definitely take this class with her. her grading scale is super generous in that most of your grade is allotted to your worksheets during your discussions and your homework. both are really useful and i recommend doing them. the cengage assignments aren't that time consuming if you do four or five questions a day out of the week. she is really willing to help and had her lectures broadcasted or recorded so you can either watch them in your dorm during your lecture time or later. your final isnt worth almost half of your grade so don't worry about it, although her final is a lot easier than her midterms if you review the midterms and her sample questions. she's really caring and i would definitely take this class with her again.

Professor Shao was an amazing chem professor. Her slides/lectures were clear and engaging and the homework was lengthy but easy to keep track of. You have a worksheet to do in each discussion, which helps your grade and also is your main tool of studying and understanding the material. She is easy to contact and very understanding. Her tests are difficult but they are reasonable if you actually understand, connect, and internalize the concepts.

Professor Shao is a very kind professor. Although the beginning of this course may be hard, as long as you push through and pay attention to her lecture, it's really not that difficult. Also, the worksheets in the discussion session are very helpful as well, I usually go over them before any exam. The first midterm was tough, but if you are having a hard time in this class you should definitely go talk to Professor Shao in person and she gave out very good suggestions. Go to her office hours and people who go usually help each other a lot as well. This class taught me that college chemistry is definitely different than high school AP chemistry. It is challenging, but as long as you push through and don't give up, things will eventually be paid off. P.S. Prof Shao loves using the smiley face so be on a look out for :)

This was Professor Shao's first quarter teaching and she did pretty well. The textbook that she had us buy was not very useful as it included too much information rather it's more useful for you to get more familiar with her notes and watch a video to familiarize yourself with the content rather than read the textbook. the cengage assignments did not reflect what was being taught in the course most of the time, except the stoichiometry ones, but that was because stoichiometry has a universal practice/question format. The midterms and final were based off of the worksheets which had one to two questions and the issue with the class was the lack of practice problems. Overall the TAs and support system were great. She offered lots of review session for the midterm, she tried to have office hours and the TAs did as well. It was a great environment and I would take the class again.

If you're entering 20A with little in-depth chemistry knowledge (as I did), I would highly (highly!) recommend Professor Shao. She provides so many resources (well-organized notes, practice problems, exam study guides, review lectures) and is sincerely dedicated to helping students succeed. The online homework is relatively light and the discussion session worksheets act as a helpful (and often necessary) review. Exams are more difficult in terms of content, but doable if you review the discussion worksheets and practice problems. She doesn't curve them, but the letter grade itself is buffered a bit and there are plenty of extra credit opportunities. Overall, I would definitely take this class again and recommend to other students.

This professor is the best professor you should take for chem 20A. I passed AP chem at a (competitive) nor cal high school with an A-, and in this class the excessive EASY homework and 30 points EXTRA CREDIT helped me get an A+ in chemistry, for putting in a day to 2 days before studying for exams. I completely recommend this professor for those who are not the best or suck at chem or even are great at chem. The material is rich and extensive, across all the chem classes, but atleast you will not have to worry about your grade in this class. She also grades very generously on tests, giving partial credit and even takes regrade requests if you want higher points where deserved. She is super nice, and very responsive when need be.

Professor Shao is genuinely invested in her students’ learning. She takes into consideration student feedback and adjusts her lectures and class structure accordingly. She also provides lots of study resources (midterm review sessions, expectation questions, etc).
There was definitely a steep learning curve for the course material. I received a 69% on the first midterm. This class taught me how to effectively study, and it is very, very possible to receive an A in this course if you put in the time to review lectures. Professor Shao’s exams are very fair; not easy but also not extremely difficult. She writes exams so that students have ample time to complete them.
Discussions were incredibly helpful; exam questions were very similar to discussion worksheet problems. I also had the best TA Rakesh Bal! He was very good at explaining concepts that originally weren’t clear during lecture. He was also very easy to reach and replied quickly if I ever had questions about the content.
Overall, I would definitely take this class again. The grade scaling was very generous and in favor of students. Each midterm (two total) was worth 15%, discussion worksheets were worth 30%, homework was worth 20%, and the final was worth 20%. The workload itself is not a lot, however studying to simply understand the material is time consuming. Chem 20A with Professor Shao was definitely my hardest class of the quarter, but also my favorite.

Heard bad things before taking this class but ended up really liking it. You do NOT need to read the textbook, you will do well as long as you just pay attention in lectures and put effort into the discussion worksheets. If you can keep up with the content, you don't need to put much study time in for exams. Plus, only half your grade is exams, and the other half is easy to earn homework/ discussion points. She also offers 3% extra credit just for filling out surveys/ submitting exams correctly.

Dr. Shao shows genuine care for her students and is willing to help out whenever she can. Though we spent the majority of the first three/four weeks learning quantum physics, I personally felt that it was still relevant to the chemical structure. I had an awesome TA as well, so that is definitely something to look out for. If there's a stellar TA that is not the leader of your particular section, it'd be super helpful to sit in on their sessions. One thing that was especially dreadful about this class was the end-of-chapter assignments on Cengage though. There's a timer that tracks how much time you spent on each assignment and I swear none of mine were below 5 hours. They're kind of dreadful and boring, but definitely help lots with your grade. Speaking of grades, this class isn't outrageously test-weighted, which I found to have helped me achieve the grade I wanted. There are also plenty of extra credit opportunities which were all easy to obtain, so you don't have to do anything super awful or a ton of extra work for extra credit.

Not going to lie the first midterm was awful. However, the class is curved and it is very easy to get an A or B with her grading scale. (50% of the grade is homework and passing is a 55% in the class) Also, tests are open note!
Shao's lectures slides are easy to follow, but sometimes she goes too fast. Slides are posted before lecture and recordings are posted.