Terrible professor. Surprised he's not fired yet.

Avoid at all costs. Please. For the sake of your GPA. For the sake of waking up everyday without wanting to yeet yourself off the top of Boelter. Just don't. save yourself. R.I.P me

The previous reviews are pretty accurate, but I’ll try to tell you what this class was like online during COVID. First of all, there were multiple times this quarter when I thought to myself: this is the worst, most miserable class I’ve ever taken. We felt like we were set up to fail. The homeworks were trash, long, and confusing. The lab reports asked for a way too much, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at any moment. He wants you to catch on to a lot of Matlab commands and detailed statistics concepts very quickly. If you get a chance, maybe do some beginner Matlab tutorials before you start this class. This class was the first time in all my years of undergrad that I pulled all-nighters, and I pulled many of them. He did the flipped classroom thing, but as a result, lecture felt so useless and like a complete waste of time. For the lab, we basically just got sent the data and wrote the reports as if we actually did the experiments.

Louis himself: total jerk, no doubt about it. Too many people stayed silent during this class and were probably afraid to reach out for help, but for the brave souls who did, he basically would roast them every time they spoke. He kept telling us that anxiety is normal after he gave us an oral final, and that this class is supposed to be hard, and that we are supposed to be struggling. Kind of a bummer that he has to teach since he really doesn’t look like he’s into it at all. However, our collective jaws dropped Week 10, when students started expressing concerns over the George Floyd protests. To our surprise, much like the Grinch, Louis’s heart grew three sizes that day. We didn’t even think he had one. He probably doesn’t want this to be known, but he made our final presentation and final oral exam optional. And at the end of the quarter, he didn’t give anyone less than B-. All that pain, all that suffering, was perhaps worth it.

That being said, we had some incredible TAs that saved our asses. They graded pretty generously and were pretty understanding, and they seemed to provide you the help you need as long as you showed you were putting in some effort.
Moral of the story: form study groups for the homeworks, get started on the lab reports EARLY and I mean EARLY, go to TA office hours, don’t get on Louis’s bad side. I don’t think I learned a single thing all quarter besides maybe how to graph a histogram on Matlab.

20B is a relatively hard class on its own. There are a lot of equations and a lot of topics that often don't really relate to each other. On top of this, Bouchard is by far the worst professor I've had yet. He's arrogant, condescending, and genuinely couldn't care less whether or not his students succeed. Do everything in your power to take this class with a different professor. If you do get stuck with Bouchard, don't worry too much about your test scores; the averages are usually around 50%. You probably won't get an A, but you'll pass the course and never have to see Bouchard's smug face again.

TL;DR : Satan

This was by far the worst class I have ever taken. I should have taken this class with any other professor or even at community college. Even Felker (who had a <2.0 Bruinwalk rating) would be more competent as an instructor. Bouchard was not only a horrible teacher, but he was actively trying to screw over students on exams as well, testing on things skimmed over once in class. Our final had a whole question based on something covered briefly on the last day of class, something the TA's said that we wouldn't be expected to know (which also shows how much he communicates with our TA's).

You get no equation sheets in a class that requires numerous lengthy equations in order to solve even the most basic problems on tests (Felkers class got 10 pages of notes on the final, compared to our 0). The only math pre-requisite was 31A yet the class frequently requires you to solve problems on homework and tests involving intimate knowledge of 32B material.

Homework was ignorantly difficult and took over 10 hours a week, effectively ruining every one of my weekends for 10 whole weeks. Also, participation was worth from 0 to -5% of our grade(who does that??). Basically, if you choose not to spend ridiculous amounts of time on this homework, you get points subtracted for your grade, on top of a fat 0% on your homework.

This class is unnecessarily difficult. There are no study guides to help students study, and on exams a equations sheet and constants are not provided.

horrible professor. cant teach to save his life. makes this class way harder than it should be. dont take him

This man is literally Thanos. Be careful when you're signing up for his class, because he will make half of the classes passing grades disappear with a snap of his fingers. This guy here is the meanest Canadian you'll probably ever meet. Not only is he extremely sarcastic, but not very helpful at all in office hours. Not to mention, hes a bit of an asshole. For example, once during class a girl answered one of the questions he posed to the class relating to something like the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution. Rather than correcting her answer and explaining why what she said wasn't 100% right or wrong, he instead answers with "Well, that's not completely stupid." I think he failed somewhere near 30% of the class. So know that one in three people including youself will fail as soon as you enter that class. The stuff he teaches for this class ranges from actually being on the 20B curriculum to some high level graduate school shit that I won't ever need. I mean I wouldnt know much though, I just sucked his dick to pass. 10/10

This is the class that I regret taking the most. If I could I would have never switched out of Felker. I would have just dealt with the midterm conflict. His homework is crazy hard, and it is impossible to find answers or even guidance for answers online or in the textbook. I had my dad, who has a MASTERS in CHEMISTRY, help me on the homework and he COULDN'T. That's how bs his homework was. He has pop quizzes during discussion, and I'm pretty sure that the averages were like 50%. His exams were bs too. I remember having to DERIVE equations on the final, like wtf? Save your gpa and your soul and don't take this class. Baugh was like 300% better and that's saying something. Also, he's pretty condescending when you ask him questions.

Although prof. Bouchard isn't nearly as unfriendly and unhelpful as he's rumored to be, his class consumed my life last quarter. I bombed my first midterm like everyone else, and then worked between 4 and 7 hours every day since the day I got that grade until the final to make up for it. Although I did end up doing well, I stressed out about this class to the point I started solving problems in my dreams. In retrospect, I think thermodynamics is probably one of the most interesting topics in the field of chemistry, but just thinking about it now gives me so many flashbacks of Bouchard's face and sleepless nights that I really don't want anything to do with this subject ever again.

That said, I think Bouchard has a soul buried somewhere deep down. Not once did he react condescendingly to a student's questions and even complimented us for good answers. I once asked him something after lecture, and he gave me a comprehensive 10-minute answer that thoroughly cleared up my confusion. If you really need to take this class, it's ok if you have a high EQ. If you don't (like me), stay away from it unless you like to live in CAPS.