chem 20a or 20ah

grark
Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:07:42 +0000

Professor Lin is still one of my favorite professors of the year (next to Smallberg )
I think people usually either love him or hate him
and during the first lecture, wow did I hate him. He had a horribly thick accent and I had no clue what he was talking about. but I got used to the accent after a couple weeks and his concern for his students was almost insane. He would help out in whatever way he can, he asked his students to fill out a paper about themselves so that he could remember them if/when they asked for a recommendation letter, would stay up all night so he can finish grading our midterms (or “self-examinations” as he would call them), he gave people a reward if you improved a lot on the second self-examination from the first self-examination, and he gave his 200+ lecture Diddy Riese cookies and Belgium chocolates.

but this is the only class where I went to all the lectures and discussions, office hours (sometimes multiple times a week), and had a study group. There was also a Thursday “bonus” lecture which I actually didn’t go to, and it looks like he’s not doing it this quarter. (and I barely go to half my lectures in my other classes, but maybe I just suck at chem)

He had “previews” due every lecture that consisted of one or two problems which was how he kept track of attendance, and a problem set that had about 6 problems due each week. I worked on the problem set with my study group, and this was the only time I used a study group.

He doesn’t use the book that much (Zumdahl) but passes out Lecture Notes in class.

If you go into Chemical Engineering, I’d recommend the class for the “love of chemistry” since the lectures were usually entertaining and I found quantum chemistry to be quite interesting.
If you’re doing it for honors credit, I’m not exactly sure how honors credit works, but I’d suggest getting them elsewhere since I doubt it will be worth the effort.

Note: I took Lin last year for Chem20A not honors.
but being an honors class doesn’t necessarily mean it’s harder (depends on the professor). I took Chem20BH which seemed a lot more chill than the non-honors class.

Also, Lin was a substitute for my Chem20BH class and after the lecture, I heard comments like “best lecture I’ve had at UCLA” from the other students.