I do not know why the fuck everyone is raving about Pham. After getting an A with Shuming in 30A I loved Organic Chemistry. Pham made me hate it. He uses slides and talks super fast so if you aren't a verbal learner you will struggle. He does not give any practice problems of any kind, I don't think he even writes the discussion worksheets, so you are at a loss for what his problems look like until you take the test.

During the coronavirus pandemic he made very little accommodations. He would not even give students the benefit of the doubt by giving them the better grade from opting out of the final or actually taking it. No grade scheme changes were made to accommodate cheating on the final (hello, the average was 95% do you think that just happened? what about students who didn't cheat?).

The average on the first midterm was a 57! And it wasn't even a curve it was a rectangular graph lol. He didn't even curve the final grade. Final class average was a 76 so he boosted us like 3% which he considers "generous". This leaves like 50% of the class with Cs or worse.

Overall, I did not like this professor at all. He was unaccommodating (even in a pandemic), consistently talked down to students in lecture ("if you don't know how to do this already I don't know what to tell you"), and was extremely rude and/or unprofessional in his emails (called students who would cheat "scum").

tl dr: ochem is hard, but Pham is nice (enough)

----------

I think that most people who talk about how nice Pham is are coming from the 20 series, where the professors are mean and uncaring. Putting myself in their shoes, I can see how Pham could seem like a breath of fresh air. However, coming from 14b, I did not feel like Pham was exceptionally nice or effective as an instructor. He was often reluctant to answer questions during office hours (he said he doesn't like chem questions and would sometimes obfuscate to the point of not answering) and talked very fast during lectures, which made re-watching lectures necessary. Additionally, the problem sets and exams were difficult (the exams had averages in the low 70s (69%-74%)).

-----------

For the good aspects of the class: exams make up only half of your grade, and the final is weighted the same as the two midterms, so if you do bad on one you will be ok. Pham also gives bonus points on the exams (a max of 2 points), which buffers your grade. The evaluations also give you three bonus points, so, overall you have about a 2% grade buffer with extra credit. In order to account for this buffer, Pham raises the cutoff for an A to a 94%. We also had a weekly fun friday during lecture, which gave us a nice break and was generally interesting. The assigned material for this class was pretty light (one bacon and one problem set due every two weeks), but I think a big component of this class is self study, which can raise the workload by a lot (I re-watched lectures, did all of the TA worksheets, all of the LA worksheets and all of the textbook problems).

-----------

The material: In contrast to popular opinion, I thought that the fist half on the class was harder than the second. There were a lot of small details that you had to think about, and "chemical intuition" came into play a lot. The second half was just memorizing and applying (a lot of) reactions, and I thought it was pretty simple if you studied hard enough.

Pham is a great professor and really teaches the material well. It was honestly baffling to me how people did so poorly on the midterms, because if you kept up in the class and studied by doing the discussion worksheets you should have been fine. He is an amazing lecturer and teaches everything very clearly and also gave out a solid 20 points in extra credit so passing in definitely doable. He also makes the class about more than academics which is nice. If you're complaining about him its probably on you, not him. Just keep up in the class and you'll do well.

This was my favorite class in the 14 series. I took 14C and 14D with Pham and he is without a doubt my favorite professor. 14D is easy if you stat on top of the reactions and mechanisms which is totally doable. Pham goes fast but it’s because as the quarter progresses the reactions get more similar to each other. I did practice tests from Nag’s class to help study for the tests and it was a really good tool. (Hardinger’s thinkbook and TA worksheets are also good, but avoid the book unless you are cripplingly confused)

Pham is a very fair, clear professor. Nothing on his exams are curveballs because everything from the lectures are clearly told to be fair game for the exams. However, he is very arrogant, unapproachable, and borderline rude. Going to his office hours are a waste of time, just go to your TA's. His lectures are fine (I'm biased because this was an 8 AM so O chem was never going to be enjoyable), and he is always very straightforward with what he wants you to know. Keep up with the material as you learn it because otherwise it's really difficult to learn all the mechanisms the week of an exam (and if you don't do this, your first midterm experience will force you to do this afterwards). Overall, if he were just slightly more helpful and nice, I would give him a better rating.

Amazing professor - definitely favorite professor I've had so far, cares a ton about his students. Definitely will give it to you straight and no bs but is super clear and helpful. Difficulty of the class is hard but getting an A is definitely doable. Most people I know got As and A-s. Pay attention, work hard, and you'll do well. Ochem isn't as scary as everyone overhypes it to be and he prepares you well for 153A and the MCAT.

I absolutely loved taking 14C and 14D with Professor Pham. He lectures very quickly, but pay attention and make the conscious effort to stay on top of your learning both in and outside of class. 14D was definitely more challenging than 14C, as I found that the 50 minute midterms in this class were more challenging to finish in time. However, my biggest recommendation is to stay alert in class, read the slides, do all the TA/LA worksheets, and reach out if you need help in the class! This class is not only about memorization but also about a true understanding of the class content. He offers loooots of extra credit (i.e. I should not have gotten the grade I got in this class based on my performance on the midterms, but I received all the extra credit possible and did well on my final). Professor Pham is one of my favorite professors I've had at UCLA. He genuinely cares about students' learning and is a really cool human being.

Pham is great. Very helpful, very clear, great job of explaining the material. That being said, his tests are TOUGH, but doable. Just be ready and do not memorize. Try to find extra practice problems from the TAs or from resources like the Think Book.

I had to drop this class because I was going to fail it. There is absolutely no reason a professor should have midterms in which the average is not a passing grade. It clearly shows that he is doing something wrong in teaching the material if so many students are doing so horribly. I even hired a tutor for hundreds of dollars and felt that I knew what I was doing and still failed the midterms. This is so disappointing to me because I had Pham for 14C and I did well and enjoyed him. DO NOT take 14D with Pham take it with Nag or literally anyone else.

I didn't expect this class to be easy since it's 14D, but it was super difficult in my opinion. However, it's organic chem, so whatever... Dr. Pham, however, made it extremely difficult to do well in the class. He was rude during office hours which always made me scared to ask questions. Our class ended up having an online final due to coronavirus and he sent lots of very rude emails (though he did apologize). He told us that our anxiety having to do with the class was self-inflicted, and if we didn't want to be nervous about our grades, to just try harder. He was arrogant and just rubbed me the wrong way, wouldn't take another class with him for sure.