Just took a test. The numbers say it all.

Dr. Castillo is a nice person and genuinely cares about her students, but as far as the class and content goes, I did not get much out of the course. Her lectures were disorganized and difficult to follow, students were left with little resources/problems to practice, and communication between professor/student was off. Although I did well in the class, I feel like I did not really learn as much as I wanted to and was upset at how the lectures, class, and exams were structured. I would not recommend this professor.

Terrible lectureer

I took this class during the COVID pandemic. Professor Castillo cared so much about our learning and wellbeing. She is very nice and wants students to succeed. However, she was often disorganized and a lot of her quizzes were much harder than expected. She gave so many extra credit opportunities but at the end of the quarter she said that it didn't make sense to give students higher than 100% on an assignment so I'm not sure if the extra credit was even counted. Overall probably the easiest organic chem class you could possibly take.

I took 14C in the fall with Prof. Castillo and she was great! She seemed like she really cared about our learning and was very flexible with all the assignments and quizzes. She gave a lot of practice material and old tests for us to review.

She was often pretty funny and was always patient with us. Her tests were pretty straight forward— they were a little difficult, but nothing that we didn't cover in class. She took our feedback very well and modified things accordingly given the weird format of this quarter. I really enjoyed this class and I felt like I knew what was going on (which I can't say about most chem classes I have taken). The class had six quizzes, a midterm, and a final. The quizzes were not too bad and honestly I was happy we had them because they basically acted as a buffer in case the exams did not go well. The quizzes totaled to 120 points while the final was 140 points—so they definitely add up.

Anyways, I would highly recommend Castillo for 14C! She is super kind and a good teacher, and does not try to trick you.

AW SHE IS SO SWEET and an amazing role model to all Latinas, I love you professor!! As for academic wise, she does a good job at explaining and really cares about how the students feel. The only thing is we have a quiz pretty much every week and not gonna lie, they are tough. They count for a large chunk of your grade and I feel that they are mostly made to trick you rather than "challenge" you. The exams are lengthy but not crazy hard. That is all, I do recommend this professor and am glad I had her for 14C!!! (:

Avoid taking 14C with Castillo. She’s the most unorganized Chemistry professor I’ve had so far at UCLA. Those who have had Lavelle before know that he’s incredibly organized. Castillo is nothing like that. She outright refuses the regrade requests. The midterm grading was a mess. She didn’t want to hear students who were graded unfairly. After this, she never put our final grading on gradescope so we would not be able to ask for a regrade. She stopped posting practice questions after week 5. She basically gave up on the class after the midterm. The class does not require attendance, the tests were not terribly difficult but you can still end up with a bad grade bc she does not do partial credit. If you don’t want a professor who does not respond to emails, and is incredibly unorganized with grading I would recommend avoiding her.

I came into 14C quite scared because of the reputation organic chemistry has but I was pleasantly surprised to see how the class was set up and the number of resources she gave her students. Professor Castillo has quizzes set up almost weekly which forced you to study each topic and in turn prepare you for her exams. Her midterm was straightforward and as long as you use her practice problems you will be more than prepared. I felt like she made complex topics completely understandable and simple and the main thing I appreciated about her was the transparency of all of her exams because she was genuinely never out to get students. Her lectures and her slides were always helpful and provided the majority of the information you would need and I also found her office hours to be extremely beneficial. I would overall take this class again with her and I wish she could teach 14D.

This professor is kind of all over the place. She does not know how to teach very well so I learned a lot from Khan Academy (she even linked those videos on CCLE). The midterm was a trainwreck because she messed up gradescope and there were loads of mistakes on everyone's test leading to about 400 regrade requests, so she decided it was our fault and she stopped handling regrades. She also believes that no one should be able to score over 100%, so her "extra credit" is just giving you a built in free point on quizzes. For example, she gives you 1/10 and you have 9 more possible points. If you put in the work, it's possible to do well in this class, but there's a lot of bs you have to wade through beforehand.

I really liked this class. I've found her tests to be moderate in difficulty, but if you pay attention in class and come to office hours then you'll do fine. Professor Castillo is super nice to her students and isn't stingy about grades at all. I also liked how open-minded and accommodating she was, she is always open to ideas that will make the lives of her students easier/less stressful. The only negative thing I found was that her explanations can sometimes be unclear, but the TA's can help you in those situations. Overall, great class.