My biggest recommendation to someone taking this class is that you MUST take it concurrently with Chem 30B or do Chem 30B during the summer beforehand. Why? Because Chem 30B will spend 1/3 of the quarter/session covering IR, NMR, and Mass Spec in depth. In Chem 30AL, you will slowly encounter it, and by the midterm you will be required to do IR problems. By the final you will need to know Carbon 13, Mass Spec, and IR. If you take Chem 30B, all of this stuff is absolutely trivial, making the last half of the quarter extremely easy because you'll need to do less work, granted you tried to learn it during Chem 30B.

If you don't heed my advice, you'll spend more time trying to master the material, even though Pang gives you less practice and in depth info due to lack of time in the quarter. This did not stop him from dropping the hardest spectroscopy question I've seen, harder than Merlic's exam's and practice problems. It was hard due to limited info provided, since you do not have time to learn proton NMR (the molecule was Maltol for reference).

The Soil Project was honestly not that bad as previous reviewers were saying. I was under the impression that it was this ominous beast at the end of the quarter. The lab itself is just a shitton of extractions and then measurements. The lab report admittedly took a long time. This year we had the Skirball fire near Bel Air, so school was cancelled giving us extra time to spread out our work and finish, but even still most of the work to do on the lab report is formatting and typing out calculations. There is little to no brainpower involved in writing of the lab report. The tricky part imo is the presentation since that one depends more on group members.

An additional note on the soil project, and all the labs in general, Pang cares more about the fact that you know what you're doing more than if you were successful or not. I believe very few labs care about yield and yes the Soil Project demands that you correctly identify your compounds, but worry more about getting it done and learning it.

On the final, and he did this for 20L, make sure to go over your labs. Understand everything you did and why, because he has an entire "question" with a bunch of little questions asking technical info about why you do certain things (i.e. which solvent do you select for UV/VIS etc.)

Hopefully you took Pang for 20L, if you didn't then get prepared for one of the best and kindest professors on campus. This dude is awesome and he's always willing to help. This is the last gen chem class you should be taking, so the material by now should be super easy, just beware his tests as usual, they are tricky fuckers.

Pang is definitely a great professor! If you had him for 20L, then you’ll probably want to take him again for this course. He is extremely caring and extremely organized. You know exactly what you’re supposed to do and he provides plenty of resources for your success. Pang is beloved by many for his engaging lectures and doing something that gets a laugh or an “Awwww.” You feel a lot more emotion in Johnny Pang’s class than a typical class. He gave out little mole stuffed balls for students who scored high on exams, he gave us chocolates for Halloween, he gave us lucky light sticks for good luck, the list goes on and on. I don’t know the exact wording, but he always say something that makes you go “Awww Johnny Pang…” with a wide smile. As for the actual labs, they were much more fun than Chem 20L. Sure you have to come into lab twice a week, but the labs are more advanced and much less “teach you fundamental lab skills about pipetting” type labs, and thus are much more fun. The pre-labs and post-labs are a piece of cake like usual. Workload really isn’t that bad. I definitely recommend taking Chem 30B with this class concurrently because it makes so many topics on the midterm and final so much easier. As for the midterm, the averages were in the mid 70s which wasn’t too bad, but it was conceptually focused with little math involved. As for the final, it was similar to the midterm in the sense that there were very few math problems, but many theory questions, such as what was the purpose of doing each step in the labs we did earlier in the quarter. The very last question was a super weird “identify the compound” type problem that no one could get. It was pretty easy to figure out the actual compound, but it just had the weirdest fragmentation pattern that left so much doubt in people. Other than the last problem, the exam was standard and similar to 20L exams. Very fair exams. However, it all comes back to the soil project. I did not have a fun time with the soil project, and it was a struggle working with my group. Things will vanish on you (quite literally, watch out for the boiling point of your organic compound!), and you will spend many nights complaining about your groupmates. You will stay up late working on your 20 or so page lab report that you work on essentially by yourself, and worry about being ripped to shreds by Pang during the presentation. He was actually pretty nice and understanding with the presentation though. For him, it wasn't about identifying the compounds, but going through the research experience mindset. And I agree! It was a good learning experience in terms of working with others, comparing experimental results to theoretical results, and combining all of the knowledge from the quarter. I think that it was a fair examination type, but groups definitely performed differently depending on who was in each group and how many members each group had. However, this isn’t Pang’s fault. He tried to pair people based on skill level and midterm score, but it can be deceptive, as anyone can follow the lab manual pretty easily. Although I did not enjoy the experience of the soil project, I know that I will look back on the project and appreciate having to think very critically and analytically about why my theoretically sound procedures were not working and having to balance very different types of group members with different levels of commitment to the project and skill level. It was a tough end project. I definitely stressed out a lot, but I’ll come back to it again as it was a good learning experience. I would definitely take the course with Pang and would recommend Pang to others. As for grading, around 56% of students ended up with some form of an A with the class average being an 87%. The final average was around a 70ish, and the class is straight scale, but he made the writing assignment extra credit this year, so everyone had the chance for 20 or so points to boost their grade, which really helped a lot of people jump into the A range. That was very generous of him, and I'm sure that many students really appreciated it. Strong professor, very capable lecturer, and very clear and organized. Would take again. Don’t underestimate the soil project!

