although the curve can help you, it can also SCREW you over like me 🤡. Before adding the curve I had a solid A, but after the curve HE CURVED ME DOWN TO AN A-. Never think your grade is fine in this class.

IF YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO SKIP SCERRI, SKIP SCERRI. TAKE 14B WITH ANOTHER PROFESSOR OR WAIT FOR THE NEXT QUARTER TO TAKE IT. AVOID THE PTSD (POST TRAUMATIC SCERRI DISORDER).

Scerri is an ok professor. During lectures, he reads off his slides & doesn't really expand on the concepts that are not already on the slides. He's unengaging and speaks very slow so I rarely watched his lectures live. However, he is very knowledgeable in Chemistry!!! It's just his teaching can be improved.

Workload is very light -- his grading scheme:
50% Thinkwell Quizzes every 2-3 weeks (homework, ~$35)
20% Midterm
30% Final

His midterm & final are extremely long with multiple parts to a question (1a, b, c, d, 2a, b, c...) and 2/3 hours was barely enough time to go through it all. He gives us extra time to submit (I think it was 30 minutes?) but still wasn't enough time to finish the exam. I was stumped on a lot of problems. He releases past exams as practice, but his answer key is slightly wrong & also confusing, so it's best to compare your answers with other classmates.

Thinkwell quizzes are fairly simple and straightforward. These are practice problems & problems you can expect in a Chemistry class. I thought they were helpful both conceptually & mathematically. There is no time limit & you have 3 attempts, with you highest score taken into account.

Discussion sections are not mandatory, but depending on your TA, they are definitely helpful in reviewing concepts & going over practice problems.

Self teaching yourself for this class is the way to go: look back at your past AP Chem notes & go on Youtube and watch the Organic Chemistry Tutor (super helpful).

Oh where to start with Professor Scerri. As you can probably tell by the other reviews, Dr. Scerri is not a very good lecturer. His slides are extremely confusing and he often gets confused trying to explain them to us. More often than not, a TA or student has to correct him because he gets confused. Apart from the bad lectures, the tests are not only very difficult but are also a huge time crunch. The practice exams he gives out are so much easier and shorter than the actual tests (they also have incorrect answers on them). The midterm he gave us was 7 free response questions with like 4 or 5 parts each in 2.5 hours. I barely had time to finish despite going fast; I did not have time to check my answers, but Scerri obviously did not take any criticism the class had for him because he did the same thing for the final. He said he would try to make it better by adding multiple choice questions, but those MC questions each had 5 to 7 parts as well. So he ended up giving us 6 free response with parts a,b,c,d,e along with 12 extra questions for multiple choice. He said this was to deter cheating to make sure we couldn't consult anyone else in the class, but many people along with me could barely even finish on time.

In addition, he doesn't seem to actually have much regard for his students, unless you're one of his favorites. One time in lecture, someone asked why he used a certain amount of sig figs when dealing with pH which was a valid question because it was confusing and he answered with "have you been coming to lecture?". This was a completely inappropriate response. I had come to every lecture and he had barely gone over that concept and I found his entire demeanor to be very condescending and smug. On multiple occasions you can literally see him rolling his eyes at some questions also.

Personally, I did not enjoy 14B with Scerri, but it is possible to get a good grade if you commit yourself. Honestly, the best way to study for his tests are to do the exams he gives out as practice (and ignore the incorrect answers he gives), and watch a lot of the Organic Chemistry Tutor on YouTube. If you have to take 14B with Scerri, I wish you the best.

Honestly, scerri gets a bad reputation but he is not that bad. He is fairly clear in lecture and is always there to answer questions if you have them during lecture. His final and midterm reviews are all good representations of the exams and if you can do them you should be prepared. Thinkwell quizzes are a little annoying but honestly not that bad, but they do not really represent exams. When you ae studying focus on the conceptual he loves to ask about it. The math is important but you need to be able to explain your answers on exams and make sure to use key words that he'll say in lecture or on his slides. The exams I would say were fair not too horrible. You can do well in the course if you just take good notes, pay attention, and do the reviews.

A lot of people really hate Prof Scerri but he isn't as horrible as everyone makes him out to be. I had him for 14A and 14B, and let me just say in high school I took chemistry over the summer (learned nothing) and slacked off during 14A so I had VERY minimal knowledge about chemistry going into 14B. Prof Scerri can be hard to keep up with and he uses different terminology at times (which some students attribute to his arrogance but I literally think it's because he's British and their terms are not the same for certain things), but as long as you really pay attention during lecture you should be able to get a basic understanding of what he is saying. He has the tendency to get ahead of himself and explain difficult concepts without reviewing the basics first, but if you watch a couple Youtube videos or go through example problems in the recommended textbook you should be fine. On that note, GET THE TEXTBOOK. It isn't required but it is super helpful to go through while learning concepts and has a lot of practice problems you can use when studying for the midterm and final. As far as his lecture slides, they can be a bit unorganized but if you are following what he is saying and actually paying attention, it isn't that bad. Also, for the most part Prof Scerri is open to answering questions and sometimes he may not answer them well but I've never seen him shut a student down for asking a question.

If you're hesitant to take this class, don't let the negative comments completely dictate your decision. You literally get what you put out, so if you aren't willing to pay attention during lecture, ask questions, and utilize outside resources like the textbook/videos/practice problems/etc. then obviously you're going to have a tough time. The professor is responsible for giving you the information, but you are responsible for making sure you understand it and utilize all the resources available to you to do so.

His grading is 30% quizzes, 30% midterm, and 40% final - which isn't too bad because the quizzes are basically free points (not that hard) and his midterms and finals generally tend to lean on the easier side, the only thing students get concerned about is that he grades on a curve (but from what I've experienced and heard it should never hurt someone's grade).

If you take this class, good luck and remember to utilize the resources you have to help you succeed!! Like I said, I had poor knowledge about chemistry before this class but I ended up getting an A- because I put in the work. You can do it!!!