He's very fair in his grading, but don't expect an A if you don't get A's on the midterm and on the final exam. Most of your labs are partner labs, so if you have a good lab partner you'll have an easier time in this class. This is a reasonable class in terms of curriculum, but it was way too much work for a 3 unit class.

Dr. Pang is really one of the best professors I've had the privilege of having at UCLA. He is very caring of students' learning and gives lots of opportunities for students to seek out help. He holds office hours like every day and visits each lab section, when not lecturing, to make sure things are running smoothly. Taking this class and 20B concurrently really benefits you as a student because they overlap so much, by learning one you really learn the other. In terms of workload, there really isn't that much maybe 1-4 hours a week at most (for some tricky lab reports). What I will say, though, is that your grade is ultimately determined by your TA. The biggest portion of your grade comes from lab reports and "lab technique", I had a pretty strict and inexperienced TA so his grading was sort of all over the place and he wasn't much help. I got a 46/50 on the Midterm and averaged As on my lab work, a few lower scores at the beginning, but overall mostly full points. The material is not very hard to grasp, all acid-base titrations, chemical kinetics, and stoichiometry with some topics not covered in 20B like detergent chemistry and beer's law. Overall, really enjoyed 20L with Pang. I highly recommend taking Pang over any lab instructor.

Lectures: Pang is a great lecturer. He’s very engaging, and he gives you print outs of the material he is going to cover for that lecture which is really nice because you don’t have to write much. More often than not, he goes over the same material that you learned or are going to learn in Chem 20B, and more often than not I thought that he did a better job explaining the material than my 20B professor. Material wise, it’s not too difficult, but Pang still is very clear and thorough with the material.

Actual Labs:
I really enjoyed the labs. They were definitely tedious at times (titrations, spectrophotometry, reaction rate labs, specifically), but none of them are very difficult. Overall, it was a very fun experience, and if you work at a relatively average rate, you’ll more than likely get out of lab early which is a definite plus.

Lab Reports:
The lab reports are super easy. Pang is extremely clear with what he wants from you, and as long as you follow his instructions, which as I said before, are very easy and clear, the reports will be a piece of cake. Nothing too difficult with the reports, you just have a pre-lab and a post-lab each week, and the questions aren’t difficult. There are also a decent amount of partner labs, and you don’t really get to choose your lab partner, but it’s not a big deal. It’s nice because you only turn in one lab report so it’s less work for you overall.

Exams:
There is one final worth approximately 10% of your grade, and then a final worth approximately 30% or so of your grade. They weren’t difficult at all. The first midterm averaged around an 85%, and was mainly computational. The final wasn’t too bad either. It was very conceptual, but it wasn’t difficult as long as you just went over his extremely comprehensive study guide. For both exams, Pang definitely gave you the materials you need to succeed ahead of time. The average for the final was around a 74%, which is pretty decent.

Extra Help:
Pang gives out a lot of practice assignments and study guides, so you’ll have lots of pre-exam material to work with. He also has an unfathomable amount of office hours between him and his TAs. I always went to my TA for help because he was grading me, but I heard that Pang was really nice with his time as well. Overall, if you need help, there will be a time that works out for you for sure with one of the TAs or Pang. There’s plenty of help provided for this course.

Overall:
Your experience with this course really depends on your TA. Pang is a phenomenal instructor, and is very clear and organized. He always gave us “lucky light sticks” before our chem 20B exams which the entire class loved, and when everyone says that they love Pang, it’s for a good reason. However, Pang only impacts the course to a certain amount as the TAs are the ones who grade your lab reports, they’re the ones helping you run the experiments, etc. My TA was really chill and cool, and I talked to him a good amount of the time after lab was over because I had free time, and that was really cool. Basically, hope you get a good TA, but most of them are pretty good for the most part. I had an 8AM lab which sucked, but this is always an impacted class, so just take whatever spot you can and deal with it. Even though waking up so early sucked, the actual lab experiments made the experience worth it. Plus, a lot of people did really well (the class overall grade average was an 87%, and the class is not curved, so about 50% of students got some form of an A!) I would highly recommend this course with Pang.

Honestly Dr Pang is such a cool dude (it's kind of sad how one of my favorite professors I've taken at UCLA is just a lab professor, but honestly he's just great). His lectures are boring and they were all super early, but he prints out his lecture slides so you just have to stay half awake in order to write down the stuff that will help with your labs later. The labs themselves weren't hard (lots of titrations), but I've heard that it really depends on your TA (mine was awesome and really helpful; others, not so much). The workload took some getting used to in the beginning, but honestly what lab doesn't have too much work assigned to it? There's only one midterm and he gives you a study guide for it (and for the final). The study guides are much harder than the actual tests, but it does really help you understand the material (and if you're taking Chem 20B concurrently, helps you study for that class as well). He's super considerate of students, has office hours nearly every day, and once gave all of us some extra glow sticks that he used in a demonstration, as good luck for our exams in other classes. The worse thing about Pang is that he blows up your email, but honestly he is one of the best professors in the chem department!

Wonderful professor: extremely clear in his lecture and helpful in office hour.

*** Selling 20L lab reports and lecture notes (text 424-644-7686) ***

highest recommendation

Dr. Pang is an excellent lecturer and covers a lot of material in-depth very quickly and efficiently, even in the one lecture that we have every week. The material is relatively simple, and if you're doing well in 20A and 20B, you should have no problems with this class at all. The midterm and final are of reasonable difficulty, and the lab reports for me were graded rather leniently. I only got an A- because I lost points for coming to lab late in the second half of the quarter, but besides that, I feel like an A is completely realistic and manageable. Definitely take 20L with Pang if you have a choice.

If you have a choice between different instructors for Chem 20L, TAKE DR. PANG! He is very straightforward about what he wants in the lab reports and is straightforward about what he wants you to learn based on his lecture slides. The TAs are who you will be interacting with for your lab class, but Pang often comes in to talk to students and the TA during the lab section. The majority of the TAs are super chill and only really dock points on major errors in the lab write ups. The labs were stimulating and the post-labs were sometimes time consuming, but Pang reduced the workload significantly from previous quarters. The real tough and BS part of the class were the exams and the writing assignment. The writing assignment was peer graded so lots of people gave bad peer reviews and lowered a lot of peoples grades. The exams were very very rigorous and required that you know the material presented in lecture and lab from forward to backward. If you are meticulous and can put a lot of work into the class, an A is easy to get. I only got a B for doing bad on the first midterm.

Pang makes it very clear what needs to be done and when, which seriously reduces the stress of a class where 2 or 3 assignments are due each week. Besides the somewhat heavy workload, the class itself is easy to succeed in and the material is in no way complex. He sent out an email saying that roughly 40% of students received an A in the class. I strongly recommend taking Pang.

Mr Pang is an excellent professor. He always hands out the printed lecture slides, and posts practice review problems (and very detailed explanations for the answers) for the midterm and final (which covers nearly 100% of what's gonna be tested) . The exams are straightforward. You get an EZ A just by reviewing the slides, lab reports and practice problems.

The only drawback for this course might be the workload, which seems too heavy for a 3-unit course.