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Dr. Pang is by far one of the best professors I've had the pleasure of taking in my 4 quarters at UCLA. I took 20L with him as well, and that experience was similarly a very pleasant one. Dr. Pang holds office hours every day to help any student with questions about the pre-lab, experiment in general, or class in general. Dr. Pang is very clear and engaging in lecture. He repeats everything he says like 5 times per slide so that helps. Pre Labs are a b**** but if you manage your time, are doable. Start over the weekend if you can. Taking this class without having taken Chem 30B is really doable. Kind of difficult but Dr. Pang teaches the class knowing that some students haven't taken 30B. Though the concepts in this class are more complex than in 20L, this Lab class has by far been my most favorite. The experiments were really fun, in that, you learn to synthesize, analyze, and identify really cool products. The midterm and final exam were pretty difficult. The final project, soil lab, was a pain in the ass. Fun times though, nonetheless. Dr. Pang needs to teach ALL Lab Classes at UCLA! (for the 30 series)

If anyone needs the regular labs and soil lab for this class, email me at amberlat925@yahoo.com. I got As on all of them.

After having a lot of other professors in the department, Pang definitely was the easiest to understand and had the best grading policy. If you ever have to choose between multiple instructors, Pang is definitely the way to go. Note that 30AL requires a lot more effort than 20L with labs held twice a week and many hours spent compiling the pre-labs/post-labs. Make sure you study the exam study-guides in-depth and look at past midterms. You'll be a lot better prepared for the midterm/final if you follow through with reviewing past materials and the Study Guide. It's also always a good idea to review the lectures slides as those are critical for doing well on the exams. If you do all the above, then the exams are fairly reasonable.

Selling old lab reports for 30AL along with past exams and other course materials. All 7 Reports (Including Soil Project) + CPR are included and kept organized. Also selling 20L if needed.

uclastudent17@gmail.com

Pang is probably the best lab professor you will get for 20L and 30AL. He is very concerned about student learning and often gives extra credit if the class does well enough on the midterms. His class is always interesting thanks to his engaging lectures.

That said, if you hated 20L like I did then you will absolutely despise 30AL. Two labs a week and a group project/presentation at the end of the quarter. The labs themselves aren't difficult they're just time consuming. The soil project, however, is probably the most stressed I have been my entire college career so far. The project is doable within 1 day if your group really knows what it's doing but it's still a pain. You have to present your findings and then write up a lab report for it.

The midterm and final are actually not that hard if you go over all the concepts of the class and do the study guide questions.

Selling lab blue lab coat and goggles. Text me in interested 5623403435

Selling 30AL labs, got 100% or near 100% on all of them.
amberlat925@yahoo.com

class: 30al and 20l
TA's tick off points like crazy due to tight grading standards for both 20l and 30al. also, 30al is 2 labs/week for a total of 6hr/wk. And you will have on average, a prelab and a postlab for each lab meeting, which means double the 20l work. Finally the soil project, which is in groups of 4, is painful. You get 80grams of a mix of mostly sand, 2 organic compounds, and 2 ionic compounds. You have 4 lab meetings to figure your own procedure to identify and quantify the compounds based on what you learned (not really since most groups have crappy procedures that pang will outright criticize when you present). And you will lose points if you dont get within %80 of the true quantities (only the ta knows the true values so you cant really falsify the data). And if you end up using beers law for inorganics, prepare for hours upon hours of data analysis. Still, enjoy the decent equipment since 30bl equipment is a downgrade. Finally, you need to think like an accountant, keep very careful track of multiple due dates and dont show up late; many people go down half a letter grade for forgetting stuff or showing up late. And if anyone wants old labs and notes for 20l and 30al, am selling complete,graded, high end sets tomballunger@gmail.com