Professor
Peter Felker
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Professor Felker is the epitome of the stereotypical "college professor" that does not care about his students. Not only was the class extremely difficult because of remote learning, but he cared very little about staying in touch with his students and being involved with our learning experience. His lectures put students to sleep and his exams are brutal. Even though his reviews on Bruinwalk are terrible, he was even worse than I was expecting. I hope he is not reflective of all of the professors at UCLA.
Fall 2020 - Professor Felker is the epitome of the stereotypical "college professor" that does not care about his students. Not only was the class extremely difficult because of remote learning, but he cared very little about staying in touch with his students and being involved with our learning experience. His lectures put students to sleep and his exams are brutal. Even though his reviews on Bruinwalk are terrible, he was even worse than I was expecting. I hope he is not reflective of all of the professors at UCLA.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Avoid Prof. Felker and let me tell you why: 1. His lectures are very conceptual 2. He never goes over homework or tells you how to apply all the formulas and theories into problems. 3. The wording of some problems on the tests is unconventional and designed to trick you as if he intentionally wants you to get a bad grade. The problems themselves are not hard but it takes forever to understand what it is saying. I understand that chemistry is supposed to be hard but getting a bad grade just bc of the unusual wording is not quite acceptable. 4. The online learning program he requires has a bunch of typos. I hate the feeling when I get stuck on a problem for a long time and start to doubt my intelligence and then find out that it's just that the answer key is wrong. But there are two things about Felker that I have to defend. I see people complaining that there is a lot of math involved in his hw problems. I hate math too but hey it is a college level chemistry and it is supposed to have this much math. I don't think Felker should be blamed for this one. Also people say that his lectures are boring. Again it is college level chemistry so the lectures are supposed to be boring (physics lectures can be interesting but I've never seen a prof who can make their chem lectures not boring). Try to avoid taking his 20A. But if you really have to, make sure that you took AP chem in high school. 4 or 5 on the AP chem definitely helps you understand his stuff better and makes your life less miserable.
Fall 2020 - Avoid Prof. Felker and let me tell you why: 1. His lectures are very conceptual 2. He never goes over homework or tells you how to apply all the formulas and theories into problems. 3. The wording of some problems on the tests is unconventional and designed to trick you as if he intentionally wants you to get a bad grade. The problems themselves are not hard but it takes forever to understand what it is saying. I understand that chemistry is supposed to be hard but getting a bad grade just bc of the unusual wording is not quite acceptable. 4. The online learning program he requires has a bunch of typos. I hate the feeling when I get stuck on a problem for a long time and start to doubt my intelligence and then find out that it's just that the answer key is wrong. But there are two things about Felker that I have to defend. I see people complaining that there is a lot of math involved in his hw problems. I hate math too but hey it is a college level chemistry and it is supposed to have this much math. I don't think Felker should be blamed for this one. Also people say that his lectures are boring. Again it is college level chemistry so the lectures are supposed to be boring (physics lectures can be interesting but I've never seen a prof who can make their chem lectures not boring). Try to avoid taking his 20A. But if you really have to, make sure that you took AP chem in high school. 4 or 5 on the AP chem definitely helps you understand his stuff better and makes your life less miserable.
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Most Helpful Review
Felker isn't the most exciting lecturer, and his homework is not always like the midterm/final. But he does give practice midterms and a practice final. However, the practice ones are just previous midterms. Our second practice midterm had several problems that we could not do because he never covered them, and he never tested us on. That was just a waste of my time and made me worry that the midterm was going to be harder than it was. Overall I think that his chem 20B class is pretty tough, but it could be better and it could be worse.
Felker isn't the most exciting lecturer, and his homework is not always like the midterm/final. But he does give practice midterms and a practice final. However, the practice ones are just previous midterms. Our second practice midterm had several problems that we could not do because he never covered them, and he never tested us on. That was just a waste of my time and made me worry that the midterm was going to be harder than it was. Overall I think that his chem 20B class is pretty tough, but it could be better and it could be worse.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - I took this class online during Covid. It is solely based on one midterm (35%) and one final (65%), which is ridiculous. The notes he provides are very sloppy and handwritten in cursive. He has things scribbled out and arrows pointing to where things should be written. He just reads off his lecture notes but he jumps around when talking so it's hard to figure out what he's saying. He assigns about 20-35 HW problems per chapter but they are not graded and are not too helpful when it comes to preparing for the test. His tests are ridiculously hard and nothing like the HW problems. His office hours aren't of much help as he just explains everything the same way he does in the recorded lectures. Class averages on tests are around 50-60% and he seems to be proud of that as all he does is brag about that and tell us that we need to be prepared because the tests are "hard."
Winter 2021 - I took this class online during Covid. It is solely based on one midterm (35%) and one final (65%), which is ridiculous. The notes he provides are very sloppy and handwritten in cursive. He has things scribbled out and arrows pointing to where things should be written. He just reads off his lecture notes but he jumps around when talking so it's hard to figure out what he's saying. He assigns about 20-35 HW problems per chapter but they are not graded and are not too helpful when it comes to preparing for the test. His tests are ridiculously hard and nothing like the HW problems. His office hours aren't of much help as he just explains everything the same way he does in the recorded lectures. Class averages on tests are around 50-60% and he seems to be proud of that as all he does is brag about that and tell us that we need to be prepared because the tests are "hard."
Most Helpful Review
My love of Physical chemistry has simply initiated in Prof. Felker's quantum chemistry course. I admit that he may be a bit more difficult than other prof. coz he used too much math and derivations in the class. But,those made me UNDERSTAND every physical parameter with ALL possible relations to others. His course was full of derivations, integrations, and differential equation stuff. But, he allowed open-book, open-note exams which made student a bit more relaxing since NO need to memorize anything. The TRUE result about taking Prof. Felker's course made me interested into Physical chemistry with strong math background. He is actually a very good Pchem prof., shows the mathematics side of chemistry and makes students convince ALL formulas in chemistry simply came from derivations. Thanks a lot, Prof. Felker!
My love of Physical chemistry has simply initiated in Prof. Felker's quantum chemistry course. I admit that he may be a bit more difficult than other prof. coz he used too much math and derivations in the class. But,those made me UNDERSTAND every physical parameter with ALL possible relations to others. His course was full of derivations, integrations, and differential equation stuff. But, he allowed open-book, open-note exams which made student a bit more relaxing since NO need to memorize anything. The TRUE result about taking Prof. Felker's course made me interested into Physical chemistry with strong math background. He is actually a very good Pchem prof., shows the mathematics side of chemistry and makes students convince ALL formulas in chemistry simply came from derivations. Thanks a lot, Prof. Felker!
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